Tony Blair: Tough On Wine, Tough On The Causes Of Wine

“The relationship between alcohol and Prime Ministers is a subject for a book all on its own. By the standards of days gone by I was not even remotely a toper, and I couldn’t do lunchtime drinking except on Christmas Day, but if you took the thing everyone always lied about — units per week — I was definitely at the outer limit. Stiff whisky or a G&T; before dinner, couple of glasses of wine or even half a bottle with it. So not excessively excessive. I had a limit. But I was aware it had become a prop. I could never work out whether for me it was, on balance a) good, because it did relax me or b) bad, because I could have been working rather than relaxing. I came to the conclusion — conveniently you might think — that a) beat b). I thought that escaping the pressure and relaxing was a vital part of keeping the job in proportion, a function rather like my holidays. But I was never sure. I believed I was in control of the alcohol. However you have to be honest: it’s a drug, there’s no getting away from it.”
-Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair admits to being troubled by the amount of alcohol he consumed to help soothe the burdens of office. It really makes you wonder how George W. Bush dealt with the responsibility of sending so many to their deaths in a conflict of choice without the comfort of liquor. Blair, at least, had his half-assed drinking to ease the way.