This is the thread where (especially UK ILXors) talk about BINGE DRINKING.

I suspect it's the fallout of "just say no" campaigns that have no information for kids other than meaningless "drugs are bad" statements

Its not great and I blame, in the main, cheap sugary alcopops and beer that has been creeping up in strength and loosing any last vestiges of flavour.

A man in a car pulled up beside me and started asking me questions and at first I thought he was asking directions (he was speaking Japanese, so I can't be totally sure). I was a little sketched out, so I lied and said in Japanese that I didn't understand and I was going to my boyfriend's house nearby. He said OK, and goodbye, and went to shake my hand (which lots of people do here randomly because I'm foreign), at which point he tried to pull me into his car.

I don't think this was very cool at all. But I don't think there's anything wrong with me getting smashed on a Saturday night with friends, and I think this asshole would have tried his stunt whether I'd been drinking or not.

Anytime you have a few, your judgment and reactions will be impaired; its just a matter of degree. Try to be reasonable, avoid stupid situations, and then just live your life because smart, sober, modestly dressed women get raped all the the time too and you can't spend every goddamn minute second-guessing yourself.

Now city centre pubs are owned by entertainment companies they want to make money by any means. Couple that with a nee in the early 90s to compete with E and you get vile cheap to make, brightly coloured, sugared booze and then pile this high and sell it cheap.

yes, no, yes, no, no.

I don't buy the notion that UK drinkers were more restrained before the big bad PubCos and alcopops appeared on the scene. They may have exacerbated things but Wetherspoons etc would never have prospered if there hadn't been a considerable market for them there in the first place. It strikes me as a bit of a convenient scapegoat - Wetherspoons would never work in, say, Italy, would they?

I am minded to link this piece by Dave Q.

Anyway, in answer to (some of) the question: I do drink quite a lot (hence my cocktail-induced hangover today) and it tends to be in a binge style, at least partly because I tend to be out in pubs with a large proportion of blokes in the group, and hence the round system gets you into a steady pattern of fast (for me) pint drinking. However, this social setting also means that the group disperses at the same regular time, and there are pretty invariably other people going my way home, so I don't find myself particularly vulnerable. Also I can hold my drink, ho ho.

However, if going out to a more traditionally sexually predatory venue, I'm certainly more choosy about what I drink and how I behave. This is a reaction to a couple of mildly unpleasant experiences while a cheap-drunk student. And even the drunkest girl surely knows by now not to take a dodgy mini-cab ride alone (or at all, preferably).

wait, so when you go out drinking with your friend, and she may or may not have pulled and they're going home you'd go and break them up?

As for binge drinking itself - it's the only way I drink. I have a young family and don't have the 5-7 nights a week social life I used to have, so any chance to go out usually results in "WOW! I'M OUT! LET'S GET FUCKING HAMMERED!"
I've yet to wake up on the couch at 4am with my wife ravishing me :-(

xpost

hem hem xpost but it's kind of funny

I am one of the least sensible drunks I know, especially with regard to what happens between the pub and my bed. Particularly memorable events have involved trying to pay a white van driver a fiver to take me from the station to my flat, going off to the other side of London with random strangers met at night bus stops, falling asleep on numerous bus routes and getting into all sorts of dodgy cabs. I'm frankly amazed this hasn't got me into more trouble than it actually has, but if I were female I think I'd probably be dead by now.

i've pretty much stopped drinking this year, much prefer being stoned and hate the hangovers, and i ain't too haelth-conscious diet wise and it wasn't doing me any good. also, i noticed booze was just making me tired and miserable. fuck that. but being out sober is a really fucking horrible experience sometimes. drunk people are a fucken mess on that train ride home, and behave like idiots at a moment's encouragement. i don't mean to be getting remotely judgemental like this, but, yes, not getting fucked up and then having to negotiate a possibly-dangerous journey home is now a part of why i don't really drink anymore.

