WHEN he suggested that middle-aged drinkers abstain for two days a week, Duncan Selbie thought he was doing the right thing. Rather than deliver yet another hammer blow to a public struggling to keep their weight in check, their lungs free of nicotine and their livers in passable condition, the chief executive of Public Health England (PHE) hoped to avoid what he calls the “finger-wagging” tactics of his NHS colleagues. “Narking at people”, he said, was useless.

How right he is. And yet, does his softly softly approach stand any more chance of succeeding? Will appealing to drinkers’ common sense result in an upswing in sobriety, and the recognition that reaching for the bottle every day is habit, not necessity? At this point, it’s impossible to predict. Less hard to foresee, however, was the resignation of one of PHE’s most senior figures, Professor Sir Ian Gilmore. He was appalled that Mr Selbie’s recommendations had been drawn up in agreement with the alcohol industry charity, Drinkaware, thereby severely compromising their advice. “Once you start engaging,” he wrote, “you become mates.”

There are two sides to that argument. Personally I’m with Prof Gilmore. At no point will the drinks industry want what health professionals see as the holy grail – a population that never touches anything much stronger than tap water. Such bedfellows can only remain compatible when all that is proposed is minimal interference with people’s consumption.

Yet you can also see Mr Selbie’s point. It should be possible to effect small but significant change, not by demonising drink but by offering guidance on moderation. After all, those at whom such limits are targeted will continue to imbibe regularly, no matter what doctors say. It’s also a palatable message to those who make their living from booze. Who can forget Dame Sally Davies, England’s chief medical officer, saying that when she considers having a drink, she asks herself, “Do I want my glass of wine, or do I want to raise my risk of breast cancer?” That line of persuasion falls into the category of firing a howitzer when a pea-shooter would suffice. It’s not that she is factually wrong. Unfortunately, however, when faced with such threatening language, the response is less likely to be a sudden wave of evangelical teetotalism than a collective order for another, larger glass of vino, on the principle that since the damage must already be done, we might as well anaesthetise ourselves against that dismal fact.

Perhaps the biggest problem the health services have is acknowledging that inside every flabby, bibulous middle-aged couch potato is a recalcitrant and cussed teenager, fingers metaphorically in their ears. As guidelines and recommendations are pronounced, like so many tablets from the mountain-top, so does human nature dig in for a fight, rising vigorously to the challenge. Thus a bunker mentality takes hold, the enemy no longer our own inability to control what we eat or drink, or how much exercise we take, but the white-coated deliverer of statistics and ultimatums.

Unlike more uncompromising medics, Mr Selbie understands this. Rather than the stern father figure, he is the approachable uncle, the one who gives a child an experimental sip of his glass of beer. He is not, however, the one who has to deal with the consequences when a drunken 17-year-old staggers in the front door after a school prom on legs like overcooked spaghetti.

And there you have the crux of the health wars being waged on our behalf. Just as when parents tell you they’re doing something for your own good, the same impulse motivates medics when they bombard us with information intended to help us mend our ways.

As a result, every few days we read updates on what to eat, or how much of it; how to quit smoking; how often to exercise, and in what ways; how to ensure we have a proper work-life balance, and how lonely we’ll be – another health black spot – if we neglect our families and friends. How to guard against mental health issues, how to give children the best nutritional and social start in life; and in older age, a to-do checklist warding against too sudden decline.

Keeping abreast of all these instructions would be exhausting, even without putting them into action. Undoubtedly the incessant flood of health bulletins dulls our receptivity. Nevertheless, the drip-drip-drip of injunctions does make inroads. Most of us are now well aware of where we are falling short and, even if we’re not doing much to redress that situation, at least are guiltily conscious we should.

What would transform our behaviour overnight is simple. Not sugar-coated pointers, or pulling punches. Quite simply, a visit to the liver transplant unit, or the cardiac ward, and its nightmarish neighbours would do the job. It’s no wonder so many doctors are straight-talking, and refuse to mollycoddle us. No wonder, too, that sometimes they actively try to scare us. They’ve seen what happens when we don’t listen, and it isn’t pretty. Enough, you might say, to turn anyone to drink.