Unless I have been living in a parallel universe for the past few decades,
there never used to be anything remotely glamorous about alcoholism. Faced
with someone staggering about incoherently and slurring the same thing over
and over again, most people felt repulsion or pity or both - it was a bit
like being hassled by a tramp.
This is no longer the case. There are many mysteries about the binge-drinking
epidemic - not least why the British are so uniquely wedded to the idea that
you can’t have fun unless you’re falling over - but the one that I find the
most puzzling is to do with our changing attitudes to alcohol.
We have an alco-crisis on our hands and yet we have become strangely tolerant
of drunkenness. We may not relish the thought of having to walk through a
huddle of drunk teenagers late at night, but we really don’t mind drunks any
more - they’re only having a laugh.
Take the pop stars on parade at last week’s Brit awards: whether it was
bumbling around looking glazed, or not making any sense when required to
speak, or falling down outside at the after-parties, their lame, grotty idea
of fun was seen as a manifestation of the joy of being young and successful.
People used to be regarded as pitiable oddities if they went out in public
sloshed to the point of speechlessness - such as George Best, say, or poor
old Gazza, who was sectioned last week. Saved from being utterly repulsive
by the fact that they were, or had been, famous, theirs was nevertheless an
unlovely trajectory and not one that anyone admired. They were like those
boring, belligerent, drunken old blokes - every pub used to have one - who
smelt slightly and wanted to be your friend.
Drunken women falling over were considered revolting and particularly pitiable
if their drunkenness manifested itself as friskiness, which it often did,
not always with happy consequences. (Date rape emerged as a problem at about
the time that women started regularly drinking to the point of
unconsciousness.)
But that’s all over: today we live in a culture where drunkenness is tolerated
- and I don't mean one-bottle-of-wine drunkenness, but rather the “I’m going
to get off my face”, sick-in-the-street, lying on the pavement,
teenage-alkie blackout sort.
Middle-aged people who don’t want to seem square (bless) smile wryly at their
children's hangovers. Bien pensants think that decrying binge drinking is an
act of snobbery since members of the white working class, who like their
alcopops, have so few pleasures left to them.
Actually, the act of snobbery lies in allowing an entire generation - one
that’s already having a difficult time - to destroy itself with drink on the
basis that since there’s nothing else for its members to do they might as
well get pissed and assault each other.
Besides, binge drinking occurs across the board, not least with people like
me, middle-aged types who often go for weeks without a drink only to fall
off the wagon in spectacular, liver-busting fashion at a party or a
“celebratory” dinner.
Yet it is a fact of life that on any given weekend young people drink so much
that an ever-increasing number will get liver disease in their twenties or
thirties, and never mind that cirrhosis used to be an old person’s ailment.
Alcohol misuse costs the National Health Service £1.7 billion a year; at peak
times 70% of A&E admissions are alcohol-related; half of all violent
crimes every year are linked to alcohol; the cost of crime linked to alcohol
misuse is £7 billion a year.
No wonder the British Medical Association issued a call to arms last week with
a report that said longer licensing hours, combined with the availability of
ever-cheaper alcohol, had resulted in a full-blown epidemic.
The BMA said it was “dismayed” by the failure to link longer licensing hours
with damage to public health. Its report demanded a cut in opening hours and
a ban on “irresponsible” promotional activities - such as happy hours - as
well as a ban on advertising to young people.
In the wake of this, Tesco rather cravenly announced that it was keen to join
the fight against binge drinking, only to be accused of “staggering
hypocrisy” within 24 hours when The Times showed that the store had cut an
average of 10% off its prices over the past year. Last week alone it cut the
price of a can of Carling lager to 54p and a 12-pack of Guinness by 30%.
Asda, which has raised its alcohol prices by 1.3% in the past year, will
tomorrow announce the measures it plans to take to restrict access to
alcohol. Meanwhile, the government is being urged to raise taxation on
alcohol, particularly alcopops and other drinks specifically targeted at
young people.
All of these measures would be more than welcome. They have become necessary
and frankly should have been addressed sooner: this is not a problem that
popped up out of nowhere.
It also seems odd that we are a nation of binge drinkers, not binge smokers,
and yet I can’t sit and have a cigarette in a public place but am free to
injure my liver anywhere I like on a daily basis (and smoking does not make
people violent or lead to unconsensual sex or punch-ups and does not clog up
A&E on a Friday night - although I do see that it often involves
hospitalisation at a later date).