Oh, holding someone's hair out of the way of a chunder is part of friendship. I don't mind that. What I minded was that our friends had gone AWOL on checkout day, their phones had died, so we had to basically pack all their shit, fight with the hotel about checkout, involve 10 other people to find them and when we did they were 10 miles in the other direction, five pills, countless spliffs and howevah lines later. Fucked was not the word. All to be told to chill out and that they would have done the same for us. If I had not been so uh mellow myself I think I would have EXPLODED with rage. There are some things people don't have to do for me because I'd never be so inconsiderate as to put them in that position.

The summer before last a friend was out drinking with her friend, and the two women invited a guy they met back with them to my friend's house. Nonresident girl made her excuses and left after an hour, even though asked to stay by my friend. The guy dosed my friend's drink at her own house, raped her after she passed out and ran off with her laptop. Although later found to be known to the police for doing exactly this, the guy was not prosecuted by the CPS because it would really have been her word against his re. both rape and theft. What I cannot believe is her 'friend' leaving her there with a strange man.

Also I think the general idea that you are going out to get blootered as an end in itself lowers the threshold for the kind of madness that people get up to whilst doing it. I'm not sure why this is, but I think it's real.

I don't think they are the root cause of the problem, they've kust helped unleash the beast of our North European drinking heritage, bottled up for so long.

I can hear Dr. C reciting this in the voice of Ted Maul

However, there is the inarguable fact that not being in good control of yourself puts you more at risk. This isn't just about women or just about rape - you're surely an easier target for all sorts of things if you are helplessly drunk or stoned or whatever. You won't be as capable of making sound decisions. This probably makes rape more likely - an easier-looking target, harder to resist effectively, maybe even harder to make objections known, therefore easier for the rapist to avoid facing the fact that they don't have consent. It's wise for all these reasons to only get drunk when you have friends who can offer some real protection from all these risks.

I can't see how you can generally expect friends to stop you taking someone home or going back to their place when you seem to have pulled - maybe if you seem too hopelessly drunk to make a decision, but that's a very hard call to make and risks damaging a friendship, and often your friends will be equally drunk anyway. For what it's worth, I don't think I'd ever have sex with someone for the first time when they were very badly drunk, because I wouldn't be comfortable with the idea that they properly wanted it.

I'm not convinced that drunkenness is more prevalent nowadays. I'm old enough to have been getting drunk in the '70s, and I haven't noticed any great increase in the decades since. xpost: My experience and Dr C's seem to differ. I remember when I was 16 (1975-76) we were regularly going out to get pissed.

(that's not to say the French have no problem with alcohol, because drink driving is a much worse problem in France. In Normandy on a Saturday night, you'd be hard put to find anyone behind the wheel who's not over the limit).

I'm not convinced. I remember, growing up 10 years ago, there were several clubs in the centre of one of the local towns which would be filled with 14 and 15 year-olds, several nights of the week.

I haven't read the whole thread, but stop me if this has been said before...

Britain has the longest working hours and the shortest drinking hours in Europe.
I clock off between 5 & 6pm and go home. If I plan to go out there is little time to eat and often dinner on a Friday night is rushed and frugal. With time taken up to ring friends, shower and get into me glad rags, I'm lucky to be out the door before 8.30pm, and of course walking to the pub or even taking a train to another town to drink then by the time I am there it is 9 or 10pm. If the bar is rammed when I get there then I will by two drinks to save me going back. With barely an hour and a half to get that "Friday feeling" I attempt to force three or four pints down my neck before last orders. As everyone knows, this is not only disgusting and very bad for you but also increases the chances of sudden drunkenness - but everyone in the UK does this.
If pubs were allowed to open only a bit later LIKE EVERYWHERE ELSE IN EUROPE, then maybe people wouldn't feel forced to binge drink and instead take a little while between sups. But no - instead of opening up opportunities, the government put up barriers in the hope to discourage binge drinking. It's typical of the British way really same way as when the town centre's getting too congested they make the roads thinner so people can't park. Even in the US, pubs and bars are allowed to stay open till around the 2am mark.
I first noticed the drinking culture in Britain on one of my first days at uni. Having been a poor school kid, trips to the pub would involve nursing one or two pints in the whole night as that's all I could afford. We went to the uni bar and I bought a pint, drank it slowly, then finished. Five minutes later some guy I Knew came up and asked "Where's your drink?"
"I finished it"
"Well get another one then!"
Now this guy was a bit of a prick, but looking around I realised that everyone in the bar either had a drink in their hand or were queueing to get one.
It's high time the government rewarded us for our long working hours by extending our play hours too by giving all pubs longer licensing hours. Then maybe people will be less encouraged to treat Friday night like a drink-sport and then pile out onto the streets as an angry disappointed rabble who've got nothing else to do but fight, grope and get drugged up.

