Do the Irish Have a Serious Drink Problem?

mike65

This is not intended as a light thread full of quipps like
"Yes, and mines a double "

Its a serious issue it seems to me and one which could cost this country vastly in terms of health and society. I imagine many reading After Hours are of the 17-27 age cohort and its you lot I'm most interested in after all you're our future...

Discuss.

Mike.

The Sweeper

Reference this weeks Irish Times and Kathryn Holmqvist happily frolicking around the Mater Hospital emergency unit on a Saturday night...


http://www.ireland.com/focus/streetcrime/

makes interesting reading

SantaHoe

I guess as a nation we're renound for being drinkers, it seems you can't have any social event without there being booze present.
Birthdays, christmas, newyears, weddings, funerals, christenings, paddys day, weekends... you name it - there's an excuse to get hammered.
The problem* obviously isn't limited to Ireland, you just have to take a look at Ibiza uncovered and tacky programs like it to see how bad other nations have it.

Ever see thirty+ people in a long que at 7am waiting for one of Dublins many 'early houses' to open? it really opens your eyes to how desperate some people are for a drink... pff, go home and get some sleep nutters, your family is probably wondering where you've been for the past two weeks.



*Based on wether you concider alcaholism/drink culture to be a problem.

yellum

Yes we do.

Its whats preventing us from ruling the world.

Everything revolves around the pub in this country. I don't drink anymore due to an allergy to alcohol and I have to say a night out in the pub is so crap when you're drinking fizzy water. Theres nothing entertaining about anyones amusing anecdotes when you listen to them when dead sober.

I actually know a lot of 20-30 year olds that are now in AA, just like their fathers and uncles and mothers.

Lex_Diamonds

Scandinavian countries + british isles = drinkers

Its just the way we are

stu_69

Originally posted by mike65
Do the Irish Have a Serious Drink Problem

Maybe, No, As bad the british I reckon.

Keeks

The only problem we have with it is we like it tto much...well I do anyway.....hmmmmm Bulmers

Enygma

Walk down Patrick Street sober at 2 o clock on a saturday morning. There's clearly a problem.

Wook

Maybe it would help if this country would follow the continent and have the pubs open till 5 oclock in the morning, that way people don't have to rush drinks and get plastered before 2oclock.

Its a totaly different drinking style in The rest of Europe.
In Belgium for example , the land of more then 400plus official beers and the major importer of your heaviest Guinnes is different , people start to go out around 12 or 1 oclock after some sitting home and watching TV , people are more relaxed, here people just have to rush of otherwise the pubs close, nightclubs refuse people and so on.

Stupid rule Btw , Its so Ancient !

Beruthiel

I drink, I fall over, no problem....
it's our attitude and we don't see a problem.

I like my drink as much as the next guy, well, maybe not as much but I do go out at least once during the weekend and get tippsy.
I was having this conversation with a friend and we wondered if it was possible to give it up without any problems, we came to the conclusion that we would miss not being able to have a drink when we felt like it, now, is this a problem?

I say yes because it means I need it to have a good time
and no because because I can control it.
I say I can control it because I generally do not drink during the working week - but is that just delusion? what would I do at the weekend if I couldn't go out to dinner, have a couple of glasses of wine, followed by the pub for a few more?

I believe it becomes a problem when your once a week pissup becomes twice a week, then three times followed by four, etc...
always there is an excuse for a pint and we can find plenty of excuses. I believe Ireland does have a problem but we are definitely in denial about it. I am thinking of two uncles I have, one in particular who ruined his, his wifes and 5 kids lives with his drinking problem - and I am betting that anyone reading this can also think of someone they know who they consider to also have a problem, this in it self should tell us something.

Kix

Originally posted by Wook
Maybe it would help if this country would follow the continent and have the pubs open till 5 oclock in the morning, that way people don't have to rush drinks and get plastered before 2oclock.

No - I really don't think that 's going to help. Since opening hours increased have you really seen more people going home early from pubs and clubs? I haven't.

A far more radical cultural change would be required before we'd start to behave like continental Europeans. Increasing opening hours have just meant later drinking and if anything the problem of drink related crime has become even more acute.

K

Xterminator

As a country there is a very serious problem.