We - well, not me, obviously - become hysterical with disapproval at the sight
of the merest Marlboro Light while living in a culture that no longer sees
anything amiss in not quite remembering what happened last night.
There’s something not quite right somewhere, wouldn’t you say? And addressing
our inexplicably tolerant attitude to excess drinking is surely as important
as tax increases and concerns about health and public disorder.
Do underage drinkers not have parents and do those parents not have any
responsibilities? Do adult drinkers not have employers and do those
employers not weary of the £6.4 billion lost annually through lack of
productivity through alcohol misuse?
Do people, especially young ones, not have a brain that can be educated about
drinking, which for so many of them has become a socially acceptable form of
self-harm? Apparently not. Which is why, if we want to get a grip on this
giant problem, it’s time we reclaimed our disapproval.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt through having a child with special needs, it is not to judge other people in a similar boat
I'm twenty years old, I'm not actually English, but I have been living here for the past four years, and been surrounded by Brits for the majority of my life. Alcohol has always played a part in my life, and my family's, often with terrible consequences, so reading your article was a massive relief - apparently I'm not the only one who thinks this way.
There's a difference between going out and passively ordering a drink at intervals throughout the evening and 'a drink before we leave' continued literally ad nauseam, and then unconsciousness and short term memory loss. How did this become 'fun'?
I'll probably have to stop now...it's something that's been on my mind a lot lately, and it just makes me angry.
DJ Tulleken, Hastings, East Sussex, United Kingdrom
I agree attitudes have changed. 'You were drunk last night' used to be an accusation now it's a compliment.
However I don't believe increasing the price is the answer. Cheap alcohol could be brought in from other parts of the EU. Also the aim of every government is to make us more wealthy so it would be striving to make us afford expensive alcohol.
We have to ask ourselves why do we get so drunk so often ?Previously this phase of our lives maybe lasted a couple of years now it lasts decades.
Frank, London,
I commend your excellent article. Much more could be said about young girls, often quite a lot lighter in weight, "celebrating their equal status" by drinking one-to-one alongside the boys, placing themselves at even greater risk of liver damage. And for lack of hard statistical data we don't yet know how all this may affect their fertility, pregnancies, etc. over the coming ten or twenty years . I don't like the "nanny state" any more than anyone else and wish fewer rather than more laws needed to be passed to "protect the ordinary citizen from himself" - but , in the absence of parental power (which means waging a relentless war under your own roof to the certain detriment of your health with incredibly limited chances of winning it) I think a much stronger fiscal disincentive to drinking should be put in place before this disastrous 'culture' spreads any further.
Paola, Milan, Italy
If you drink a lot when young then later you may realise you missed years when you were free and could have been experiencing the world instead of just shutting it out with booze,making other people a lot of money or causing grief, and which you can't remember anyway. But still, most people who drink a lot like it and its a free country so why shouldnt they like it? If it causes problems then let's identify the prblems, legislate for them and really kick those who break the law. Make it illegal to drink in public places, and heavily fine those who disobey. Close pubs and supermarkets for a day, every time they are caught serving an underage drinker. Serious measures work, pussyfooting and moaning don't. Parents will stop smiling indulgently soon enough if the law is clear and strongly enforced and their kids lose serious money or get criminal records. Shops and pubs will start watching it, if they stand to lose a day's trade each time they serve underage customers
ja, London,
You'll be pleased to know that not all young people drink. Personally, I find that the stuff tastes foul, and have not drunk more than half a glass of wine in my life.
I agree when you say that binge drinking is horrible and couldn't agree more, but try telling this to my peers.
Ruth, Sussex,
In the late 1980's I approached a large drinks' organisation for sponsorship to finance the making of a video about elderly people. At first they were interested, but at a meeting with their PR people, they described their change of heart in the following words: "We cannot sponsor anything to do with old people because it would go against our lager-lout image." Who, therefore, should take some of the responsibility for the current problem amongst the young?
J.Dean, Guildford, Surrey, UK
Clive of Surrey is part of the problem. As soon as you try to hang on to, or reset a standard of decent behaviour, someone will sneer it down, and so on.
If there were more cohesive family units, (perhaps as on continental Europe), giving moral guidance and prepared to stigmatize anti-social behaviour instead of an anything goes attitude, then the problem may at least ease.
