what is wrong with us when it comes to drink?

I have travelled all round Europe and parts of America and even further affield but the only place where the city centres are full of drunken trouble makers is the British Isles. Why cant we become more like Europeans who head for some wine drining based around a simple meal with their families and friends at say 8 oclock and sort of sit at the table and just enjoy their company for 4 or 5 hours then go home without bothering people, * everywhere or being really steaming. Why does everyone want to inflict themselves on everyone else within earshot and bother other people. What is wrong with us?

 

yeah i had a bad one
i was in cookstown in ireland and i had quiet alot and i woke up the next morning in some randomers car in cookstown with a big jacket around me not knowing what happened
then i was still cut at this stage so i ran away from there house not saying cheers for probably someone taking me in lol
and had to get my friend to come collect me and him still cut at this stage so he drove me home at 10 miles another so he wouldnt crash basically

 

This bit.

That is what i love most when i go on holidays,especially spain or the islands of it......families out together at 8,9,10pm for a meal and a drink......brilliant.

 

how do you know for certain that the forigners in their countries dont do this also?not all people in other countries are like that you know! we do have people over here that like to do this also but as here and defo for me over there and wherever ! you must get folk that go ott with the drinking also!

 

Thats it in a nutshell for me. It seems to be the cool thing to do wake up and say * I cant remeber a thing. I was interrailing thsi summer and every city was so much more cultured than us and in turn makes it better.

We have to be loud, we have to let people know were drunk, when on holidays it seesm we have to let people know where were from. Ive been guilty of it in the past myself who hasnt but it really does my head in.

 

Thats true mate but the difference in percentage of people who do this in each country is huge, only going by my experiences.

 

Honestly, the difference is like nght and day. There are plenty of people who drink the civilised way in the UK and Ireland and there are probably some bad drunks in Europe but the difference in numbers is incredible. Over the years I have probably spent nearly a year abroad and I have barely seen a single drunk agressive local person there. I know if I went looking for some really scarey bars I could find them but the point is if you are walking around the city and town centres randomly you see nothing. Even places like Holland and Germany where they do drink a lot of beer are pretty much 100% civilised in the town centres.

Why do our young folk so badly want to be off their heads?

Here is another thing - why are so many people out looking for fights. This does not happen much on the continent?

 

fair enough then mate! on your last two lines ther! i think its all about being popular and looking cool as i think someone already said? besides the younger generation are getting there hands on cheap * drink too easily! and you could mention drugs aswell i think!!

 

I was going to suggest Prague and Amsterdam (two places I highly * recommend) but in fairness the drunkenness there is usually British stag do's etc.

 

I think we need to ban mega cheap carry out booze. Most of the problems stem from that kind of drinking. The talk of a minimum cost for booze is interesting. The idea that you earn your right to a few drinks by working and that its therefore a treat that costs a bit of money needs to reappear. Apparenly a bottle of whiskly or vodka cost a big chunk of an average weeks wages some decades back. Its just too easy to get hammered Hammer:icon_mrgreen:

Maybe some sort of ban on superstrength stuff, cheap cider, alcopops etc but the governement do not have the balls. I think some sort of ID card for booze purchase that makes buying booze underage impossible and means every bottle can be traced back to who bought it, to put off older folk buying booze for kids. Maybe a minumum cost for booze of a quid or more per unit of alcohol would limit boozing among the really young and cut it back a bit. That wouldnt effect most beer prices but would kill off the seriously grim cheap stuff that to be honest is what most of the trouble making drinkers drink. It would also kill off happy hours etc.

My old man has it right I think. He says when drink was a lot more expensive relative to wages years ago (the 60s), people used to look on drinking as a treat to save up for and do occasionally not constantly.

Another thing is girls drinking was rare until the late 80s and now they are probably worse than blokes for making an * of themselves on drink. Women's safe maximum is half the amount of alchol as men's medically speaking. I know guys who work in the hospitals who say we are just about to see an epidemic of liver and related illness among young women.

 

Agreed Bob - bang on. It is fantastic to see, and really highlights our own shortcomings....

 

I think the Spanish, French, Germans, Italians, Greeks etc must deep down think we are total scumbags although they do like the money we bring.

