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?

It now seems to be the norm that you are unusual if you don't drink rather than do. I think this is probably true in this country. It's very unfortunate and I don't know what the answer is.

Alcohol should either be much much more higher priced or a charge payable if you end up needing hospital treatment. The problem with this is that it's social engineering. So if you can afford to buy alcohol, you can be trusted to do it responsibly? I know I'm being facetious; I know people buy litre-bottles of rats' piss and neck it all in the pursuit of drunkenness before they go out to pubs and clubs, and putting prices up might address this. But I'm just not sure about the implications of banning all booze but the finest bottles of Merlot, putting restraints on people's social lives according to personal solvency. And charging people for hospital visits? Where do you draw the line? If someone's bottled in a club while under the influence, do you charge them for their treatment?

I'm not answering any questions here, I know. I like BackOnlyBriefly's suggestions!

last time i drank properly I got spiked, ended up in hospital because of the spiking and have never bben so ill. I'd only had two drinks...

never drunk again as it scared me what could have happened if i'd just been left :(

In bars/clubs on nights out there's drinking shots in between normal drinking of alcoholic drinks which must massively increase how drunk people get and this never used to happen say in the 1990s. Men in bars used to offer to buy you a drink, now they will already have bought you a 'shot' and try to pressurise you to drink it, on top of what you're already drinking.
Also the everyday drinking of wine seems to have become the norm.
There will definitely be an impact in the future notably a huge increase in liver damage and deaths from alcoholism imo. It is a national disgrace, no doubt, the only thing that embarrasses me about being British (other than UKIP)

we do have a problem with binge drinking in this country

I am not sure why but it is something about our culture I have not seen this in Italy, France or Spain, Asia or the US

this is why I am against drugs being made legal (not class A drugs) as we cannot seem to control the excessive drink problem how the hell could we control a drug problem if there is such easy access to drugs

spend anytime in a&e on a weekend it is shocking how much time is taken up with people that have simply been out and drunk too much and fallen over, drunk a dangerous amount or got in to a fight and the abuse staff get is awful. I know a few medical professionals who hate working at the weekend because of this

I did not mean Class A drugs should be made legal though it reads that way

I can't accept that all these hundreds of thousands of drunken revellers are doing it to escape their dreary and difficult lives. Life was far worse in the thirties and forties, but people didn't do this. Also, these depressed and deprived sufferers obviously have plenty of money to buy their booze. They can't at least have financial worries.

As to restrictions and limitations - we live in society and all our actions and habits have an effect on the general state of the nation. We all have a right to
a civilised, well-ordered society and those who disrupt that must be restrained. Shortening drinking hours, being strict about not serving the already intoxicated and penalising severely drunken breaches of the peace and indecent behaviour would be a start.

I agree it is not good behaviour but I think there is a lot of over reaction. As you said Police have to break up drunken street fights whilst someone else gets burgled? Why do the police interfere? Let the drunks fight and sort it out, if they are drunk they will not do much harm. Sometimes the police and others react too quickly to drunken behaviour, if someone is so pissed that they lie down and sleep on the pavement leave them alone to lie there and get cold, their problem. Nowadays it seems there is a rush to protect people from themselves, why bother, leave them to the consequences.

we can not just leave people to fight it out we have moved on in our society to do that

and leaving them drunk and asleep they could end up chocking on their own vomit

i would rather people were fined more for drunk and disorderly behaviour than left to it

People upthread mentioning drunk and bad behaviour in Amsterdam, Prague etc. They are mainly tourists, not locals. They are also predominantly British. Although you get more stoned people sat outside coffee shops in Amsterdam, not roaring drunk.

There's no city/town centre in this country I'd want to be in over the weekend after a certain hour, and I have had a misspent youth getting boozed in quite a few of them. The NHS is burdened enough without having to deal with violent, abusive people all because they see it as 'fun' to drink too much at the weekend.

I know people who drink a certain mix of red bull, vodka and sambuca specifically with the intention of how 'fucked up' it will get them. It sure as hell isn't for the taste. They are in their mid 30s with good jobs etc but still see this as a laugh

Just on the drink concoctions - it was many years ago since I was a student but even then the types of drinks and mixes on offer, all for around £1.50 or so to get trollyed was really very common. As a teenager so many would go off to drink 20/20 or raid their parents' booze cupboards (I also went to a naice school). By the time I was 20 or so I was done with it all. I worked in a Wetherspoons for a couple of years after uni and it was just unbelieveable what people would put down themselves on a Friday and Saturday night.

I don't want my DD growing up in that culture. I am sure there are many kids who are totally sensible and hats off to them :) but there's something about the casual binge drinking and drunkardness that still goes on that leaves me cold.

Larger Lout? PMSL

What gets me is the amount of time some of the women in particular spend getting ready - fake tan, nails, hair, eyelashes, eyebrows, waxing etc (I'm in Liverpool and you do all that to go to the corner shop, never mind a night out) - but then end up wetting yourself, vomit all over yourself, sitting in the gutter etc. I can understand getting wasted like that once, but once you've seen the photos of yourself like that on FB, I can't imagine doing it again.