Terry, L'Absie, France
India. I have just got home from Paris after watching the rugby last night and, interestingly I read your article on the train from there to Montpellier. We got back into Paris just after midnight and went for a drink in the Place de Bastille near our hotel. We sat outside, as did loads of other people, and stayed there until just after 2 am. In fact as we were leaving a group of 6 young people turned up and took a table to have a meal. The whole scenario and occasion were wonderful. And how many drunks did we see? None. How many people did we see being sick? None. How much rowdiness did we see? Again, none. Civilised people live civilised lives. My friends and I mused on the possibility of this happening in the UK, virtually anywhere. Well it couldn't, so that wasn't a long conversation.
Roger Linsley, Agde, France
How DARE you make the utterly unproven assertion that date rape only became a problem when women started drinking too much, thereby making the ugly implication that it is the victim's fault? This is a completely unnecessary aside which fails to do justice to a complex subject in the space of a single sentence. You contribute to a mind-set which allows rapists to get off the hook by blaming their victim - she was wearing a short skirt, she was flirting blah blah blah... Much the same excuses which paedophiles use by the way, but of course there it is much more obvious what vile liars they are. Shame on you.
Alison, London,
No cigarettes, no drink, uptight about sexuality. The UK will soon be the next US colony. Congratulations! Ban it all! Born again prohibition! Or only allow the wealthy to have a good time.
John, California, USA
God I miss smoking inside. I'm also curious. Who are these people? Where do they find the time for so much drinking? Or the money? Are they drinking meths?
Easiest way to end the binge-drinking "epidemic"? Legalise marijuana and improve BBC programming.
Lizzie Kaye, London,
It's the same with older women thinking they're sixteen, wearing midriff-revealing tops showing wrinkles and stretch marks. I'm not talking about women in their thirties, either. I've seen women who look well over forty doing this.
Darren, London, UK
Priorities can change. Although you might be able to manage your daily responsibilities, it will probably not last, and you may find that alcohol becomes the only priority. It happens slowly. Your initial rules are strict. No driving drunk, no more than two or three at a sitting, and no drinking before 5:00 PM, for example. And then you start chipping away at the rules you've set for yourself. Is three beers "driving drunk?" After all, you feel completely in control. If you allow two or three in a sitting, you might go to another bar and it'll be a new "sitting," or maybe you'll just stand instead. The 5:00 rule is silly. Many people drink with their lunch, right? Let's make that 12 noon. Justification for drinking becomes an elaborate fantasy.
Once you cross that line, moderate consumption becomes all but impossible for LIFE, and binge drinking is particularly difficult to overcome. Find out what moderate drinking is, and don't exceed it if you value your use of alcohol.
Leslie Basden, Fresno, CA USA
The elephants in this particular room are the brewing companies - those foul, legalised drug-pushers. As they have a vested interest in mass levels of binge-drinking and alcoholism, their opinions should be completely disregarded while public policy in these matters is altered to cope with this insane, self-inflicted crisis.
Mark Van Seedge, Dublin, Ireland
Nice bit of victim-blaming with the unnecessary date rape aside.
Rose, Oxford, UK
There is certainly no merit in the view that alcohol prices are too low and the cause of our problems. The USA and Europe have much lower alcohol prices but none of the yobbish drunkeness we have. The cause lies elsewhere.
MikeRight, london,
I don't think that the problem is the longer opening hours. As a number of other commentors have stated, the majority of pubs aren't open past 11 and Continental Europe has much longer opening hours. It is a cultural thing. Watch British TV shows, read articles and so on, and you can quite easily see that getting slaughtered is not only culturally accepted but admired, on all levels and in all classes. Aren't the articles every couple of weeks in the Times accusing the government of attacking Middle Class drinkers, who routinely go through a bottle of wine a night? A couple of years ago, I was in Italy with a friend and we ordered a bottle of wine to share between the two of us, and we were given a shocked look by the waitress.
