It's official: Britain is a country of drunkards!

Well I live in the UK but also travel extensively throughout the rest of Europe with my job - and I see it as a much bigger problem here in UK than elsewhere, especially amongst the younger people. In my opinion, the problem seems to be that there is a culture here that says you have to get drunk to have fun, so people tend to go out with the express intention of getting drunk, as opposed to going out with their friends and just having a few drinks along the way but not enough to get paralytic. As a woman in my 40's (yes that old!) I remember going out every night of the week when I was at Uni but I never got drunk....... I was quite happy going to the pub or a nightclub or to watch a live band, having a couple of drinks, and then going home again quite happy and having had a great night out. And young frinds of mine in France, Italy an Spain for example still seem to do the same. But here I constantly hear young girls at work planning to get "plastered" before they go out and openly admitting they got so drunk the night before they don't know what they did or who they did it with. They seem to actually enjoy throwing up and having a hangover which is totally beyond me. To me the loger hours seem to have made it worse too - I would happily walk alone through some European cities at night - but I would never do it here because of the drunks everywhere. It is sad and I really don't have a solution.

Hi It is a problem! I used to have my own taxi back in '91 and at "thowing out time" about 11.20 - 11.30 there would be so many people on our taxi rank that we could not move them fast enough!! The majority were Drunk! This obvioulsy caused fights, because the 20 or so taxi's in the town could not get rid of the people fast enough, and arguments progressed to fights! We mentioned this to the town council, and the Police, and said that if it was possible to "stagger" the "throwingout time" it would help the problem! The Majistrates agreed, and for the next few years some pubs closed at 12.00 and the fights stopped nearly over night! When the new law came into force that allowed "24 hour" drinking, there were three pubs who applied for the licence. After two months, there were not enough people in the pubs after 1am in the morning to make it a "viable" proposition to "Stay open" and so now, all the pubs here close at 11.30 with the exception of the three who stay open to 12.30 These three also now have "happy hours" whereby from 5.30 in the evening until 7.30 in the evening drinks are half price! There are no more than a hand full of people in them!!!! The problem IS IN THE HOURS OF DRINKING, however, people finish work at lets say 5pm in the evening, get home, have dinner, shower, and get ready to go out. If they are lucky they can be out "on the town" by lets say 7 - 7.30pm They have to be home so that they can go to work the next morning, so lets say 11.30 - 12.00 During the week, in our town at least, there is not a lot of bother with "binge drinking" The few that are, are on the "Social" and have nothing else to do but to get pissed! At the weekend..... The three pubs do a lot better trade!!!

We have the same problem in Ireland. Also in Ireland the rate of young women drinking to excess is increasing dramatically. Drunkedness is not nice to see but I think there is something very sad about seeing women falling around drunk. Perhaps here in Ireland it used to be the "norm" to see the men out in the pubs more than the women but thats not the case anymore.

in india it is better than what you told.people generally becomes more or less harmless after they are drunk.the police are never worried about anything here ,hehe.thanks

What about Ireland? And those dang Brits! Not only are they drunkards, they are also guilty of having yellow teeth! Wait, maybe they have yellow teeth because they drink so much? Anyway, I applaud the efoorts to try and get drinking down, but it doesn't seem to have worked. Now they just have longer to drink harder!

As an Aussie, I doubt if we have any moral high horse on the subject ourselves. Our drunks are at least as obnoxious as any. They're also one of the ingrained stains on Australian society, useless since the First Fleet, at least. However- a lot of expat and visiting Poms do seem to have the shudders about the state of British society these days. I gather the violence and the abusive relationships and general deterioration of the archetypal British restraint are pretty much loathed.

Well, I bet there are some people in the UK saying, 'Thank God we're number 1 in the world at *something* again!'

thx to this information.. its very important to know about history and reallity

So they called HOLLIGANSS

i am from the uk and i dont really drink and none of my friends really do either but i have seen the programmes saying we are a nation of alchoholics i am sure the info is right but i just cant see that we are the worst surely the rest of the world enjoys a tipple like most brits do ?

Try to look at some african country. They are not have time to think about drinking. Most important think for them is how they can eat today. We should shame on it. I'm Asian. And i sometimes get drunk. Damn!! Shame on me!!

Britain is a multicultured country. Also there is a lot of late night partying in major cities of Britain. So it is obvious that Britain is a country of drunkyards.

this problem is common to every country rich or poor . in my country india this is a common problem with daily wage workers who waste their earning for drinking and leave their families in hunger. but this is only in case of men . wemen here are quite unintrested or uninvolved in such extreme habits as per the culture as economic aspects

no.its a big problem in most of the countries. people now a days celebrate a festival with lots of drink

thanks for your information

drinking is ok as long as the person does not violate a law...

well.. well well....

Thanks for your information. I also think that britain is country of drunkards.

also in italy the drinking is a big problem, beacuse lot of teenager drink very bad and frequently