i know what you mean, but wit struck me that the experience you were describing there -- i haven't had it since i was at school. i spose i really don't get out much, especially not on fridays, and not to pubs. because on a friday night you're hard-pressed to get a seat, it's noisy, there are lots of beery people about, etc. i don't think people would be more rational if they were given more time to drink: everyone's on such a death-trip.

Licensing laws are being relaxed in the next couple of years btw Doglatin.

WHY do people in Britain like going out and getting REALLY pissed, Matt?

'cos living here fucking sux?

X-post, ditto Dadaismus. Life is what you make it. < /talk talk>

HKM OTM though. It's a good thing they actually are relxing the licensing laws. 11:15pm is a ridiculous time to expect people to go home and go to bed on a weekend. For fuck's sake, we've been working our arses off all crapping week surely we're allowed a bit more than 2 hours to have fun and see our friends? Aren't these laws a throwback from the war or something?

In Europe people are able to get home, relax, eat a meal around eight or nine in the evening, maybe even later, and then go out about ten or eleven - the same time as we're supposed to be yawning, finding the designated driver and toddling off back to our homes like good little robots.

I think it's very sad that people work so hard during the week that all they can look forward to at the weekend is getting mashed.

OTM.

American drinking culture, particularly among young people, has been about getting really, really hammered for as long as I can remember. As a result, all of these issues have been floating around also for as long as I can remember. Thinking that this is a meathead jock issue that only happens in certain contexts is pretty much putting yourself on the express train to getting raped by a nerdy chem major who makes homemade roofies.

xpost

No, they go out at 10.30 and get hammered in the early hours of the morning instead.

you don't have to see your friends at a pub you know ;)

xpost

But hasn't American drugs culture amongst young people been bolstered thanks to the high age restriction laws on alcohol? It's probably easier for a 16 year old to score some acid then a keg of beer, so I hear.

obv

People who say it's easier to get acid than beer are posers trying to make themselves look cool.

Where? Not my house. There aren't any decent clubs near me. Sometimes there's a house party but if they get too noisey then the cops get called. And then a bunch of pious councillors and local journalists start getting uppity about the fact their "once beautiful town" is being wrecked every weekend by drunkards.

I know American beer is weak shit but this is ridiculous.

i was thinking a nice dinner party at home, followed by maybe sharing a bottle of wine and watching some TV in a civilised, non binge drinking way!

And it sounds a bit like it's more a problem with you living somewhere with not very good clubs than licensing law!! (i'd like to see it changed though but it's because i'm a drunkard)

time for dat shit when i'm old. (and own my own house).

And it sounds a bit like it's more a problem with you living somewhere with not very good clubs than licensing law!! (i'd like to see it changed though but it's because i'm a drunkard)

Small towns can't accomodate excellent clubs for every music taste. They do have room for decent licensing hours though.

RIGHT I'M REALLY GOING NOW!

i've always thought about starting some kind of "club" which charges £3 to get in but inside is actually just a regular pub but opens til 3am or something. Has this been done before? Like a legal lock-in.

They're a throwback to World War One, indeed.

there is absolutely no way this is true. it's probably even easier for a 16 year old to get alcohol than cannabis, at least in leafy suburbs. ie rob their parents.