LB, London,
couldn't resist sneaking in a pro-smoking pitch. revolting and inconsiderate habit. if someone sat farting next to you all evening and wafting that disgusting smell over you, would you be happy? and that wouldn't stick in your hair and clothes the next day either. oh, and it wouldn't damage your lungs and heart. great night out.
stephen, china, china
When I was a student at Cambridge just over 20 years ago, my friends and I drank a lot - no two ways about it, though maybe not as much as people of that age do now. Two things were very different, however. First, we never drank to get drunk. Fun and good company were the objects (regularly achieved), and if drink was involved, so be it. Secondly, and vitally, we knew that our drinking should not cause offence to others: it was between ourselves, not the in-your-face drunkenness of today. The social attitudes that go with drinking are the biggest difference between then and now, rather than the units imbibed.
Richard, Cambridge, England
So, we should cut back on licencing hours? To what? 90 of pubs are shut by midnight. That is 1 extra hour for most places since the relaxation of licencing hours, and then not every night. As someone said, they drink more in a number of european countries but the fact they do so over a longer period explains why they don't have our problems. Is India suggesting we go back to being treated like kids and asked at 11pm if we haven't got a home to go to, whilst in many European countries people are just venturing out. All this is without considering shift workers who have little chance for adrink and a social life now, does India suggest we go back to them having none at all. Though it may be a surprise to her and some of her friends that not everyone works 9-5.
However , restricing the hours of slae in supermarkets etc. would get my backing. If pubs etc were the only places to obtain alcohol after teatime then a lot of the problems associated with under age drinkers would disappear.
Alan Palmer, Hull,
I like your colums. They're always so excitingly politically incorrect! I fully agree, shame would be a much more effective approach. Compared to the rest of Europe, alcohol in the Uk is already more expensive, and there are more restrictions on drinking alcohol, yet there are more problems.
This shows we are dealing with a cultural problem. Solving it requires a culture change. Measures focusing on structures are therefore unlikely to be effective (taxes, availability etc.).
I'm a continental European and really look down on the british' drinking behavior.
peter, birmingham,
Give a young man a house and a wife and a child and he'll stop drinking so much.
But these things belong to a different age, and are now to all intents and purposes unobtainable. So he might as well get drunk.
Malcolm McLean, Bradford, UK
"Do people, especially young ones, not have a brain that can be educated about drinking, which for so many of them has become a socially acceptable form of self-harm?". Let's not forget some of the greatest minds have had drink problems.The last time I checked, alcohol was a drug, hence why the problem in the UK isn't one about young people's inability to comprehend the risks but actually on your generation (if we must resort to inter-generational finger pointing) to ensure we have education programmes that prevent the habits starting.
I think you see things in a very class-orientated fashion, as you well know, the upper echelons of. society are just as partial to the odd tipple or 20.
Fundamentally, I believe we need to take a good, hard look at what picture we are painting for our kids as to what options they have in the future - because the government dream of university - debt - work - self-funded pension - die is enough to drive anyone to to drink.
Dave W, Shoreditch, London, UK
Date rape only began as soon as women started drinking en masse? That's something of an overstatement, I would say. It's nothing new that some unfortunate women have their trust broken on a date or by a man they thought they could trust, sober or not. Regular drunkenness would obviously make both men and women more open to such breaches of trust but it's unfair to women who have gone through rape by a man they know to assume that alcohol is involved or to link alcohol and date rape with such a throwaway comment.
The implication of the comment is also that the drinking of the women is the problem: what about the men? How much does alcohol influence their behaviour? Drunkenness is offensive and off-putting in both men and women - men are far more likely to commit crimes under the influence of alcohol however so their behaviour should be more of a concern to us all.
MB, Edinburgh,
Well said Mimi!!!!
Margaret, Cambridge, England
Does dear university student Hannah really think that 66% is a score to boast about? Scope for improvement I should think! Booze less, study more?
Howard, London,
The lack of values in modern British society led us straight into this dreadful situation India wrote about. We as a people have no spiritual values we can refer to. What we worship now is Budweiser, football, and holiday in Spain! What a vain and miserable bunch of selfish individuals we've become!
The only thing left to fill gaps in our shakey lifestyles is alcohol which lets us live short moments of problem free existance.
Mark Lemberg, South London,
Living in a country without an NHS (not utopia believe me) one thinks twice about getting so drunk that you end up in hospital simply because you will be left with a huge medical bill at the end of the night.
I think that if your actions result in precious medical resources being taken away from others who really you need it, then YOU need to pay for it. Parents who receive a medical hefty bill would think twice about simply accepting their children's behavior.
