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?

As an ex A&E nurse I agree with knobs on!

Bring on the drunk tanks!

Most of DS's uni friends receive the government loan, which they live off, while their parents cover halls fees. Had DS gone the university route and Dh and I done this for him, he would have have around £90 to live off per week IIRC, on one of the lower maintenance loans! If DD goes to university/drama college in September, her loan will go on accommodation, we will provide any extra to meet the full sum and give her bare minimum to live off. If she wants £90 a week or more, she can get herself a job!

The problem is there are clubs and bars that will cater for students, those ridiculous buy 10 shots of something lurid and toxic for £10 nights and the ones where you buy a plastic cup for £10 and get free refills all night sort of thing.

We have a lloyds bar in town that is the worst culprit, it also has stairs and a bridge type walkway to the toilets, it's not uncommon to see women stumbling up the stairs in high heels in short dresses with no knickers on, blind drunk and vomiting over the side onto the punters below when it's 'ladies night' and they're getting cheap or free drinks.
Young men trying to impress by downing pint after pint of cheap beer.

Then the one and only night club offers a free bus service from the bar to the club so they continue drinking through the night.

I live in a place that's meant to be upperclass and is very expensive to live in (South) the students often sound like the guy from the 'gap yah' comedy sketch.

It sounds like the places that sell alcohol are being irresponsible as well.

Most certainly, they make money that way, they get a rep for being cheap and willing to turn a blind eye to certain stuff so people gather there.

I think part of the problem is this culture of getting drunk before going out by downing lots of spirit shots such as vodka together with cheap cider in the home. They're drunk before they even hit town.

We're teetotal. I've only ever had no more than one half of bitter all evening when I was young, and so have never in my life been drunk.

There's an increasing number of young alcoholics nowadays whose lives are spiralling out of control. And liver specialists are amazed at the incidence of liver disease among age-groups where it was virtually unknown 20 years ago.
I don't know how we can put the clock back. But the Government must do something; it's so depressing that we've come to this.

I agree but I say this as someone who is battening the hatches in preparation for new year. Our neighbours are always horrendously drunk, keep us awake until about 6am and spew everywhere. There will be people passing through who will be doing the same. I know its new year but fot some reason it gives people the green light to behave like louts.

If you ever want to see drunk Britain at its best, got to any racing town on a race day. Its actually frightening to see.

I think the culture of 'pre-loading' on cheap supermarket booze is partly responsible for it, and also the fact that some beers and lagers are stronger now than they used to be (back in the 60s, brands like Carlsberg & Heineken were brewed at a lower ABV for the UK market than they were for home sales, but that's not the case any more). The prevalence of energy drinks like Red Bull & Monster as mixers also makes people more hyped-up and potentially aggressive, as well as people using cocaine on top of booze.

When I was a student in the mid-90s, there was a lot of drinking, but it seems to be promoted far more now. There's a real culture of drinking to get drunk, and showing off about it.

God yes ladies day at race courses. Ugh.

YANBU

The trouble is that these drunks stop the non-drunks pleasure. A couple of times recently, once having had a meal in a decent restaurant and the other coming out of a concert in a local cathedral I felt I'd stepped into a special form of hell. I don't like our city being a no-go area.
After the concert I had to get an eight year old back to the car park - very intimidating.

YANBU

My grandparents owned pubs, my granny can't understand why people aren't arrested anymore for their drunk behaviour

It amazes me the amount of 40+
'friends' who post on FB the 'got in at 5, never drinking again, sick on way home' comments - week in week out. These are sensible parents in alleged perfect couples who love to be the perfect parent in the playground - it just doesn't compute with me - and I would find it very boring to be drunk every week with the same people doing the same things - maybe I did my wild things in my youth and don't need to Do it in my 40s!

Yep. I'm basically teetotal and people CANNOT understand it. Oh you can have one, maybe you'll like this, just relax etc. I am chatty and stay out late but I just don't really drink and nobody british is remotely okay with it. Kind of makes me sad. It IS a drug.

I can't drink more than a couple of glasses anymore however every time I'm a bit tipsy even after 2 I fall over and hurt myself.

