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To celebrate 25 years of Red Nose Day, Birmingham alcohol charity Aquarius today raised over £150 by challenging its staff to find Birmingham’s famous food.. and then eating it for charity!

Turning a fundraising event into a local history lesson too, Aquarius staff brought in Birmingham Baltis, chips and HP sauce, Cadbury’s chocolate cakes and much more, to raise awareness of, and celebrate, this important aspect of Birmingham's history.

An Aquarius spokesperson said: “We’re raising money for Comic Relief because it’s a great cause – but we wanted to put Birmingham’s stamp on our fundraising”.

“By challenging staff to bring in foods that either once made Birmingham famous in the past or make Birmingham famous today, we wanted to find out about and celebrate an aspect of Birmingham’s great history that often gets overlooked – and we learnt loads about Brum’s food heritage too!”

Aquarius has managed to raise £178 so far… and counting!

Logo image courtest of Comic Relief, registered charity 326568 (England/Wales; SCO39730 (Scotland)

With the arrival of 27,000 dogs to Crufts, Birmingham alcohol charity Aquarius used the public focus of the British love of dogs to highlight a problem that affects pets – particularly dogs - across the country. Animal cruelty fuelled by alcohol, Aquarius argues, is an issue that is very much out of the public spotlight.

Along with stories in the news of animals being force-fed alcohol, and being beaten or savaged in drink-filled parties or rages, Aquarius believes that animal cruelty in domestic violence cases too is an issue that should be in the public domain. 

Logic suggests that alcohol could be a major a factor in animal cruelty in the home. Although statistics vary, research shows that, in domestic violence cases, alcohol is present in around 60-70% of incidents, whilst animal cruelty (particularly against dogs) is present in around 70% of incidents.  Despite these two major factors being widely reported, relatively little research or awareness-building has gone into this area. As a result, Aquarius argues, alcohol-fuelled animal cruelty is potentially a vastly overlooked and underreported situation.

An Aquarius spokesperson said: “We hope that as people indulged their love of dogs; they also took a moment to think about this situation and about the dogs across the country that could do with their help.

“Whilst Crufts can be a fun event for many people, one of the important arguments against breeding pedigrees is that, with every pedigree dog that is rehomed, a rescue dog has lost its chance to be rehomed as a result. There are lots of dogs – some having previously faced cruelties – that are looking for a loving forever home in local rescue centres across the Midlands. Let’s use the British love of dogs at Crufts 2013 to highlight this important problem facing dogs across the country.”

A smoke and a drink – a closer relationship than you may think…

As national No Smoking Day arrives in the UK (Wednesday 13^th March), the internet is rightly awash with tips to help you quit or cut down: go for a jog, get a patch, speak to a Stop Smoking counsellor, etc.

These tips and tactics are crucial to many people in their recovery from dependence on nicotine, and you may be trying one of these is you are trying to give up. But would you consider the role that alcohol could play in your potential success rate?

If you want to quit the smoking habit, you may well need to quit or cut down the drinking habit too. Here’s why…

Research suggests that drinking alcohol makes smoking tobacco seem more pleasurable. Even consuming small amounts of alcohol can boost the perceived pleasurable effects of the nicotine. Therefore, if you have an alcoholic drink, you may want to smoke more than without.

Alcohol can also make your memory cloudy as well as affect your concentration. Many people don’t remember how many cigarettes they smoked on a night out – that is until they counted the money spent and the empty cigarette boxes the next day.

As many of us know, alcohol impairs our judgement. It can stop safety messages from reaching our brain, as well as making us act more impulsively, recklessly or out of character. The many hours or days which we had managed to go without a cigarette for when we were sober can easily be undone with an impulsive decision to grab a cigarette whilst we’re having a drink.

If you are trying to quit the habit, be wary of putting yourself in a situation where you could easily undo all of your hard work.

Aquarius' tip if you want to give up smoking? Think seriously about your alcohol consumption.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Aquarius is wishing all the mothers out there a very special, peaceful and Happy Mother’s Day 2013.

