to think the binge drinking culture is a national disgrace?

[Carrierpenguin]

I don't go on many nights out but when I do I see grown adults vomiting in the streets, last week I saw an adult man vomit over himself and the platform whilst staggering for a 9pm train, his also drunk friend laughed I find all this behaviour disgusting and unacceptable, someone has to clear up after these people (poor cleaner) and I read on BBC website it costs £21 billion per year to emergency services and a&e.

So someone with a heart attack should have to compete with a drunken fool on a night out? Qualified doctors have to treat people who chose to drink a litre of vodka for a laugh after work with their friends? Police have to break up drunken street fights whilst someone else gets burgled?

I don't have the answer, but I find the binge drinking culture disgusting, perhaps there could be another advertising campaign to show how revolting and antisocial it is (I think there was one a few years ago). As a society we seem to be too accepting of this irresponsible behaviour?

Completely agree. It gives us a largerlout national name.

YANBU, a large number of people are blissfully unaware that they have a very unhealthy relationship with alcohol.

I work with people like this, it means I can't/won't ever go on a social work outing as it tends to devolve into shots, vomit, fights, crying, people disappearing, affairs... And that's just in 3 years.

It's appalling and embarrassing and not limited to one age group.

I enjoy getting tipsy and having a laugh- this is not either of those!

I'm going to be all prim and proper and agree with you.

Anyone who drinks to the point of vomiting in public (or in private for that matter) is a bit of a twat.

What really riles me, though, is that A&E is so clogged up with these silly people. I really feel for the doctors and nurses who have to cope with it all.

In some cities they send ambulances out into the city centre to treat people on the spot. How about they get free treatment the first time and any further treatments required come with a fine of, say, £65 like you'd pay for a parking ticket or not paying the Congestion Charge (London)?

Heh heh, I appear to be morphing into a Daily Mail reader .

I dont go out much these days but was very social in my younger years (not all that long ago) and I didn't see much anti social behaviour?

Maybe the places I used to hang out had better clientele or maybe we were the rough ones

Seriously though I've never noticed it to be a massive problem. Maybe in London there are so many places to drink / ways to travel that I've never come across much of the behaviour you describe?

I used to binge drink. Never got myself into such a state where I need medical help but there will have been some vomit vomited at one time or another.

I grew out of it. Still like a drink but I can't tolerate like I used too. And it's not a nice feeling when you've drank way too much and end up vomiting. I stop drinking before I get near feeling like that.

And to be completely honest if I'd seen someone puking over themselves I would've laughed too

YANBU. I genuinely don't believe people realise how they look, sound and act when they get themselves into a disgusting state. Hospitals and police are overburdened by idiots who think binge drinking is normal. They shouldn't even be entitled to hospital treatment in that state. Just chuck them all in a drunk tank under the supervision of maybe one health professional and let them get on with it.

I agree with you, these people are an embarrassment to society.

I can't/won't ever go on a social work outing as it tends to devolve into shots, vomit, fights, crying, people disappearing, affairs...

I can honestly say this doesn't resemble any place I have ever worked.

Shots, yes, for those who want them.

Crying, only very occasionally.

Vomit and fights and affairs? No, never.

I totally agree with you even if I feel like am old gimmer saying that but it is true. Sadly it doesn't seem to be confined to young adults either as it is becoming more acceptable for people in their thirties and forties tobehave like this. I also wonder how many people who are genuinely ill miss out on treatment due to drunks taking over services.
The idea that you can only have a good time if you are completely wasted is horrible and makes all kinds of drinking so much more acceptable.

In America, if you look drunk and the bartender gives you another drink, they could be held responsible if you get behind the wheel. We also have a no carry rule, so you can't drink in public outside a bar.

That doesn't stop people from getting drunk, but you don't really see people stumbling around on the streets unless they're a homeless alcoholic or something similar.

I do think that it is only a quite small minority of people who behave in the way you are describing, they just happen to be rather visible and loud, especially at certain times of year.

I agree too. Someone posted a photo of his relative on fb who had been out on Xmas eve - he has been sick in his bed and pissed himself in his sleep.

A lot of comments were very laddish sort of oooh look it's xxx again can't hold his drink. He didn't even seem ashamed of the post as he commented on it - but I notice it's gone now.

If I did that I think I'd quit drinking for life.

I think it depends where you live. I used to work in Wakefield in the late 80s and early 90s and the town was notorious for its Friday and Saturday night drunken behaviour. There were a lot of bars and nightclubs within a short distance from each other and busloads of revellers would come into town to binge drink. I have actually witnessed this behaviour a few times so I know it wasn't just hearsay.

My local large town is just as bad on a Friday and Saturday night so I never set foot in the place at those times.

Hmm. Not sure if it's a national disgrace.

But it is disgusting to see people screaming and shouting and vomiting in the street and it is bad news that it is part of our culture to go out and get wasted at the weekend.

