THIS programme both scared and reassured me. Or did it actually just confirm what I already knew?

Despite the warnings, most of us — er, you — continue to drink amounts that exceed the recommended guidelines, however good our intentions. Why?

It turns out that around one in eight of us have a gene mutation that means we are pre-disposed to treat alcohol as a reward and, hence, drink more than others. I knew it wasn’t my fault.

Psychologist John Marsden drinks more than 30 units a week, which the doctor tells him is a problem.

He undergoes laboratory tests, which involve him having alcohol injected into his bloodstream while being watched by a group of American doctors — and he still enjoys it. Dedicated!

A doctor tells us that our brain’s receptors react to alcohol in different ways — some similar to how they would to heroin. That’s scary.

A strange experiment on some rats shows that younger rats/people are less immediately effected by booze than adults, but suffer a loss of capacity to learn.

It also gives me a chance to say that one of the rodents was as ‘p***** as a rat’.

Professor David Nutt has invented a drug that makes you react in a similar manner as to how you would to alcohol — a simple injection reversing the effects (sort of).

Anyway, he’s not quite perfected it yet and no-one will be interested unless booze is banned, which it will be eventually.

Marsden, whose father was an alcoholic, concludes that he drinks because he likes it, even though he knows it’s bad for him.

Exactly.