Which drinks are worth it? David Nutt's hindsight test

On ZOE Science and Nutrition (January 2026), the psychiatrist and drug researcher David Nutt of Imperial College London told host Jonathan Wolf how he thinks people should look at their own drinking. The key message, he said in that conversation, comes from a chapter of his book Drink?: judge each drink afterward, by what it gave you.

"never drink a drink that doesn't, in hindsight, give you a benefit"

David Nutt, ZOE Science and Nutrition, 2026

The idea in plain words

Nutt doesn't ask you to give up the drinks you enjoy. He asks you to separate them from the others: the glass poured because the bottle was already open, the round you joined to keep pace, the third drink that tasted the same as the second. Those are the drinks that cost you something and give little back.

Later in the episode he turned the rule into an exercise. This week, write down every drink you have. Next week, leave out the ones that gave you no clear benefit. He also had a tip for couples sharing wine with a meal: never open a second bottle, because by then the first one is doing the deciding.

The test works in hindsight for a simple reason. In the moment, the next drink nearly always looks worth having. The next morning is when you can judge it fairly.

Nutt is open about his angle. He co-founded a company that makes alcohol-free spirits, and the rule is his advice from long experience, not something a trial has tested.

What the research adds

The rule depends on an honest record, and memory makes a poor one. In a small study of 33 men, the totals they recalled later came out lower than the daily reports they had phoned in, and the authors found the gap wasn't simply people hiding their drinking (Searles et al, 2002). So the writing down matters as much as the judging.

Writing things down also helps on its own. A review of 138 experiments on goals of all kinds, not only drinking, found that tracking progress helped people reach their goals, and helped more when they recorded it physically (Harkin et al, 2016).

If your body may have got used to alcohol, cutting down quickly can make you unwell, sometimes seriously. Talk to a doctor or a local alcohol service before you change how much you drink.

How this fits the Reduce your drinking program

In the 1h Protocol to Reduce Your Drinking, the next-morning step in chapter 2 asks you to put each drink on your sheet on the day you have it, and the same step carries Nutt's advice and the "wanted" or "not really" mark. Your plan then sets a goal for two weeks, counted in your own country's drinks, with a sheet to mark each day and four one-tap check-ins by email. The first chapter is free, so you can see your pattern before you decide.

Source: ZOE Science and Nutrition, How to drink alcohol without destroying your health, with Prof. David Nutt, 8 Jan 2026 Research: Searles et al, 2002 · Harkin et al, 2016