Oh shit! I just realised I meant to say US, not UK. My apologies for any WTFness.

i'd imagine that in the US if you wanted a few cans of beer you can get it easier than acid, too. but a keg is a lot of beer.

Japan (where I live) has a lot of binge drinking. Train stations on Friday nights are littered with people being sick, friends carrying friends home, etc. But fights are almost unheard of. They simply don't happen. Vandalism is the same. Date rape may be a different matter (I'm not sure).

My point is that being drunk doesn't have to equal bad behavior.

Why do drunk people in the UK (and the US, often enough) act like boors when they have a few too many? It's not just the alcohol and drinking habits of people; it's the culture of aggression.

Then the ass starts something and peace-loving people get drawn in because their judgment is impaired.

Like Dan's example. (not knowing the details)

i just ate some liver sausage in the hopes that this will make me all okay again.

might have to not drink for a few days..............

A London hospital says there can be no exceptions to its rule that liver transplants are only provided to patients who are alcohol-free for six months, despite a plea from a Co Down man whose son’s liver failed after a drinking binge.

Building contractor Brian Anderson has appealed to King’s College Hospital in London to perform a liver transplant on his son, Gareth (19), who was admitted to the Ulster Hospital in Belfast just over two weeks ago after a weekend binge.

Mr Anderson from Newtownards went on the Stephen Nolan Show on BBC Radio Ulster and also spoke to The Irish Times urging the hospital to make an exception to its rule.

“I need a life saved here urgently,” said Mr Anderson who fears his son will not survive for six months.

Gareth’s doctor Tony Tham said the Ulster Hospital again contacted King’s College Hospital yesterday but was told there could be no exceptions and its protocol could not be changed.

“There are many patients of all ages waiting for liver transplants. Livers are a scarce resource and demand exceeds supply. Liver transplants in certain settings associated with alcohol are risky and have a poor outcome,” he said in a statement yesterday.

.......

The boy's father said Gareth started drinking at 16 but his alcohol intake was no different than other people his age. Mr Anderson said young people drank too much.

“It was a trend when I was young too; so you know, boys do party, girls do party,” he said.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0821/1224253026787.html

I could understand if it were like an adult, but as if a teenager could forsee fucking liver failure.

Odds that within the week this comes up as a topic in the U.S. health care debate? Anyone?

kid coming home drunk from the age of 15, dad pretty blasé about this in radio interviews.

i can still see the POV of having this regulation though- lots of people want/need liver transplants, long waiting list, etc. hard to see someone jump a line ahead of you because they abused themselves to this extent this early in their lives.

The dad's gonna have to go before the death panel, cap in hand.

they abused themselves to this extent this early in their lives.

Yeah, but he's a kid. Not legally, but 19 year olds are practically babies!

yeah, i can't find a pic online but he looks younger tbh. and yellower.

Not that the article itself is putting too much spin on it, but aren't KCH just saying "you can't jump the queue and it might be too risky at this stage anyway"? Could you not just write a corresponding article about the guy who was denied the liver transplant he was due because they let a drunk teenager push in front of him?

I mean presumably it would be the Daily Mail writing that article but still.

Ideally it would be a retired brigadier being denied a liver transplant so they could save the life of an immigrant teenager who got drunk celebrating how easy his A-levels had been.

Yeah, but he's a kid. Not legally, but 19 year olds are practically babies!

Well, it was the parents' responsibility to step in. They didn't and now the son pays the price. There is alcohol abuse here, not some genetic disease or something similar. Choices have to be made, as hard it is.

Ideally it would be a retired brigadier being denied a liver transplant so they could save the life of an immigrant teenager who got drunk celebrating how easy his A-levels had been.

you can see the editorial meeting- "yeah, but what's our angle"

hmm. the hospital's position is looking more reasonable by the minute.

BINGE DRINK TEEN LEFT HOSPITAL BED AND WENT TO PUB

By Ian Graham, Press Association

A critically ill teenager being treated for liver failure after binge drinking left his hospital bed and went to the pub opposite for a drink, it was revealed today.

