Brits have a huge problem with alcohol

[SteveLpool]

AIBU to think that this country has a particularly acute problem with boozing, alcohol, drinking (whatever you call it) compared to our peers in Europe and the rest of the world?

I've worked and travelled abroad quite a lot and i never had the issues i am having now being back at home in the UK with regards to being the odd one out at a bar or a pub just because I'm not having alcohol.

Sometimes a few of us will get together after work and I'll have a diet coke or even a soda water and lime.. when my choice of drink is known ("is there vodka in that????") there becomes an aura of uncomfortableness (if that is even a word) like I've committed a crime.. soon afterwards the comments come..

"what's in that?"
"why arnt you drinking"
"are you a lightweight"
"just have a couple"

I have a theory of why this is for Brits in particular.. We as a people are quite emotionally & socially reserved therefore inhibitions MUST be lowered to have any form of good time..

The med countries for example like Italy and Spain have more of a coffee wine bar culture because they are quite outgoing and introverted.

For the record I'm not against alcohol, I'm big on my fitness and gym and I'm not prepared to ruin my gains for a few hours in a dingy British pub.. I save my boozing for when i go away on holiday.

I don't really drink much, I haven't for years. I do like a drink but I do feel sad about how teh drinking culture is so extreme and so much of our night time culture revolves around getting very drunk.

I suppose many public health people have done lots of research into why the British approach to alcohol is like this. I think our reserved nature and poverty are all factors. Probably like many things it's about what's acceptable. People see getting very drunk as the done thing with little stigma.

Here the pubs are steadily busy all day from opening in the morning. Mostly middle aged and old men wasting their lives and health away spending their pensions, dole or disability allowance.

@SteveLpool is clearly an accalite of the DM

The pressure for non drinkers to drink from drinkers definitely isn't there like it used to be. Having lived in both UK and Ireland I can say without a doubt Ireland is worse for volume but less so for ending in fights etc. But have you ever socialised in Eastern Europe. Cheika, Slovakia, Hungry have serious drinking cultures. In Belgrade in December and they drank continually, alcohol with everything. Public pissed up displays rare, but volume and normalisation way above UK.

‘Here the pubs are steadily busy all day from opening in the morning. Mostly middle aged and old men wasting their lives and health away spending their pensions, dole or disability allowance.’ don’t know if you’re judgy or goady. My brother was a bar manager and 9/10 of the older men who sit in bars during the day do so because they like the company. They aren’t going home tanked up. They are sitting over two or three pints most of the day, chatting to others, maybe putting a bet on and watching the racing. It’s their social outlet. You sound very naive

Absolutely this. There was a thread recently about drinking in thd morning before a flight. Many were fine if it was prosecco but less so with a pint of lager.

I am not from the UK and have worked in several places, including schools. I found my first school Christmas party so awful that I have never been since. Tales of vomiting in the back of another teacher’s car and more. Embarrassing.
Work parties on the continent did feature alcohol, but the Brits have a special knack for being completely ott.

I live in Australia it's just as bad.

Do we work longer? Always view Spanish, italians, Portuguese as having long leisurely evenings where the may have a glass or 2 of wine. Me, I am crawling in at 8pm cooking dinner and pretty much straight to bed. So it is very restricted when I can have a drink so go a bit over the top when I do.

My view of this idyllic evening could, of course, be very false.

It's socially acceptable to be drunk. Funny, even.

My grandad and uncle both died young (60 and 47) from alcohol dependency and my other uncle only just survived a massive heart attack in his early 40s from drinking. Having seen what my cousins went through and are still struggling as adults to live with, I find drinking a bit pitiful to be honest.

I'm not naïve.

I've been in and out of the pubs around where i live for decades.. i have many friends and aquaintainaces I've made ..

Yes the friendly betting, race-watching old man is a thing... In a certain place where they show the racing. I'm talking about the bog standard Wetherspoons.. where men just sit in there on their own and binge drink lager all day.

Then there's the alcoholics that are waiting outside the door for it to open at 9 in the morning...

I've been teetotal for years. Alcohol has never done me any good.

@Hoppinggreen I couldn't tell you but they were pretty well oiled by lunchtime.

Although, tbh that's not a regular occurrence I see in the UK. What I can say is that my local little Tesco doesn't have a bottle opener on a bungee cord attached to the wall outside and a bunch of guys drinking strong lager say around for hours on end.

I remember being in a park in France one lunchtime and seeing a school there.

The teachers were drinking red wine with their lunches.

Can you imagine if that happened here?

I think I blame the 90s Ibiza Uncovered style of reality TV for the "getting shitfaced" becoming normalised, as opposed to getting merry..

Not my experience, a lot of my social circle don’t drink or just on special occasions. 🤷‍♀️ Mix of middle and working class…

The point I was making was that the amount and timescale isnt the problem
Its the intention to drink until you are ill or pass out and for that to be ok that is the problem

It's not just the "getting shitfaced" thing..
It's the "few pints after work" everyday.

It's the... As soon as we get hot sunny weather - straight down to tesco for a crate.

Has anyone noticed good craft beer hobby craze in recent years?

It's now a hobby and a legitimate interest to go to the local craft beer pub or bottle shop and drink strong 6.3% beer because it comes in a pretty can and has a funny name

I was on a Child Protection course for work recently. Foetal alcohol syndrome is now much more prevalent among the middle classes. We all know someone who fools themself that a huge goblet of wine = 1 glass

Having been at a holiday resort with many Germans but also French, Belgium, Irish, Dutch, French and Spanish I can tell you that they can all drink heavily if ai! Cocktails all around

And I only personally know 2 people who have been convicted of drink driving, one was Irish, one was french

Agree

the amount of alcohol that's 'normal' i.e. widespread is greater than the amount that is physiologically safe. I think it's mostly an issue in Northern and Eastern Europe... oh hang on, Australia too LOL.
I respect the young people for drinking less these days. They have paved the way for me (nearly 50) to be able to turn down booze or to just have a couple. Even 10 years ago I found doing that was deemed socially unacceptable. Thanks, young people!

It isn't just a British thing.
Many European countries are just as bad, if not worse.
I live in Austria and there's immense pressure here to drink - just one schnapps etcetc. People can be very pushy about it and think you are rude if you don't. Even saying you are driving makes no difference - "just one or two won't hurt". Well yes it will actually, I don't drink anything when I am going to be driving. Drink-driving here is awful - it's socially acceptable to do it and socially not acceptable to refuse alcohol because you are driving!!!! In the UK it is socially completely unacceptable to drink drive - and that's how it should be.

I live in rural Austria and there are a lot of festivals - both church festivals and non-religious festivals. At church festivals people will go to church in the morning, join in a procession around the village and then sit and get absolutely wasted from about 10 am at tables set up in the village centre. There's a festival on every weekend in the summer months in one village or other, sometimes whole weekends of parties. Eg. Corpus Christi - that's just an entire weekend of getting smashed. Even in the winter there are things going on - various "Faschings" balls - they are coming up soon - that's a whole week of heavy drinking.
Then the Krampus stuff in December - young men going around dressed as Krampusses - legless on the 5th and 6th December. They visit homes to scare kids and drink a schnapps with the parents.
In spring the village bands have spring concerts - after the concert people sit around and drink all night....

The drinking culture is appalling and actually far worse than anything I experienced living in the UK.
I'm a non-drinker so it does make socializing very difficult.

Definitely. It astounds me how much value people put on drinking!

As a non-British person reading this board, it is clear that there is a very different attitude toward being drunk and especially seriously or even dangerously drunk. It’s the only place I have encountered a blasé attitude about a drinker needing to be watched or cared for once they return home.