Binge Whinge

I caught the second half of a great program on BBC3 last night - I don't remember what it was called. The premise was that the presenter, a thirty-something single mother, would attempt to binge drink for a month, and see what happened.

When I came in, she had already started, so I had to pick up the threads as it went along, but it was riveting nonetheless. She had found two binge-drinking mates, a student nurse and a young PA, both of whose lives were incomplete if they didn't go out at least five nights a week and drink ten pints of lager, several alcopops and sundry other disgusting-looking things.

I pitied the poor camera operator, who had to remain sober throughout, presumably. And the reporter's three children, who couldn't understand why mummy was so crabby in the mornings. Top marks goes to the doctor she approached to monitor her health throughout the experiment. He flatly refused, saying the whole thing was unethical and she shouldn't do it.

Then there was the nutritionist who warned of middle-body fat, or spare tyre to you and me, And said she shouldn't do it.

And the beautician, who harped on about dry, spongy, leathery skin. And said she shouldn't do it.

But most fascinating of all were the other women binge drinkers. Apparently it's normal for twenty-plus year old women to drink more than the recommended weekly amount of alcohol in one night, then do it all again the next, and the next, ad infinitum. I was astonished, looking at these otherwise normal women. I couldn't drink that much and stay upright. How the hell do they do it night after night?

The whole show was played slightly tongue-in-cheek, and our intrepid reporter interviewed various people from the drink-manufacturing industry in a wonderfully irreverent manner. Particularly good was the look on the face of the alcopop manufacturer as he watched her neck a bottle of orange juice flavoured vodka. Then another. He must have been drinking too, as by the end of that interview he was certainly half-cut.

Another industry luminary, from Diageo if memory serves, manfully tried to carry on answering the question as the reporter glugged down a bottle of their new 'low-sugar' schnapps in front of him. All very good fun.

But there was a serious side to the whole thing, and we had the obligatory scenes from A&E, policemen outside pubs and politicians trying to justify extended opening hours. What struck me most, though, was the glib way it was mentioned that 'experts' agreed that booze was too cheap and readily available, and that was the reason there was binge drinking. The only way to stop it was to tax booze even more and close half of the nations pubs.

Eh?

Sure, the cheapness and ready availability of alcohol makes binge drinking easy. Our inebriated reporter was going to clubs that cost £7 to get into and then it was free booze all night. She showed what you could get with £20 in a Birmingham bar, and it was enough to make me sleep for forty-eight hours. But that can't explain why people go out night after night getting paralytic. Books are cheap and readily available, but we don't have people lolling around outside Waterstones and Ottakers binge-reading, do we.

The reason people binge-drink is partly to do with alcohol's narcotic and relaxant effects, yes. But it's also because these people have got nothing they'd rather be doing. Or they lack the imagination to do anything else. They buy into the lad and ladette culture so beloved of the glossy magazines and grab the nearest easy crutch to fill the great empty hole in their lives (badly mixed metaphors there, sorry).

And what is that hole? Why are we brits so empty compared with our continental cousins? (Are we, for that matter?) Well, I'm no expert on these things, but it might have something to do with the ongoing erosion of community. Going to the local and having a few pints with your mates is a community thing; getting legless with a bunch of strangers (to whom you can't speak anyway because the music's too loud and your speech is slurred) is the action of the mindless herd.

I hope binge drinking isn't as big a problem as the tabloids would make out - the argument favoured by the alcopop manufacturer. I hope that Britain's youth will grow out of it, get bored and find another stupid thing to do. Maybe ecstasy will come back* - that was a great drug, because users knew that alcohol would negate its effects, so they drank only water or fruit juice. Just a pity it killed one in a million. But I really don't think making alcohol more expensive will make a difference - it hasn't done with cigarettes.

And that was perhaps the most enlightening part of the programme; when the reporter approached the Portman Group, the body funded by the drinks industry which tries to encourage restraint (without much obvious success). The program had commissioned a leading ad agency to come up with a poster campaign and the result - a pint glass overflowing with vomit with the slogan: 'Binge Drinking - It's Not Pretty' - was brilliant. But the lady from the Portman group just said that no pub would put such a poster up. Well, they would if they had to, and it would be a lot better than hiking the price of a pint for everyone (non binge-drinkers included).

And that perhaps is the point I'm rambling towards on this rant (or is it a whinge?). The knee-jerk reaction of both government and the chattering classes to any perceived problem is to introduce legislation that makes it difficult or illegal. All that does is make the people affected either criminals or embittered. But at least those in power can say they're doing something. 'Look at me, I'm powerful and you will conform.' Far better to explain, using the full creativity and ingenuity of our best advertising minds, that a given behaviour is stupid. That has worked with smoking - not perfectly yet, but far more effectively than the £5 packet of fags (sorry, Colonial Cousins, that's British slang for cigarettes), And it has been particularly effective with drink driving.

This is, of course, the age old libertarian argument. The problem with it is that libertarians don't like telling people what to do, so the misguided controllers get in instead.

And as a last thought, something which I knew about from my days working as a wine merchant, and as licensee for the Great Grampian Beer Festival many years ago. It is illegal in this country (as in most others that licence alcohol consumption and the premises where it may occur) to serve alcohol to someone who is inebriated. I've refused to serve customers in the wine merchants, and visitors to the beer festival on the grounds that they have already had too much. But this law is more honoured in the breach than it is observed, as our well-oiled reporter showed when she successfully bought more beer in a pub when she and her friends were quite obviously well gone. She then tried to make a citizens arrest on the poor bemused barman, but that was the tone of the program.

What should have happened, and what our put upon police should instigate if they could stand the opprobrium, is that the bar's licence should have been revoked. Yes, the bar staff, cleaners, suppliers and other workers associated with the running of such an establishment would find themselves out of a job, which is harsh, but I don't think it would take long for the message to get through.

And here endeth the lesson. All 1400 words of it. Blimey.




*I'm not really condoning the use ecstasy, before you all shout me down. Personally I think all drugs are stupid, but people should be allowed to be stupid if they want to. Drugs ruin lives mostly because they are illegal, and so uncontrolled. I'd far rather legalise, licence and tax drugs, using the revenue raised to provide adequate support structures for those who can't cope. But I suspect mine is an unpopular, minority view. And this is a subject for a later rant, not a footnote.