Binge Drinking
Posted: Sat 14 October, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts 2 Comments »So I see that the Government is releasing a ‘hard-hitting’ advert to show young people the risks of binge-drinking. Oh dear God, here we go again. Yes, OK, it’s actually quite a strong advert – particularly at the end, where the guy has fallen off the scaffolding, and is just laying there twitching. Will it work? No, almost certainly not.
At the end of the day, there are a couple of things that are actually needed. Adverts about the risks doesn’t come on that list. Neither does the other (incredibly dumb) idea that there should be health warnings on bottles of wine and spirits. Because, let’s face it, if you’re going to try and change the minds of the people who’re seriously binge-drinking, wine and spirits ain’t on the list. It’s beer and the inevitable ‘alcopops’ that appeal to that particular market.
But the two things that are truly needed are :
- A government that doesn’t get involved in all these bollocks sound-bites, and renaming one thing as another. ‘Binge Drinking’ is just the new government/media title for “Getting Pissed”. Binge Drinking? It’s drinking 6 (for women) or 8 units of alcohol (for men) in one session. That’s – um – about three pints of semi-decent lager. Figure it out for yourself. A pint of Grolsch (my preferred ‘general’ beer) is three units. So if I have three pints, I’m a binge-drinker.
- Instill the concept of personal responsibility. I’m sorry, but if you can’t control yourself when you’ve been drinking, and don’t know your own limits, you shouldn’t be fucking drinking. I can understand (to a degree) a one-off “drank more than I usually do” episode. I just truly don’t get the thing about going past your limits and being a twat every weekend. I don’t know, maybe it’s just that I’ve always preferred independent thought instead of caving to peer-pressure.
Personal responsibility is the biggie though. It’s about saying “I’ve made that choice”, rather than absolving one’s responsibility to the power of drink, drugs, whatever. The entire “It’s not my fault, it’s because of x,y and z” philosophy where basically everything is the fault of something else.
Maybe if we started working on that idea, we’d have less issues with ‘binge-drinking’ , addictions, and the like.
Or maybe I’m just full of bollocks. I’m sure you’ll let me know what you think…
The news had some gubbins about the cost to the NHS of the “binge-drinkers” in terms of doctor and nurse time at A&E on a friday/saturday night. Here’s a good one – when you sign in to A&E they have to get your name, address, doctor etc. Why don’t the government start penalising these idiots who want to jump off very tall things while drinking (insert other stpid activity here – fighting etc) and then start charging them more tax from their pay packet. Obviously an actual accident victim might get hit in the pocket too, but why not?
nahh – that’s never going to work.
I suppose the idea of doing an advertising campaign is better than doing nothing at all. Eg “Don’t die of ignorance” was a bit half-arsed and probably not very effective, but people still mention it. An advertising campaign can only really be successful as part of a package, which includes matters such as bar staff not serving people who are drunk, companies not running promotions that are aimed at getting people drunk as quickly as possible and so on.
I agree with the personal responsibility thing but also remember when I was young. Once, as a student, I literally ended up under the table asleep (in the JCR). That was relatively safe, surrounded by friends of varying degrees but in a different context it would be less safe. I once got so drunk that I had to be escorted home by a friend; many of the people with whom I got drunk were councillors. On another occasion, I got so drunk at a Xmas do for councillors that I walked happily around the mean streets at 3 am. I have to say in all honesty, if people (ie me) in that sort of position of responsibility are too thick to take personal responsibility there probably isn’t any hope for the rest…alcohol does that. I’ve changed, because of age, really, and the knowledge that I now need (because of CFS) a week to recover from a session, but I still get pretty drunk on occasion, but that occasion is generally at home, or in a local pub, or at least with my partner and we retain enough judgement to get a black cab home.
But nowadays I have a greater awareness of how drunk I will become if I don’t stop, which I lacked when I used to drink until I was drunk, and then carrie don getting more drunk without any extra being drunk.
I’ve also found that if I drink to excess before and after an opera or concert it affects my ability to remember it, which is frustrating because I am denying myself the pleasure of the memory, so I drink a helluva lot less in those circumstances than I did even a year ago.