The British taxpayer should not tolerate paying for peoples' lack of responsibility any more.
Mimi Roterman, Somerville, MA, U.S.A
Well written India.How safer and more efficient our casualty departments would be if we did not have to tolerate those drunken yobs every night.As well as increasing the price of alcohol they should have to pay E100 for admission to casualty.We need to educate our children about the abuse of alcohol and point out to them how many careers and families have been destroyed by alcohol.
J. O'Brien, Limerick, Ireland
How about we just licence people to drink? If they abuse alcohol by drinking to the point of sickness, or show themselves unfit to drink by causing violence or other anti-social behaviour, their licence to drink is revoked.
I simply think making EVERYBODY pay more to having a drink because some cannot do it responsibly is so incredibly...Gordon Brown-ish.
Why is that decent, law-abiding people keep getting their lives made harder by the idiots?
Don't let them do it!
Jon, London,
If the cost of policing, loss of working hours, etc., is added to alcohol related costs to the NHS, estimates vary, but typically £18-20 billion (Cabinet Office report 2003). The revenue from alcohol (spirits, wine, beer, cider, etc.) is about £8 billion. Clearly, there is a shortfall of £10 billion annually. The obvious solution is to raise taxation on alcohol across the board to 77% in line with tobacco. While it may not be popular, it would curb under-age drinking in the same way that the cost of tobacco has reduced under-age smoking. Having said that, there is the philosophical point regarding the meaning of life. In a post-Christian age, if you can't have a drink and a smoke with the hope of some sex, what is the point of it all?
Dwight Vandryver, Scholar Green, Cheshire, UK
Well said, I totally agree with every word you said, drunkenness should be socially unacceptable and young people should be taught in school and at home about the dangers of alcohol and abusing it and the Goverment should say more about how much it is costing the NHS while some people are on long waiting lists for operations.
Stella, Basingstoke ,
Did your disapproval ever work in the past? Or did it merely make us 'young ones' more determined to become 'glazed'?
I am a19 year old under graduate studying Politics at Kent University in Canterbury and far from being an alcoholic, I merely enjoy going out for a few drinks with my friends four or five nights out of seven. A few of those nights turn into heavy ones, but when it comes down to exams, essays, holding down a job and generally being human, I know where my priorities lie. At my age, I have no responsibilities, no one else to think about, but myself, and no other care in the world other than to have fun; which is, by the way, my main aim in life until I get old enough to have to worry about marriage, a mortgage and heaven forbid, children!
I do work two jobs to live, nothing comes from my average family (my parents aren't divorced, unfortunatley), I got 66% in my last essay and i'm on line to get a 2:1 this year, even on such a diet of booze!
Hannah Pinnock, Canterbury, UK
No its official - there is a parralel universe and I am in it now reading this !!!
Ian Payne, WALSALL,
Good article until your smoking comparison. Moderate drinking is not harmful. Moderate smoking is harmful not only to you, but to others as well, and most especially to children.
V.T., Los Angeles,
Hear hear India Knight. I notice in continental Europe that public drunkenness is still stigmatised and seen as profoundly shameful, not to mention deeply 'uncool', among younger just as much as older people. Thus, although the people of several other European countries actually drink more than the British according to the statistics, you can go out on a week or weekend evening/night in town and city centres there without having to navigate your way past groups of staggering, screeching male and female drunks, knife-wielding inebriated neds (also of both sexes) and pools of vomit - unless the British tourists are in town, of course. About time we introduced or reintroduced some of that much-needed stigmatisation and plain old shame at vile, cretinous behaviour to the UK.
Ruth , Glasgow, Scotland
Oh, my God, I've strayed into the Daily Mail !
Either that or India is getting middle-aged and can't look at life the same way any more.
Clive, Surrey,
Australia is having the same problem with booziness and binge drinking, particularly amongst teenagers and footballers. It has become almost a status symbol, not a label of shame and boring behaviour. While my fellow country men are well known to like a beer or two over a barbie, the availability of grog here is almost 24 hours a day using pathetic excuses such as free choice and need of tourists. However, with so many alcohol incidents in central Melbourne, even the Hotels' Association is calling on changing liquor laws. And many more articles and letters than usual in national papers may be the beginning of change of this bizarre acceptance of knocking back a tinnie or two or ten.
F,. Alexander Jenkins, Melbourne, Australia