However I think that's a separate issue from charging them for ambulances or A&E visits. If someone hits you with a glass you need to go to A&E whether or not you're drunk and I don't see why you should be charged for someone else's violence against you. If someone calls an ambulance for you, it's not your fault it was called, you may not have wanted it. If you have poisoned yourself with alcohol, you need medical treatment, we wouldn't say people who overdosed on paracetamol should be charged for self-inflicted injuries, the NHS is free at the point of demand and if we allow the govt to start charging for this a) there are going to be massive unfairness in charging someone who is in A&E against their will and/ or because of someone else's actions and b) it will be their in to start charging us for all sorts of other times we use the NHS. No way would I give any government the chance to do that, look what happened when we didn't nip it in the bud re prescription charges.

Obviously people who get into this state have to take personal responsibility, but I would also like to see the Government make alcohol more expensive and the UK drinks industry have less lobbying power. Alcohol is an extremely dangerous drug and it costs us millions each year to care for those harmed by it, yet it's the only drug that we are positively encouraged to consume. The whole situation is toxic.

I think there was a change, and a catching up of women with men in terms of publically acceptable behaviour - and binge drinking does seem acceptable to a big chunk of younger people.

I am late 40s, never did binge drinking - it was for blokes who liked pint after pint.

Attitudes might swing back as the latest teenagers are drinking less (apparently!) Maybe a change at A and E will be another prompt to change behaviour?

Yes, it is. It's disgusting to watch and awful to be around. I loathe drunks. Britain used to be known for more than this, our binge drinking culture is out of control.

... and before the posters who like a drink come onto the thread and berate, it's the excess drinkers and those who can't help but foist their behaviour on everybody else that I'm personally referring to. I don't care what anybody pours down their neck but, if it impacts on me then I have a problem with it.

I was in Pisa for the final of the 2006 World Cup. We watched the match in a restaurant where people ate, enjoyed the match and did consume alcohol but there were no drunks at all. We were a bit nervous about walking back to our accommodation with our baby son in the buggy after the match. Again, people with beers in their hands in the main square, watching on the big screen there. Not one drunk. The young football fans went ahead of us, clearing a path for us, shouting, "Out of the way! A baby is coming through!". The very friendly crowd parted and said hello to us and our son.
I would not visit either of two large, neighbouring towns on Derby day here, mostly due to the obnoxious and often violent drunks. What is the Italian secret? How come they could party, enjoy a special occasssion but still show restraint?

There are areas of the country where the level of drinking is very high indeed!

I agree. A friend of a friend went on holiday to Magaluf or Ibiza or somewhere like that, got drunk & choked to death on her own vomit. Her roommate found her the next day, it was her birthday & she had to organise getting her back to the UK.

We live on a main road & every Friday & Saturday night we are kept awake by the parade of drunken idiots screaming & fighting as they make their way past our house to the very large residential area beyond. Lots of glass & unmentionable substances on the ground the next day.

I may have a slightly skewed view. My father is an alcoholic.

I totally agree. It's disgusting. I used to get drunk when younger but never to the point of vomitting or completely losing self control.

And drunks should be charged for the police time and nhs resources they use.

We watch some of these Police programmes and it's disgusting and very worrying. The poor Police, they have to be so careful not to physically hurt anyone but the drunks they deal with are nearly impossible to control. Same in A&E; the violence and abuse of staff is legendary.

I was in Madrid 3 years ago over the weekend, with Spanish friends. We were right in the city centre; very lively and vibrant but no drunks and no laddish behaviour.

The problem with 'drunk tanks' or separate centres for people who are just over-intoxicated is you could miss a serious condition/injury by just dumping them in a unit and leaving them until sober.

One of my lovely nieces goes out bingeing to the point of vomiting, collapsing and wetting herself. She does 'shots' with her friends and the aim is to get literally paralytic. It worries me dreadfully (and her mum of course) but it seems they all do it.

I think alcohol should not be sold at all hours and to anyone in any state. There must be some limits surely.

I grew up in the fifties (I know, ancient old crone) and honestly, Britain just wasn't like this. People had fun but it didn't get to the point of vomiting, fighting and collapsing, not in most areas. I'm very sad about it. Imagine the state of these youngster's livers in a few years' time!

I don't drink ,the idea of going out on a busy Friday or Saturday night is not my idea of fun anyhow and live in a suburban cul-de-sac - so have never actually seen it in person, with my own eyes... sheltered life.

Yanbu When you hear of people drinking before going out to buy drinks too it makes my blood boil. People who do this should have to do community service for at least a week after being seen so that they could view it from a sober point of view and also so that they have the opportunity of cleaning up the street/streetcorners/shop doorways and rushing from a call out for a medical emergency and then to an emergency caused by deciding to get drunk.