Probably the real problem is agressive drunkeness. Personally I just love everyone when I am * and cant imagine wanting to fight anyone ever but you do get a lot of serious tools whose mental issues come tumbling out after a few drinks and are twitching nutters.

 

They should introduce a license to purchase alcohol. Much similar to a driving license.

 

different set of people and cultures! just the way it is and will be im afraid! so how would you change this situation then?

 

The family aspect highlights a big difference too. On the continent, the cafes tables at night all seem to have mum, dad, granny, great granny and a few kids around them or a mix of friends, families, neighbours etc. That set up has a built in monitoring aspect to it. You simply cannot act a complete * in that setup.

In contrast, we tend to go out in pack of people all of the same age (and often same *) into crushed places full of people we do not know, often on a skirt chasing mission. It just doesnt seem to work that way on the continent.

One simple solution to some of these issues is to go to the continental system of tables only, waiter service etc. That gets rid of a lot of the potential for conflict. All this crushed in standing room only is a big problem and again a mainly British Isles (or British Isles abroad) thing. Its oure greed crushing so many in that its stranding and like sardines.

You might say that would cramp your skirt chasing style! However, the way we meet the opposite * cattle market style sort of randomly on a dancefloor where its too loud to talk etc is different from the continent where (so I am told) you usually meet people through a chain of introductions, a system that also help to weed out the dodgier characters who its a bad idea to hook onto.

A defeaning nighclub where you cant actually speak to someone does lets face it wipe out any considerations other than looks so its probably a very bad way of meeting the opposite * and starting relationships. Imagine a nighclub where the numbers are cut in half and its all tables, music volume halved and waiter service for your booze. Still a dancefloor of course. Would that not be better?? Problem is the government would not have the balls to enforce lower numbers and table service.

 

The going out to get out your face is predominantly British and I can't see it changing anytime soon. Putting the price of drink up wouldn't really solve that much as people would simply dodge going out twice or three times a week in favour of once and week and still getting off their faces.

Here it's far different than the UK. Guys don't go to the boozer after work, they go home. If I'm having a bbq, sure I'll have a few beers but never to the point I'm drunk...or rather not *. I don't see the point in it anymore. You only feel like * the next couple of days so nothing good comes from it. If we go out the setting is far more civilised than the UK. As you mentioned gunt, on the continent the focus is on family gatherings where a meal is the central point, followed by a few drinks but never really to excess. I'd say the opposite is in effect in the Uk where people go out solely to drink with the result being far too many drunks in too confined a space...it's a recipe for conflict.

Kids have far too much time on their hands nowadays that drinking is considered de rigeur when there's nothing else to do. The government don't know how to tackle the problem of binge drinking as I don't believe there is an answer to it, short of a complete 180 degree switch in the way people in the UK look at socialising.

Mind you, one look at an A&E department on a Saturday night would surely be enough to put most people off drink for life....maybe there's a lesson to be learnt there.

 

I must say I too noticed it is mostly British and Irish who drink the most (be it in Britain or elsewhere, for example holidaymakers in Greece). I don’t know why. I believe drinking as such is not a bad thing as long as one behaves well, even when having had a drink or two too many. The real problem seems to be binge drinking, especially at a very young age.

Nothing against having a couple of beers or some wine though, especially which a meal. In America they have quite drastic laws. You can get in trouble with the police when drinking alcohol in public. That too is quite strange…

 

My husband, Randy-the-cop, points out that alcohol laws are regulated at state and local levels in the US. With so many students in Boston, public drinking is restricted to private property (bbq fete is no problem), and this has cut down on the number of inebriated kids being hit by cars while trying to cross our busy street.

Erm, he hasn't had any encounters with any Scots/English/Welsh party goers but LOTS of Irish. Distinctives to them apart from other nationalities is that if a fight breaks out and the cops show up, they close ranks to protect the participants, and that after the fight is settled both sides go out for a drink together to discuss it in great detail.

p.s. He also says they stick to fists. There are other groups that go for the knives and then things get ugly.

 

have always thought knives are pure cowardice. Really sad if you want to act the hard man (which is sad enough) but are in reality you are a wee squirt who needs a knife. Why are so many of the would-be hardmen wee runts?