I'm a nurse and some of the hardest drinking doctors and nurses I know work in A and E! There was a scandal a few years ago when a bunch from our A and E dept went to a pub after a night shift. One of the doctors got thrown out for exposing himself.

ImperialBlether Some of the drinking adverts try to tackle that, doesn't work though.

I agree that these binge drinkers are affluent. Some are respectable with families.

When I worked in an IT department, I was often utterly embarrassed and ashamed of the behaviour of some of my colleagues. Have to say, the very worst was when I was contracting and our team leader, also a contractor, climbed onto a table and began to strip. This was at a lovely restaurant and the other diners were clearly as annoyed as I was.

Don't ask me why they do it: I have never understood.

Contrast with our childminders group evening out where most of us ended the really nice evening meal with a hot chocolate
We said please and thank you to the waitress instead of leering at her, too

Maybe the reason is that we only get out together for one meal a year so we appreciate it more.

Livingzuid, I mentioned drunks in Amsterdam and Rome (I didn't mention Prague, but I have seen plenty of violent drunks there too).

Your 1980s stereotype of Amsterdam makes it sound as if you've either never been there, or not for a very long time. Since 2008, the city has been closing down brothels and cannabis cafes, and freedoms around the selling and smoking of weed have been severely curtailed. At the same time, Ajax fans have continued their booze-fuelled rampages unabated. These days, you are far more likely to see a drunken brawl than a hippie love-in.

Also, I can say with certainty that the drunken violence, disorder and intimidation I've repeatedly witnessed in Rome is 100% indigenous. Again, football hooliganism plays a part, but so too do fascist politics; something that is far more of a problem on mainland Europe than here.

The oft-repeated refrain about 'continental drinking culture' is as mythical and nonsensical as it ever was.

babycham I live in The Netherlands and work in Amsterdam. My husband is also a Feyenoord season ticket holder who travels regularly to watch games around the continent so I am more than well aware of the problems around football hooliganism in the country and across Europe. The Dutch police control after match with an iron fist by the way. You make it sound like they run riot every single weekend which goes to show how far out of touch YOU are.

Your comments on closing down the weed cafes are incorrect as well. Amsterdam and Rotterdam continue to welcome tourists. The cafes in border cities such as Maastricht were targeted to prevent people coming from Belgium and Germany from crossing over, buying drugs and going back home, not overseas. The policies over controlling coffee shop requirements sits with each municipality not at a national level, and the policy set by a conservative government in 2010 to prevent drugs being sold to non-Dutch residents was largely abandoned in 2012. It was also a hugely unpopular policy that was largely ignored by many.

www.tdpf.org.uk/blog/cannabis-policy-netherlands-moving-forwards-not-backwards

The oft-repeated refrain about 'continental drinking culture' is as mythical and nonsensical as it ever was.

I was referring to drunk Brits overseas not locals. You only need to spend an evening in Benidorm to see what a problem that is. Although you contradict yourself with this statement by sweeping generalisations about drunken football brawling

Well, the same could be said of people taking drugs and if my daughter ever took drugs and got into trouble I would want to know that emergency services are there regardless. It would be impossible to distinguish between those who are binge drinking from those who are having a bad night out so Yabu. Should we just Leave them in trouble to see what happens?

I have English friends with small children who tell me that they drink wine in the evenings to reward themselves after a tough day with the kids. This does not happen in other parts of the world.

timetoask, as someone from another part of the world, let me assure you, you are wrong.

Agreed deadduck , my folks live in France and they are always offers an apperitif in France, it's standard and comes with a lot set menus- dinner or lunch. The French have fantastic wines and drink a lot, especially in the rural areas. The difference is the measures are smaller, it takes longer to drunk because it's a pleasure to be hard with food and if they do get drunk it's usually at home!

YANBU. I find it impossible to understand past the age of around 22. If we slapped sanctions on people they might grow out of it earlier than that.

It makes me furious how much of an impact it has on wider society. Just ask anyone who has ever sat (sober) in A&E on a Saturday night or been attacked / mugged / harrassed by some drunken idiot and their mob if drunken mates.

As some of you will know from my posts we go out early with the hound. This morning DH went out with her, and came across a group of drunks, staggering around, and one who was howling - yes full blown werewolf type howling - in the middle of the road. He said it really unnerved him (and he's a big bloke) and spooked the hound, so they cut across another road to get home. But why, just why would you carry on like this? And imagine how scared you could be if this was in front of your house? People have no thought for anyone else.

I agree it's vile. I went clubbing the weekend before xmas and it was awful. People puking people fighting people trying to fight the bouncers for kicking them out for smoking, it was minging. I like a drink and ive been paraletic in my late teens a couple of times but I learnt my limits iykwim. I have friends who go out and don't even remember what they did vom in the club's come home and vom everywhere and wake up and vom and to them that's normal.

how that is enjoying yourself I don't know!