While the father of 19-year-old Garath Anderson fights to overturn NHS guidelines which mean his son has to be alcohol free for six months before getting a liver transplant, a publican confirmed he went to her pub last Wednesday looking for a pint.

He was still in his slippers and with the needle from a drip in his hand.

Staff in the Old Moat Inn opposite the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald on the eastern outskirts of Belfast refused his order, gave him a coke, alerted the hospital and took him back.

The teenager from Newtownards, Co Down was transferred to Kings College Hospital in London on Friday and doctors have told his father, Brian, he could have as little as two weeks to live.

An exasperated Mr Anderson said: "I don't know what he was thinking about, I don't think he knows.

"He said 'I don't know why I did it, I just walked out and walked across to the pub'."

He said his son first told him he had a coke, but when pressed admitted trying to order alcohol first.

"I said 'What were you thinking about son' and he said ' I don't know, I just don't know'."

Mr Anderson said he was trying to get his son psychiatric help.

"I don't know what is going on in his head, he needs mental help as well."

Old Moat Inn manager Lorraine McMillan said : "He walked into the bar on Wednesday and the staff immediately recognised he was from the hospital - he had a needle in his hand, was wearing slippers and was still wearing his hospital name band.

"He was very young and didn't look very well. He asked for a pint or possibly a vodka. He was refused a drink and he said that was OK he would take a coke.

"I contacted the hospital and one of the staff walked him over and he was met at the door."

She said patients sometimes came in and the pub had a policy of never giving them alcohol in case it interfered with their treatment.

The incident last week came before Mr Anderson finally told his son that he could be dead in a couple of weeks unless he got a liver transplant. He has since sworn never to drink again.

Garath suffered acute liver failure earlier this month after drinking 30 cans of lager on a weekend binge-drinking session and had to be rushed to hospital.

Although it is common medical practice in the UK to insist that liver patients whose conditions are linked to alcohol abuse go without a drink for six months before going on the transplant waiting list, it is only a guideline and not a formal rule.

Mr Anderson insists the policy should apply to older patients with chronic alcoholism, not a teenager who has never before needed medical treatment for a drink related illness.

He plans legal action to get the rule overturned. He was expected to launch a judicial review in the High Court in Belfast this week, but may now have to take the legal action in London following his son's transfer to King's College Hospital.

Mr Anderson, who has been at his son's bed side almost constantly since he was admitted to hospital, said he was undergoing a liver biopsy later today as doctors continue to assess his condition.

yes, yes it does. feel sorry for the dad, but jesus as a doctor with that decision to make i wouldn't be going near him.

Garath suffered acute liver failure earlier this month after drinking 30 cans of lager on a weekend binge-drinking session and had to be rushed to hospital.

oO 30 cans? WTF.

He was still in his slippers and with the needle from a drip in his hand

It's interesting to know that there is a point when even pubs won't act as facilitators.

okay that is crazy

also I don't buy the "he's a teenager" defense at all but that's just because I was precocious.

Garath suffered acute liver failure earlier this month after drinking 30 cans of lager on a weekend binge-drinking session and had to be rushed to hospital.

oO 30 cans? WTF.

not that I've ever downed 30 cans but it's not that much is it, if you were out for long enough? I am positive I have a few friends who've downed an entire crate of cans over a sustained period of time.

myself on a really huge session rolling into 24 hour long maybe would have that much, tho those sort of sessions are rare.

obv leaving the hospital is fucking mental.

It's not that much over a sufficiently-long period of time, but in order to come close to that in a reasonable amount of time I'd have to consume quickly enough that puking would become a factor well before alcohol poisoning.

I get pretty drunk after about 6 drunks, and of my peer group, I'm the one usually the most sober enough to walk everyone else home. So 30 drinks in 1 night is fucking mental.

