Drunks

PRINTMISS

I can't remember which countries are involved but I can remember a TV programme about countries which have accommodation for drunks and they are taken there by the police.
When they sober up the residents have to pay for their overnight stay and the bill amounted to about £400.
Probably if they get a bill of this size it may stop the people getting drunk in future.

Frank

I think we also have another problem with binge drinking in as much as we see in some areas young women (sometimes girls) roaming the streets after pub hours in very unstable conditions. Keeping up with the boys has become a habit for some, and not very attractive. It does seem odd that this country has this problem, when other countries do not, or do we just not hear about them? A friend of mine used to say that he didn't mind people smoking or drinking, because the tax on these was helping pay his pension, I think that picture has changed, the cost of treating alcohism, and lung cancer must outweigh the tax collected on sales. I like to see people enjoying a drink together, and it is a lovely way to relax, it is such a pity that the those who over-indulge cause problems.

I am puzzled by young people who need to drink a bottle of wine at home before they set out for the evening. I have been told that it is to make them relaxed and give them confidence. When I was a teenager, I didn't need any artificial aids to having a good time, either dancing at the local Palais or roller skating. I didn't go into a pub until I met my husband, and then it was usually when we stopped for lunch on a car rally.
We had come through the war and the austerity years afterwards and lived with the ever-present threat of nuclear weapons.
Before the financial crash, most young people could get a job of some kind, or take higher education.
Why are they so much more 'stressed' today than we were?
And why is this so much more common in the UK? I have never seen young French people slumped on the pavement or vomiting in public.

I did go through some years of heavy wine drinking in my 40s - but I was able to give it up once my life sorted itself out. Now, I am happy to have one glass of wine and water with my dinner. I could not bear to wake up ever again with that dreadful hungover feeling.

I believe some people are more liable to become addicted - I wouldn't call it a personality disorder though, just something genetic linked to their brain chemistry, perhaps. Many people deal with horrendous tragedies, ill-health or financial ruin without turning to alcohol. I wonder what it is that makes the difference?

There is a great difference between actual alcoholism and binge drinking in public places on a Friday night. Challenging the "social" phenomenon of Binge drinking. The we are only having some fun" brigade would be a start.

Serious alcohol addiction is another problem altogether.

My father was an alcoholic and my childhood was a nightmare. However, I would hate to live in a 'dry' country. I like a few glasses of wine myself, hopefully I have never given anyone any trouble. (well not too much anyway)!

A 'personality failing'?

I don't think I'd class it in quite so negative a way...

It was very naive o think that extending opening hours would change British drinking habits! In countries with different drinking attitudes they have bars etc that reflect that culture. There will always be a group of people who cannot go for a drink without getting blotto..whether alocoholic or not. because that is why they go to a pub...not to have 'a drink or two' and a chat to friends but to pack in as many drinks as possible and get pissed!

Unfortunately it is often the continued drinking /being drunk which causes problems and the eventual failing of relationships as well as than people turning to drink because of a relationship failure.
I do not believe that being an alcoholic is an illness but rather a personality failing - as in having an addictive personality.

In yer dreams , i think i have read somewhere , we drink more than any where else in the world.

Oh come on.... !

There is an easy solution. We become a 'dry' country like Saudi Arabia. No alcohol, no problem. Anyone found with alcohol is subject to a public whipping. 100 lashes while handcuffed to a lamp post.

I can remember when I was in Cardiff some drunk climbed up the rugby posts outside the Millennium Stadium and they had to get the fire service to get him down and as a result I along with other people were late for dinner at our hotel and I am sure there were more serious consequences for other people.
I think he should have been made to compensate all the people who were inconvenienced and he certainly should have been made to pay for the cost of calling out the fire brigade.
More seriously that fire engine could have been needed at an incident elsewhere.
I do hope if there was a house on fire for example and a family was in danger this incident would take priority over an idiot who climber up the rugby posts.

Frank

Not all drunks are social misfits to be pitied. Many of them just like to drink and don't care about the effects their subsequent behaviour has on other people.

I agree that the extened pub opening hours has not had the effect it was supposed to have had. The powers that be thought it would spread drinking out more evenly through the day. In fact it just means people can go on drinking all day and most of the night if they feel like it.

Frank I am 99% sure that you have posted on this before, with exactly the same suggestions re. the amount of fine etc.

I am not sure we are talking about the same groups here HUNTERF. I too meet regularly with friends at various water-holes, where both alcohol and non-alcohol drinks may be puchased, and like you we manage to stay sober. The people who lay drunk on the streets, and those who cause trouble when the pubs/clubs turn out at night, have not gone out for a quiet drink with friends, on the one hand they may be addicts, and on the other it may well have become a habit to spend an evening drinking, because that appears to be the done thing and might well lead to addiction. Whatever the reason, it is now recognised as a real problem, which in my oponion could be helped with censuring the opening hours for pubs, etc., and a return to the old licencing laws. But them I am of the old school when getting drunk was not something you did, indeed, it was something we could not afford to do.

PRINTMISS

You said ''Public houses/Clubs remaining open all hours has not helped''.
I am not sure if this is directly responsible for the problem.
I do meet a group of friends for coffee in a Weatherspoons pub some mornings and occasionally a breakfast.
Some do have tea or other non alcoholic beverages.
The group started in the 90's well before my arrival and I have never seen any alcohol consumed by any of the members during that meeting.
I occasionally meet up in the evening with some of these people but again we generally have a pint of Stella or a bottle of wine between 2 or 3 people.
We do of course get the bus home or walk after.

Frank

My daughter worked in a drug/alcohol addiction service. She said many of the alcoholics were affluent, middle-class women who did not work, whose children had left home and who were bored. Many started out having coffee mornings with friends, which gradually became sherry mornings. Their usual response to a gentle suggestion that they might have an addiction problem was that they only drank the most expensive wine!
I see people are still treating Frank's more outlandish and provocative posts seriously, which must cause him a lot of amusement!

All of what has been said is true and sad, and of course we laugh at putting them in handcuffs, etc, but we seem to have allowed this situation to escalate, and now have a real problem on our hands. Addiction brought on by whatever cause is a totally different matter, and addicts should, where possible be given as much help as they will accept. Public houses/Clubs remaining open all hours has not helped, and the ability to purchase alcohol at any time of the day makes getting drunk a matter of course for some people, but no-one seems to have the courage(?) to address these issues.

Of course they wouldn't, jeannie! Well summed up.

It would be impossible to police this, the mechanics of taking samples from every drunk on a weekend doesn't bare thinking about.

Most people who drink so much wouldn't have the funds to pay a £1000 fine.

Frank There are alot of people out there who could never pay fines of the amounts you are suggesting,whilst I feel sad for the children on j08s DGSs
trip out I also feel for the people who are addicted to alcohol etc,and if you do some research you will find a large amount of these (mostly men) come from quite affluent families and another large % are ex-military whose lives have been turned up side down when their family relationships have broken down they have no where to turn so turn to the bottle to help with their emotional pain.

There is that....

And then possibly die of hypothermia...

Hmmm. No! That would look untidy. And they would start yelling and shouting.

I can think of several people to whom I'd like to administer that punishment!