Is cheap booze really the issue?

I still say we need to get to the real reason people feel the need to drink so much and so often.

POGS I think maybe you should have put a after "Maybe Labour will put it in their manifesto, they are obviously all for it or else they would be welcoming the u-turn of the proposal." I don't think that would earn them the votes they need! They are just saying that because they are the opposition [grin}

Just want to say that we went to an engagement party last summer where there was no alcohol at all and we all had a great time!

moved I find that people more and more want 'artisan' drinks offered e.g. some of the lovely lemonades, elderberry presse etc.

gilly TBH I think it's a cultural thing and I don't know how you change that. I don't think there's any deep or hidden reason that people "feel the need to drink so much and so often" (unless of course they're dependent or self-medicating with alcohol - but surely people can't be that unhappy en masse?

All the evidence points to the fact that cheap booze freely available is part of the problem, that and the licensing hours do have an impact. I know my daughter won't go out with a certain group any more because "the offie" is available when they have already had far too much to drink and her nerves can't take the train journey home!

Too often when someone is in court accused of committing a crime when drunk the defence offers this as a mitigating factor - that the behaviour was 'out of characte'r. Why do we not change the law so that committing a crime while under the influernce of alcohol or drugs is seen as an aggravating factor leading to, say, an automatic 10% increase in the sentence, whether fine, community service or prison.

It will bring some people up short when they are sentenced and will at least be a legal recognition that drunkeness is a serious factor in crime.

Recent research shows that drinking among younger people is decreasing overall but people of our broad age range are drinking more, that ubiquitous becoming with measurable affects on our health.

Here's a sobering thought - booze is 45% cheaper, relative to income, than 30 years ago.

Flickety in my experience, being under the influence is an aggravating factor, and alcohol use is often cited as having been used to disinhibit the offender. I remember being in court one morning when a judge said to an offender who had been arrested the night before in the Canal Street vicinity of Manchester, having been involved in an affray - 'I've listened to your claim that you would not have assaulted these youths if you had been sober. I note that, despite your drunken state you managed to avoid falling in the canal! You know that alcohol disinhibits you so that you will seek out vulnerable people to attack. Therefore, I must impose the highest sentence I can. Let that be a deterrent to any other offender, or (fixing the solicitor with a steely eye) any hapless lawyer who thinks that a plea of drunkenness will have sway in my court.' There was a lot of stifled laughter that day

Perhaps parliament should put its own house in order first - I see that an MP has been arrested for brawling in one of the bars there.

Whenim, that is good to hea,r but I think official legislative recognition that drink and drugs aggravate a crime and sentencing recognises this in an increased penalty would help.

Flickety the Sentencing Guidelines allow for aggravating and mitigating factors, so judges and magistrates can impose harsher or more lenient sentences accordingly. This includes drugs and alcohol, along with many other factors like planning/intention, use of disproportionate or gratuitous violence, offending with others, racially or homophobically motivated and so on. Additionally, sentences can include treatment requirements for drugs and/or alcohol, with penalties for non-compliance. The days of offenders being cautioned or treated leniently for being drunk and disorderly, or committing offences whilst under the influence, shoud have gone now. Police do still keep drunks in cells till they have sobered up next morning, then let them go with a stern word if no offence has been committed, otherwise they'll charge them and produce them at the magistrates court.

Many years ago I read that you cannot be made to do anything out of character under hypnosis. If this is true is it the same if under the influence of alcohol or drugs?

Movedalot Being under the influence of alcohol of drugs is quite different from having been hypnotised. Someone who is very drunk, for example, may not even been aware of what they are doing and someone under the influence of some drugs may hallucinate and their actions be a response to the hallucination rather than the reality of whatever situation they are in.

But Absent do they do things out of character?

I would say so, yes. As alcohol is a disinhibiter, one's natural sense of caution and/or 'rightness' could be all but removed after drinking a lot. I dare say most men who urinate in public places when drunk wouldn't dream of doing it when sober.

Thanks Ana. I was wondering because I have experience of one alcoholic and he didn't, as far as I know, do anything out of character. He didn't get violent and didn't steal for his addiction. Yes, he fell over and hurt himself but never hurt anyone else and never got in trouble with the police.

My ex H's family all tended to get a bit nasty when they had had a few drinks. Were they "out of character" or "revealing their true natures" I wonder.

I suppose there are happy drunks and miserable drunks , sad for people who have to put up with miserable drunks .

Yes, good points Moved and Jess. As for serious crimes such as GBH and murder, I suppose some would say we all have it in us to commit such acts but most of us don't. So although it might be 'in our nature' we don't behave violently towards others because we know it's wrong, and we know the likely consequences of our actions. Someone in a drink or drugs-fuelled rage wouldn't have such inhibitions.

I am lucky , If Mr N partakes of drink he just gets silly and laughs a lot , even more than usual , if that is possible.

I think that 24 hour opening and wider off-licence sales have aggravated the problem- that plus the British mentality. We do not have a relaxing lunchtime petit vin rouge/blanc.We see, I think predominantly younger drinkers, but not exclusively - the worse for wear from late morning onwards, lads with a few (!) cans in the train or swigging them in the street. The Brits are binge drinkers by nature, and I am afraid the further north you go the worse it gets. Availability has not meant more measured drinking. "Getting trollied/off your face/bladdered" is a thing of pride among sectors of the population and I do not think the economic situation can be used as an excuse either.

Who can we blame for 24 hour drinking ? AH , Teflon , we are not as a nation a cafe society , we have not got the weather for starters . We as a nation drink more per head than any other country.

I have always thought that people's true character came through when they'd had a few. I used to be flirtatious ; ex used to be maudlin and self-pitying. Both sons become very amiable and affectionate!

Anno does this poem describe you "in drink" ?

"I wish I could drink like a lady.
I can take one, or two at the most.
Three puts me under the table,
And four puts me under the host."

Probably by Dorothy Parker.

I discussed this with DH this morning and we decided that people only become what they really are when under the influence. He simply talks utter rubbish and I fall asleep, yes, both in character!

I agree people use it to block out feelings worry and unhappiness and it gets a terrible grip on them, there should be more education on the dangers of alcohol and drugs, I think alcohol is the worst as it is so easily available. Price change wont stop alcoholics

They have black outs and have no memory of what they said or did when drunk, I have first hand experience of this and I'm going through this nightmare with my son, who is going through a divorce