Lifestyle

Fashion

Culture

Books

Relationships

Healthy Living

Gossip

Travel

One Too Many

by Michele Maatouk

With binge drinking constituting a huge problem in the UK, why is it the stigma attached to not drinking is so deep-seated it actually compels barmen to reprimand customers who choose not to consume alcohol?

It seems we have become a people of excess: binge drinking, binge eating, binge exercising, binge shopping...the list is endless

This is exactly what I experienced a few nights ago at a pub with some friends, when upon ordering a couple of soft drinks and a vodka-cranberry I was met with a very sarcastic and quite frankly rude “Wow, you lot are letting your hair down”. It seems by not ordering an alcoholic drink – not an abstention due to religious beliefs, or on moral grounds of any sort, but simply because we didn’t fancy it – my friend and I had vexed the barman.

It is a reflection of a much wider view that people who don’t consume alcohol on a night out are strange beings to be regarded with great caution and distrust. Which made me wonder: why is it anyone who doesn’t drink like a fish is automatically branded a bore or a party-pooper?

If you ask me, it’s those people who always feel the need to get drunk in order to have fun that ought to be considered sad and a little bit uninteresting. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not averse to the occasional pint and packet of cheese and onion, nor can I claim never to have been drunk, or indeed to have done something whilst under the influence that I later regretted, sorely.

And I’m sure most of us have experienced the gut-wrenching consequences of over-drinking: throbbing headaches, spinning rooms, and wasted days lying in bed with the lingering taste of stale vomit in our mouths. But for some people, and increasingly so, this is an all too frequent state of being.

It seems we have become a people of excess: binge drinking, binge eating, binge exercising, binge shopping...the list is endless. And in a culture that centres so heavily on drinking copious and often unhealthy amounts, when downing pint after pint has become integral to our day-to-day lives, how is it possible for us to recognise when we’ve had enough?

Although our consumption is still lower than men’s, our drinking is most definitely on the increase

The problem is more than one of complacency, it is that our drinking has become so widespread and generally accepted it is now harder for us to distinguish between the occasional drink and a dependency. When we can’t perform/function/mingle/impress or even sadder, have a good time without a drink, we have to acknowledge something is wrong.

There’s a kind of all-or-nothing attitude permeating our drinking habits; drinking to get drunk, as opposed to enjoying a drink with a meal. A seemingly very British phenomenon. I have many European and Mediterranean friends who are stunned by just how much drink we Brits are capable of putting away on a night out. And it seems there’s always an occasion to drink.

We drink to celebrate birthdays or new jobs, we drink to unwind, and we drink to forget. We drink for Dutch courage, and we drink to have fun. We drink to experience a heightened and less inhibited version of ourselves. Drink makes us more confident. It makes us more likely to say and do things we wouldn’t necessarily if we were sober. But the alcohol only provides us with a temporary state of happiness – or high, if you like – because the confidence we derive from it is not only fake but more importantly, fleeting.

Occasionally this can be a good thing, but more often than not the repercussions are embarrassment and in more serious cases, brawls, assault and even rape. And then there’s the obvious link between smoking and drinking. With the ban on smoking coming into effect in 2007, perhaps it’s time we took a look at the similarities between the two. By no means am I advocating a ban on drinking, that would be both ridiculous and impossible. I’m simply suggesting that in some ways the effects of the two are alike.

For many of us, drinking and smoking go hand in hand. And although both acts are different, in so much as smoking in a closed space directly and provenly impinges on the health of others, whereas drinking does not, we cannot ignore the fact that the after-effects of over-drinking – not the dancing and singing and harmlessly falling about – but the aggressive behaviour that often ensues one-too-many, can affect the health and wellbeing of others. It’s a well-known fact that alcohol abuse, or misuse, very often causes people to indulge in aggressive, anti-social behaviour – a consequence that cannot be overlooked. Not to mention that in many instances of burglary, street violence and sexual offences, alcohol is a factor.

And I’m not just alluding to men’s behaviour here. Whereas fifty years ago it would have been unheard of for women to go out and get plastered, we are now catching up fast in the drinking stakes. Although our consumption is still lower than men’s, our drinking is most definitely on the increase. In the last ten years binge drinking among British women has risen more than in any other EU country.

Not so long ago, the “ladette” culture was all the rage, with women sinking pints with just as much gusto as their male counterparts and sporting paunches to rival the beer belly of any seasoned male drinker. Today the scene is changing, with the trend shifting towards more “sophisticated” drinks such as Cosmopolitans and Mojitos and with women preferring to drink in bars or over a nice meal in a restaurant.

Nevertheless, we are drinking too much. We need to consider not only the long term damage we are doing to our health, but also the more immediate threat to our own personal safety. When we are drunk, or even just tipsy, we are much more vulnerable to attacks and assaults.