I live in a small, relatively well-heeled town where the only options in the evening are 1. Pub, Drinking and 2. Restaurant including drinking (typically) apart from one cinema and an intermittent amateur theatre. Often I find the home alternative means more drinking with friends.
A: I can't help thinking that a) if we had a choice of drug (eg mild, legalised cannabis) we would be more healthy and more interesting and b) if we had more options, we might not resort to drinking to fill the gap and make boredom more bearable. What are your thoughts?
B: I also think that value for money distorts our drinking habits - at £3 - £4 a pint many of my group of friends, both men and women, think that its poor value to have weaker beers so plump for beer at 5%+ and I hear younger people saying that if they are going to spend so much they want to ensure they are drunk when they go home. How much of alcohol's relatively high cost in britain accounts for our funny attitude to it?
C: Also I think our culture has an effect. We don't easily enjoy ourselves and often see enjoyment as unseemly unless we can excuse it under 'being drunk'.
An italian friend of mine is always astonished how English people going for a meal can enter a restaurant not talking, not smiling, sit eating good food with only polite conversation, and then leave in silence unsmiling. Italians come in chatting, and leave smiling and chatting whether drinking or not. We seem to be obsessed with two versions of ourselves - the sober one where self-control and reticence is the highest quality, and the drunk one where the opposite is true. Why do we still feel so affronted by emotion in our sober life, and so keen to be overwhelmed by our emotional selves that we take massive hits of a powerful drug to try to quicken the process, but also keep it in a temporary window?