Drink has become 'cool' (Please subsitute the appropriate word for you generation).

To have a good time too many people think they have to drink. and the pattern of drinking is worrying, as people dont have a pint or 2 to relax , they drink to become drunk.
While this can lead to alcholism etc, the immediate affects of it are more visable.

The no of fights/assaults/anti social behaviour caused by large no's of people leaving the pub/nite club at the same time with drink taken, congregating in fast food outlets, Taxi Queues etc is a recipe for public disorder.

Many drive home, causing carnage on the roads, especially at the bank holiday weekends etc.

If you think im exagerating, walk through town after 11 pm some weekend nite. The public disorder is very noticable from people urinating in public, right through to serious assaults. It has become the norm. It is almost expected.

The accident wards and the courts struggle to deal with the aftermath of this each week. Its not nurses they calling for in the emergency wards, it's Guards!

A no tolerance policy (long promised) might start to change the tide of disorder, but I think as a society we need to revisit our values, and see if the image of 'happy ireland' watching the world cup in the pub is how we wish to be portrayed as a nation, and re-evalute what it costs us to contiue to live like this.

X

Khynareth

That's the opinion of a non Irish National, although I have lived in Ireland for 4 years and a bit now.

I lived in England, English people drink a lot, but less than Irish. But they do it the same way Irish do: In pubs. The social place is the pub, and when there is nothing to do, that's where we all meet, and off we go drinking for hours, as you should when in a pub.

French people drink differently. 'Pubs' are 'Cafes', although Irish pubs are getting more and more fashionable. they don't go out to get hammered, they find their fun in alchool, not in getting sick after too much booze. They do too, but on an immensly smaller scale.

I think German drink a lot too, but I have no real experience of it.

The problem is not drinking in itself, but rather the fact that every type of fun/enjoyment is necessarily associated with booze and loads of it.
I know very few people who had a good night without getting up in the morning with a paper like feeling in their mouth... And the sentence 'I had a great night, I can't remember sh**' comes up too often.
Once people can only have fun when drunk, then there is a problem. And the problem here is that drinking is social, it's the way to meet people, to see our friends.

I don't drink often, but when I do I drink real loads, and I find difficult to stop. I guess it's the same with everybody. The more you drink (in a night) the more you feel like drinking 'cos it's fun', and everybody does the same...
I don't believe that opening pubs later in the night (As in Spain or Germany...) would change anything. The idea of 'social drinking' is too well rooted in society and it's a whole change over that needs to be done to reduce the amount people drink.
I leave the solution to scientists and politicians, once they'll be out of the pub...

WhiteWashMan

not really.
its just the culture that means we have to drink in order to socialize. i just think that people drink too much when they socialize thats all.

azezil

I don't think so, yes there are some youngin's that think its all about geting plastered at every possilble opertunity, but growing up i knew alot of people who did not, and would not drink.

I had my first drink, well first drinking session at 15. I didn't become a binge drinker, i really drank actually. Now-a-days i usually don't get drunk. It's pointless, i get merry alrite but thats cause i'm not the most out going person but i know when to stop.

Victor

There is of course the defence that we don't (generally) drink during the day. Whereas is some places a few pints over lunch is normal

WhiteWashMan

thats because no pub in ireland does a decent pub grub.
i live in england and the food in pubs over here is fantastic.
its a huge pulling thing here. people go to pubs for lunch because its good, and its cheap.
and people will have a pint over lunch because of it.

if you could go somewhere comfortable with good food which was cheap for lunch and just happened to be around the corner form your work, youd go there every so often.
besides, its also a very social meeting place outside of work for people to chill and chat over lunch

Victor

Now, now, I'm sure the Spinsol lads will vouch for The Pembroke.

tHE vAGGABOND

its progress tho that most Irish people now accept that the country has a problem..

next thing is doing something about it..

azezil

Originally posted by tHE vAGGABOND
its progress tho that most Irish people now accept that the country has a problem..

Oh no we don't!

Ser

yeh there a problem, i know people who have been going to AA for last 20 years, and the AA meetings in Ireland are a fukt, loads of serious problems, and it is not regonized in Ireland yet. cant tell som1 they are a alcho...