Britain, we have a drinking problem.
As I finished writing this, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published a study that found UK women are the worst (best?) binge drinkers in the world.
Binge drinking is defined as having at least six drinks in one session. “26 per cent of women asked were doing this at least once a month. British men were even higher at 45 per cent.”
Drinking is part of our cultural heritage. Just like imperialism, BBC paedophile rings and bad teeth, fermented beverages are deep-rooted in British society.
If you’re not a binge drinker, are you even British? To sup booze—and lots of it is patriotic. And to refrain from drinking is an insult to the Brits who fought—and died so we’d have the freedom to drink ourselves into oblivion. If you’re not glugging lashings of hooch until you pass out, what are you actually doing with your life?
Being happier and more contented, presumably.
Addiction is a bitch.
British drinking habits are so normalised that no one sees themselves as an addict. We have a very clear picture of what an alcoholic looks like and it isn’t middle-class Millie who tucks away five bottles of cab-sav a week.
I understand addiction. I smoked for fifteen years. I fucking loved smoking. I was the kind of smoker who enjoyed every aspect, right down to the smell. There were times when clanging off an oily was especially nice; after a meal, socialising with friends and lying in bed, post-coitus. I started at the age of eighteen, back in the 90s when smoking was still socially acceptable. With no messin’ I was straight on the hard stuff—Marlboro reds. Nothing greased my reward pathways more than toasted American tobacco. I’d toke on anything: Camels, Pall Malls—as long as the baccy was Yankee, I’d inhale it. Eight years after quitting and still the siren call of cigarettes has me enthralled. I’ve since had several cheeky fags—all of which I savoured but I could never return to being their slave. But it’s a hard dalliance to break—Nick O’Teen has been proven to be as addictive as cocaine and heroin so it makes the business of giving up, almost impossible.
Alcohol is an insidious addiction. Just when you think you don’t have a problem, it totally ruins your life. And unlike smoking, it’s not only socially acceptable, it’s expected.
Not everyone in the UK is an alkie.
But as a nation, we have an unhealthy preoccupation with booze.
We celebrate and we commiserate with the stuff. It is the reward we allow ourselves whatever the occasion. Having a good or bad day will often result in quaffing a couple of glasses of our favourite tipple. For many, getting smashed at the weekend is the norm. And getting wankered whenever alcohol passes our lips, seems to be the gold standard of British socialising. So pervasive is this boozy culture that those who choose not to partake are viewed with suspicion: beware The Teetotaller. Never trust anyone who doesn’t drink. Those people must be ‘proper’ alcoholics not to be able to take a drop. And can you imagine that there are people who live in Britain who don’t like the taste—I know, how utterly mental. Listen, no one is drinking for the taste, we’re drinking to numb our collective pain.
That was sarcasm.
I grew up in an environment where boozing was the norm.
My parents didn’t drink excessively (as a kid, I remember seeing my dad pissed once—and it was hilarious) but they frequented The Crown And Thistle (AKA The Crown And Pisshole) most nights.
My dad was a musician and like any decent minstrel, he cultivated the art of taking a drink. Truth was, he wasn’t very good at it (but that didn’t stop the bugger from trying). I, like many working-class kids of my generation, spent a good deal of time in pub gardens—or falling asleep on bar furniture whilst Mum and Dad enjoyed a lock-in. Family camping holidays included raucous nights in campsite clubhouses. On such evenings, I would be furnished with half a lager.
As a child, I didn’t like sugar (as an adult, I still don’t—yes, I really am that weird) so Panda Pop sodas were out. Consequently, by the age of eight, I was already on the sauce.
I’m surrounded by pissheads.
That isn’t a flippant statement, I’m being serious.
A lot of the people I know have a problematic relationship with alcohol. When you observe your friends and family, you’ll notice them (unless you’re the pisshead).
They say things like, “I only drink three days a week”. So much is the fuckery of their thinking that they convince themselves they’re being good by only drinking three days out of seven. Coupled with the fact that for those three days, they drink their body weight in units. In actuality, they may as well be guzzling from Monday through Sunday because their liver doesn’t recognise the fucking difference. No, their liver thinks they’re drinking for two ‘70s dart players who’ve got hours to live.
“If you can’t remember last night, you’ve had a good time,” said no woman ever.
Still, we’ve all made that quip, including me. I make jokes about most things, drinking is no exception. I enjoy a drink (or three) but I have to stop way before the point of shit-faced-ness. Not because I’m saintly or have incredible self-control but because I’m a lifelong emetophobe—I fear being sick. The last time I vomited I was about twelve (probably after five pints of Hofmeister). Unlike most people, I have never been sick due to alcohol.
Another thing I hate about booze is the chronic dyspeptic panic attacks that won’t let me sleep. Also, hangaxiety—the existential crisis that comes after a night on the beer—not to mention the headache and the beer sweats (and the beer shits). And don’t get me started on the flashbacks, the awful instant reminders of me being drunk and saying something that makes me cringe inside out.
When’s enough, enough?
When you can no longer stand—no longer see? When your family dreads you drinking? When you become a liability to yourself and others? When large chunks of memory go missing? When you turn nasty? When your organs fail? When you have nothing left to live for?
Yikes.
Anyone who finds themselves regularly inebriated is in denial about their drinking habits. They make excuses. We all make them when we know we should change. And changing is the hard bit. Sorting our shit out fucking hurts. It means dealing with things that will, in the short term, make us feel worse. It’s confronting when we examine what causes us to drink/smoke/eat too much/fuck everything in sight and generally want to self-destruct. Any risky behaviour has a reason if you dig deep enough. Sometimes you don’t have to go that deep, it can often be lurking just beneath the surface.
It’s preferable to deal with the crap that’s fucking us over. Even those stubborn bastards who don’t see the point of dragging up the past—hello, you’re dragging it around with you every fucking day, it’s spilling out of you for all the world to see.
So yeah, it would be nice to shake the pissed Brit stereotype but I won’t hold my beer.
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