I've done it out running sober, in my front garden while gardening - but I'm most likely to do it after a couple of glasses.

Fairly disappointed to hear that people don't think A and E should treat me because of it and I'm sick of people putting my falling over down to drink when I've not even had a sniff.

YANBU. Thought is was me becoming an old prude! I don't like to go out with my old friends now as they are all still wanting to go and get plastered and stagger around the nearest city in a drunken stupor in between nightclubs. One of then has form for taking a pee wherever the need takes her-she's approaching 40 FFS. It is an embarrassment to be British as far as this is concerned.

Lauriefairycake - you need physio my lovely to stengthen ankles or whatever! I used to fall over like you but after physio now I don't!

Well, to buck a trend, I think yabu! The Tories are trying to pretend that woeful circumstances in a&e are the fault of young drunks alone rather than underfunding both of hospitals and gp surgeries. I don't actually think people are getting any more trollied than ever they used to.

my feet are too small for my body, I literally fall in divots/tiny changes in height.

I could have the physio carry me around....

I used to binge drink and generally drink far too much.

It blotted out the shit in my life for a few hours.

Have been off alcohol for almost 10 years now, but I can understand why people do it.

YANBU. On my rare nights out we tend to frequent metal pubs/clubs or go to gigs, where generally (despite the music) the atmosphere is quite chilled.
It really boils my piss when, after putting up with torrents of abuse and aggression from drunken students, we then get mardiness from the Macdonalds' 'security' - probably due to appearances. We're mid-late thirties/forties and some of us might be merry, but can guarantee that none of us has never been aggressive or lost control of a bodily function in public.
I used to live in Italy and it was completely 'non si fa' (not the done thing - a phrase used rather a lot) to be drunk in public especially if you're a woman. The most drunk I've ever seen someone, they were still walking but supported and making every possible effort to appear sober.

fish you have hit the nail on the head. People drink to get ridiculously drunk. They go out with the aim of becoming completely plastered. "Let's go and get bladdered". "Let's have a night on the lash" etc etc. Socialising isn't about going out, meeting mates, having a great evening with great company anymore, it is about going out and getting more drunk than the next person. I spent some time in Argentina and loved the social scene there. The bars were full of a complete range of ages who talked, debated, sang and danced while they drank. Sure people got drunk, but they didn't go out with that sole aim, they went out to mix and meet people. Then the younger ones went on to salsa clubs and men and women danced and partied-but without the need to be obnoxious, loud and vomit everywhere...

I wonder about the earlier comment about today's teenagers drinking less. My 14 year old son has just started going to parties and booze is rearing it's ugly head. He told me of a girl who had been taken home vomiting everywhere within about an hour and a half of arriving. He and his mates thought she looked a pratt-but how long will they think that?

I'm on the fence.

I can understand why people do it. I think most people that you see around blind drunk, vomiting etc either a) don't do it very often, b) are young and on a learning curve, c) have some problems in their life, d) don't have much self respect/esteem or e) are a combination of the above.

The few people that do this every weekend (or more) just for the hell of it - well, about them, YANBU.

I used to drink neat Vodka purely for the purpose of passing out or getting completely drunk. I also used to take a lot of drugs. I was quite severely mentally ill and it was my way of coping (badly!) with a social situation. Sometimes it meant I was having a good time. Sometimes it was just a way of getting through something. I grew out of it and don't think it made me a disgusting or disgraceful human being. But yes, I did my fair share of vomiting in gutters, crying hysterically in the street and behaving like an idiot.

YANBU - people vomiting in the street fucks me right off. Every week I see a some pissed up loser puking somewhere. I walk passed piles of vomit in a daily basis. It's so unnecessary.

I used to work in part of A&E and the amount of drunk people with head injuries taking up beds was unbelievable.

Also - when I was at university there was a 'vomit charge' of £50 for throwing up anywhere on campus that wasn't a toilet. If the next morning's pile of vomit couldn't be assigned to the culpable student then it came out of everyone's JCR fees. If the collective bill reached a certain level the bar was soft drinks only for a week. I think (to a certain extent) it did discourage completely thoughtless drunken behaviour.

Maybe there's some way of implementing that system on a macro level??