If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Essential support for under 25s
Essential support for under 25s
Take a look around and enjoy reading the discussions. If you'd like to join in, it's really easy to register and then you'll be able to post. If you'd like to learn what this place is all about, head here.
Comments
Good to see the Tories remain as clueless as ever, and that they haven't lost the art of hammering nails in their own coffin
Yep. I've met quite a few people over the years who have found alcohol to be too expensive (as in, they can't afford the rent on their flat, new clothes, food etc. and go out and spend £3+ per pint), so they take GHB for its "similar" effect to alcohol. Either that, or other drugs with completely different effects. Why spend £30/£40 on drink in a night, when you can spend £10 on four pills? Really, increasing the price of alcohol is only going to shift the problem elsewhere.
I think wheresmyplacebo hit the nail on the head; people go through the mundane existance of their lives that is Monday - Friday, waking up at 7am and getting back from work after 6 or 7pm. By that time, they're too damn tired to do anything besides collapse infront of the TV/computer for the rest of the night. College/uni students have it worse, having to ballance actually going there, with studying/coursework, and their job. Thinking about it, is it really a coincidence all the uni students I know binge drink, with most taking drugs? I'm actually going through a list of them in my head and I can't think of a single one.
The prospect of going out at the weekend without any responsibilities is one that gets alot of people through their week. So much so, that they try to cram as much in as possible when the weekend does arrive, be it clubs, parties, or drinks. I can actually notice a difference in people at the start of the week if they were too skint to go out that weekend; they're snappy, pissed off, and generally not as happy since they know they'll be going two weeks of work, bullshit and studying without getting away from it, given that sitting in the house watching TV/computer over the weekend is just an extension of the regular week night activities anyway.
EDIT:
I honestly don't think it has that much of an effect. I know people (how many times have I said that now?) who either don't watch TV (ever), or don't have one in their flats; they all still binge drink. It's not some old dude with a bald patch in a shithole dive of a pub drinking a pint of bitter in Eastenders that glamourises drinking, it's society. When I was a kid, I actually think smoking was glamourised more than drinking, yet more people drink than smoke. What glamourises drinking is your big brother or sister getting ready for a night out, looking sauve as a motherfucker in whatever new outfit they just bought with their hard earned cash. Knowing they'll be down the pub getting more than a couple of pre-club drinks in with their friends, meeting members of the opposite sex in the process. Having a great time and not getting home to some obscene hour of the morning, if they come home at all. Even if you don't have a big brother or sister, your school friends did, and they aaalways had stories of the crazy shit their older siblings got up to on nights out. It sounded great fun, didn't it? Sure it did, that's why before every school dance we got all tarted up in trousers with ridiculously well-ironed seams, shirts that didn't quite fit tightly enough, and snuck round the back of the PE building to down whatever booze we'd managed to convince some guy outside the off-licence to buy us.
Ahem...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6281350.stm
Not quiet a Tory plan... Its from a blue skys document, which may or may not become Tory policy
It may not be good for my body, but it's good for the soul - just to forget those responsibilites once or maybe twice a week, go out and let loose.
Maybe it's the drive to cut down on manpower for cost efficiency, increase opening hours, increase productivity that leave people stressed and overworked. Alcohol may for many become a way to 'cool down' after a long streneous day.
I've had pretty long workdays and non-existant weekends and it's really quite depressing coming home, needing to eat and then there's not enough time/energy to do anything else... and then I need to get right back to work the morning after.
I remember I nearly went over the edge when I was trying to balance college and work a few years back.
I know so many going through the same. Working insane weekends with next to no free time. Alcohol is not the source of the problems, it's just one way for people to get work out of their heads.
or computer games, or violent films ....
Hence the thread just below this one.
Ha! I didn't see that. Now it's extreme porn warping our fragile little minds
and switch to narcotics?
That's a good thing though. Even the tiniest amount of alcohol seriously impairs your ability to drive, and driving with a hangover is absolutely stupid.
I don't think the adverts depicting drinking as sexy and adult, and the magazines doing the same thing, help matters, but I don't think blaming the media is the whole story.
I don't think Britain is any more stressful than most other European countries, but they don't have the same issues- they can go out and drink, and unwind or relax, without getting so drunk that they can't even walk home. It's a cultural thing, and I don't think the media caused it (it's always been around) but people are drinking more than they used to.
If there was a zero tolerance then if you had 4 pints in the evening finishing at 11, there's a good chance you'd be illegal at 8 in the morning and that's bullshit. I'm not taling about driving on a hangover here.
If you are saying that any reduction in reaction times, no matter how microscopic it might be, it's unacceptable, then everybody who gets a minute less than 8 hours' sleep the previous night; everybody who has a cold; everybody who is preoccupied with work; everybody who has had an argument with the wife; everybody who is carrying children in the back of the car... and many other situations I could think of, should be prevented from driving. For all those activities have an effect in reaction times and alertness.
:yes:
just to add, the current limit whatever is 80mg/100ml blood, most accidents occur with 100 or over
the problem is that most people can't jusge that well how mcuh they drink, so i think the best bet is a limit that can be slept off but will be broken by 1 drink
Things are very different in Greece and Italy...and Britain is never going to have a Mediterranean long meals and a few glasses of wine culture.
The term 'binge drinking' is thrown around too easily. Medical experts would call having four pints in an evening binge drinking. A couple of double mixers, or a bottle of wine in an evening might be technically 'binge drinking' - but it's very different to getting so wasted on vodka that you can't remember how you got home.
Tbh I don't really see a need for tougher alcohol laws, there might be some justification for upping the age to buy spirits but any more taxes are a very bad idea.
And you think with a lower limit it would be easier to judge in the morning whether or not you've slept it off? :no:
Well it doesn't work like that does it? There are too many variable to make the limit much lower - else people that were really fine to drive are going to find themselves prosecuted.
I think there are better ways to combat drink driving than setting new limits.
:yes: I don't tend to see people who've had four or five pints starting fights. More like 8 or 9.
Difference is, they are usually eating as well. Makes a massive difference to how drunk you get.