Binge Drinking

To start with: I don't drink much. I'm not saying I only have a couple when I'm out, I'm saying I have about one alcoholic drink per month (if that). I know I've gone for a least 4 months without bothering. I personally cannot see the attraction at all.

This makes binge-drinking somewhat of a mystery to me. Why do people do it? From my perspective, I can only see that it makes you look completely ridiculous and a bit disgusting while you're still conscious. It means your friends are obliged to look after you. You can't remember anything you've done the night before (so why did you do it if you don't get to keep the memories of it?), and it makes you violently ill. People can die from things like choking on their vomit, and I know it's possible for people to swallow their tongue while unconscious. It causes long term liver damage as well.

I say this as someone who has had to confiscate car keys off drunken friends, pick them up off the floor when they've landed on their face, and humour them when they decide we should sit in the shower cubicle together and sing show-tunes at God knows what time. Hey, a humoured drunk is better than one who is crying over his ex-girlfriend to me.

Looking it up, there seems to be no hard and fast rule as to what binge-drinking technically is, but I did find this as regards the UK:

"A popular 'definition' of binge drinking in the UK is the consumption of 50% or more of the recommended maximum weekly number of units of alcohol in 'one session', e.g. one night out. Thus, for a male the consumption of 4 pints of 5% ABV beer/lager would constitute 'binge drinking' (11.36 units of alcohol out of a maximum weekly total of 21), and for a female the consumption of 3 large glasses of white wine...would again be classified as binge drinking (9 units out of 14)."

I don't think I've ever come close to my maximum weekly total, ever. Plus, I hate wine. Looking more closely at the medical implications of binge drinking, I see that it's actually possible to have a ruptured bladder, because a drunk unconscious person doesn't feel that they need to urinate. That's if the body doesn't accidentally wet itself first, you see.

Why do we find this an attractive past-time in the UK?

I think we need to adopt the French approach to alcohol. They are allowed booze at an equally early age, but consume it slowly over the course of a meal. Similarly, they eat very slowly too, which allows them to feel when they're full - that's why you don't get many fat people in France, instead of in the 'fast food' culture of the USA.

An interesting read is Jeremy Clarkson's take on all this, in his Times Column. He's not one to not have an opinion after all, and I find I most definitely do not agree with him.