There are lots of Supermums out there, and many often don’t get the full recognition that they deserve. Mums feed you, dress you, cuddle you and nurture you. They’re also often your biggest fan.

At Aquarius, we see lots of mums come in for support for an alcohol, drug or gambling problem. Did you know that around 1/3 of people in treatment have parental responsibility?

There are often stories in the news about women being ‘driven to drink’, often from working too hard, being isolated, being under lots of pressure, or putting personal pressure on to be a ‘perfect mum’. Motherhood is, as many of us know, exhausting. And yet the triggers for drinking too much don’t stop when the kids leave home either, as the inevitable event of children leaving home can turn into another trigger for turning to alcohol. Once children have left home, middle-aged women are a social group who are being increasingly reported to drink too much as they can suffer from isolation; in addition to struggling to cope living as a non-full time mum.

On this Mother’s Day, let’s remember the mums struggling with alcohol.

For International Women's Day, we share 5 facts about women and alcohol...

1. About 1 in 6 women may develop a problem with alcohol

2. Alcohol can disrupt a woman’s menstrual cycle and studies show that even consuming a small amount can reduce her chance of conceiving

3. Women are affected by alcohol differently to men because their bodies don’t process alcohol as well as mens’. This means that body parts such as the brain are exposed more to alcohol

4. Alcohol can raise your chances of breast cancer as well as increasing some side effects of the menopause

5. In the past, women have typically drunk less than men. This gap is now closing!

We often spend hours ensuring we look our best for socialising and having nights out, but the alcohol we drink on those nights out can directly override all of our efforts to look good. Many of us don’t think about the effect of alcohol on our appearance but, from having a less dazzling smile to a dazzling odour for all the wrong reasons, if we want our appearances to be on the up, here’s why we need to keep our alcohol intake down… 

Your Smile – the first port of call and sometimes the last port of call…

Alcohol not only discolours our teeth, but actually erodes the enamel in our teeth too. This is because alcohol is usually the first port of call in your body as you drink it. If you often end up vomiting at the end of a night of drinking, the acid from your stomach also does damage to your teeth.

Your Complexion

How long do you spend getting ready for a night out? Whether you’re a 5-minuter or a 3-dayer, you probably like to dress to impress. We all know that it is your skin that can age you or make you look ’10 years younger’.

Yet we continue to watch as our skin and complexion become victims of what we drink. Alcohol manages to dry out your skin and make it oily enough to create spots – not to mention the bags and wrinkles under your eyes!

Your Hair

Your hair is like body tissue – it needs constant nourishment to grow and to stay healthy and stronger. Alcohol can result in your hair decreasing in quality and quantity due to a loss or lack of vitamins that often accompany drinking alcohol.

Hair loss can occur due to the increase in oestrogen and the decrease in zinc that drinking alcohol can cause. Your hair may also get thinner and weaker, resulting from an unbalanced diet and a lack of folic acid in many people who drink too much.

Your Figure

Last – but definitely not least – the impact of alcohol on your figure can be frightening! With the average glass of wine and the average pint of beer adding on 120 calories and 182 calories respectively, the calories quickly add up and the weight can quickly pile on. You may not see calories in a glass, but you will know what they look like if you pile on the pounds…

Your Odour…

Unfortunately, no amount of body spray can cover up the putrid smell of alcohol coming out of our bodies. If you drink, it has to come out somewhere – and is partly though our pores. Next time you are drinking in the direction of a hangover, remember that it may not just be you feeling bad – but the person sitting next to you too…

If you like the way you look, if you want to lose some weight, or if you want to look healthier and full of life, you will need to cut down on your alcohol intake!

Have you checked out the app yet which shows you what your face would look like with and without alcohol? If not, try it at www.drinksmarter.org

For more information about alcohol and your body, or for help in addressing an alcohol problem, check out www.aquarius.org.uk.