Yeah obv if you hammered that amount into it's a massive issue. I guess my point is it must be hard and unusual to alcohol poison yourself with beer.

x-post everyone is different and it's weird the way it hits. when I was unemployed and I was drinking v regularly I noticed I was getting drunk more easily but would pretty much stay at one level for ages.

It was over a weekend, not one night. Not that I'm excusing it, but it's perfectly doable.

over a weekend? yeah same, can't defend it in the cold light of day but ffs people bring 48 cans to a festival or whatever all the time.

yeah, clearly his liver was already shot.

30 cans is a big night by any standard but not uncommon in this part of the world, hell Ive had mates whose claim to fame rested on their ability to knock back 24 cans during a rugby match, and still kick on to town.

yeah bigtime, some people are total machines. does eating play a role in this? he should have had a healthy batter burger packed full of vitamins and iron.

Pints should have been Guinness, that's like a meal in itself. It's good for you! Toucans say so, and they know what's what.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/39/78010110_0328b66c2b.jpg

he should have had a healthy batter burger packed full of vitamins and iron.

^why I love ilx

guys you are making light of a very serious issue.

30 cans over a weekend doesn't seem that much. I think the most beer I ever drank in a night was 26 bottles of Stella. My poor liver :'-(

thread about take a "braggin about our most disastrous alcohol consumption" turn. excellent!

two naggins of vodka in a night when i was 17 and they were there. learning curve.

oh actually probably more alcohol consumed the night i drank a 2 litre bottle of frosty jacks, 6 cans of stella and a half bottle of grouse. Pretty much blacked out for about 12 hours and I believe pissed myself.

Are you people all like 6'10 285lbs or something? If I drank ten beers in one night I would probably die.

downed pint of vodka on a bet the week before. i never got round to calculating which was worse, tbh.

's ok though, i had my liver replaced by some mug a year later YAAAAH

I think I drank five or six pints of Stella and a double whiskey on an empty stomach when I was a teenager, and then kung-fu kicked somebody in the face in a bad nightclub. It was a guy I knew, and I was really annoyed at him for not talking to me afterwards.

While we're braggin', 30 pints in a weekend is a piece of piss, or at least it was when I was 19, if I do that now I get awful pains in my kidneys for a few days. That's probably not a good sign.

That kid's a lightweight.

oh yeah, absolutely. darwinism at its best, i say.

i mean, if he started at 5pm on friday, and we'll give him until say 3am on Monday morning, how many per hour is that? a half pint?

I always used to hear the story that you only need one glass of orange juice, two glasses of milk and 47 pints of Guinness to get your entire nutritional requirements for a day. Anyone up for trying it?

i tried, doctor, but i hadn't room after drinking the bath etc

While we're braggin', 30 pints in a weekend is a piece of piss, or at least it was when I was 19, if I do that now I get awful pains in my kidneys for a few days. That's probably not a good sign.

That kid's a lightweight.

― someone who is ranked fairly highly in an army of poo (Colonel Poo)

Mmmm, kidney pains. Only time I've ever had them was a couple of years ago: I had about 5 pints on Thursday, maybe 7 on the Friday , and then at least 10 over the course of Saturday. I felt really rough on the Sunday, but it wasn't until Monday that I noticed I had pains where my kidneys are.

Bit of a reminder that I'm in my thirties, not my twenties any more!

Not drunk that much over a 3 day period since.

oof, I had those kidney pains when I was in the UK on a business trip 2 years ago; it was kind of terrifying and def. slowed down my alcohol consumption

I have some soreness in my kidneys/lower back every morning when I wake up, but I've always assumed it was from drinking water or tea before bed and having to hold it until morning. Happens whether I've been on a boozer or not. Iiiiinteresting.

Definitely get that checked out if I were you.

i mean it took george best 30 to 40 years of serious drinking before he had to get a transplant. 30 cans (yeah a lot, but) over a weekend doesnt seem an outrageous amount.

What if it was 30 cans of tennants super?

Or the legendary Crest Super for that matter.

If it was 30 bottles of Ace cider I'd be impressed.