Why Scottish dentists drink more than they admit
The profession celebrates clinical excellence but quietly ignores how dentists are coping with the weight of it
I work with high-achieving professionals who have lost control of their alcohol intake. Dentists represent a disproportionate number of my clients. Not because they lack discipline. Quite the opposite. It is precisely because of the standards the profession demands that alcohol becomes embedded in daily routines.
The story is consistent. Respected practitioners. Busy practices. Stable families. Yet every evening, consuming quantities that would concern them if a patient disclosed the same. A bottle of wine becomes as routine as the clinical procedures themselves.
The profession acknowledges stress. It discusses burnout. It rarely admits what is actually happening. Alcohol has become the default mechanism for managing work that demands excellence; without anyone teaching how to process the psychological toll.
Daily drinking is not a character flaw. It is evidence that professional demands have exceeded current coping strategies
The Scottish context
The Scottish Health Survey 20241 shows that the highest rates of hazardous or harmful drinking are not in the most deprived areas. They are in the most affluent – 26% compared to 15%. Professionals. High achievers. People succeeding in every other area of their lives.
Scotland’s dental workforce is also under serious strain. A 2024 analysis2 flagged a measurable decline in NHS dental practitioners, practice closures, and waiting lists at record lengths – the longest wait for an adult extraction in NHS Lothian reached 104 weeks. Those still in the system are carrying a heavier load than ever.
The unique pressure of dental practice
Dentists perform intricate procedures on anxious patients. Precision matters. Every decision carries consequences. The work is permanent. A 2023 UK-wide survey3 of 1,507 dental workforce members found high levels of depressive symptoms, burnout and trauma across the profession.
Dental nurses and practice managers carry significant pressure too – but for dentists, the clinical responsibility sits with them alone. Every difficult case, every anxious patient, every treatment decision is theirs to carry.
It is telling that a growing number of dentists are dropping a day from their working week not for lifestyle reasons, but simply to cope with the psychological weight of the job. When losing a day’s income feels like the only way to manage, that is not a scheduling decision. That is a signal that something needs to change.
Unlike hospital settings where teams debrief after difficult cases, dental practices operate differently. You carry accumulated tension alone into the next patient interaction. By evening, your nervous system has spent hours under pressure. Your mind replays challenging cases.
You have absorbed patient anxiety while projecting calm confidence. Wine becomes the circuit breaker. The only thing that seems to genuinely switch off your professional brain.
Except it does not actually do what you think it is doing.
The 20-minute release
That first glass delivers exactly what you need. Mental chatter quietens. Physical tension releases. The day’s pressure genuinely seems to lift. For roughly twenty minutes.
Then you need another glass to maintain the effect. And another. Before long, you have consumed the bottle. You have spent the evening in a fog rather than connecting with your family. Disrupted sleep follows. Morning brings fatigue and cognitive fog that takes longer to clear.
The precision your work demands means even minor reductions in clarity affect performance. Whether you are handling instruments or making clinical decisions, sharpness matters. Yet because you are conscientious and well-trained, you compensate. You push through. The practice continues to run. So surely it is not a real problem.
But here is what is actually happening. Each day you are running on less. Alcohol depletes energy reserves. You wake less resilient than the day before. So, you need the wine even more to cope with the same demands. The cycle tightens. Alcohol does not resolve stress. It defers and amplifies it. Your nervous system never gets to properly discharge the accumulated pressure of clinical practice. Instead, you are suppressing it – then experiencing rebound anxiety once alcohol leaves your system.
Why willpower strategies do not work
When drinking starts feeling problematic, people try the same things. Dry January. Rules about when they will start. A month off. It works for a while. Then the drinking returns.
These approaches share a fundamental flaw. They focus on controlling consumption without addressing why you are consuming in the first place. If alcohol is your primary tool for transitioning from work mode to home mode, simply stopping does not solve the underlying need. The pressure still exists. The emotions remain unprocessed. Eventually you return to drinking. Not because you lack discipline – your patients’ safety depends on your discipline. You return because the core issue was never addressed.
What actually creates change
High-functioning professionals do not need traditional recovery programmes designed for people whose lives have fallen apart. You need an approach that recognises you are still excelling professionally while addressing why alcohol became necessary.
Real control comes from replacing alcohol’s function. Not just removing the substance. That means learning to discharge professional pressure rather than suppress it. Processing emotions rather than accumulating them. Creating real boundaries between work and home that do not depend on a glass of wine.
It requires examining the beliefs that keep you drinking. That you have earned it. That you need it to unwind. That everyone in the profession drinks this way. When these beliefs shift, the desire naturally diminishes. You are not forcing yourself to abstain. You are genuinely not interested. That is where real freedom exists.
The cost of waiting
Every dentist I work with wishes they had addressed this sooner. Not after health deteriorates. Not after relationships strain. Not after professional performance starts to suffer. You would never tell a patient to wait until a small problem becomes a large one. Yet that is what happens with drinking.
Daily drinking is not a character flaw. It is evidence that professional demands have exceeded current coping strategies. You do not need another willpower challenge. You do not need labels. You do not need
to wait until things get worse.
You need a fundamental shift in how you relate to alcohol. Seeing it not as your reward or relaxation tool, but as the substance creating many of the problems it claims to solve.
With the right framework and support, you can reach a place where control is not about resisting. You are simply not interested anymore. That is achievable.
And it is what dentists deserve.
About the author
Sandra Parker is an alcohol control coach and founder of Just the Tonic Coaching. A former chartered accountant, she has been alcohol-free for over seven years and has spent the last six years supporting hundreds of high-achieving professionals to take back control of their drinking – without labels, willpower battles or traditional recovery programmes. Find out more about Sandra’s work on her website.
References
- Scottish Health Survey 2024 – Alcohol www.gov.scot
- Scotland faces deepening dental crisis across primary and secondary care (DTA, 2024) www.dta-uk.org
- Burnout and depression in the UK dental workforce: findings from a cross-sectional survey, British Dental Journal (2025) www.nature.com