Young Britons indulge in binge drinking
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-08-28 06:49

Britain might currently be struggling for Olympic medals in Athens, but if drinking to excess were a competitive sport, there seems little doubt its nationals could beat all-comers.

Binge drinking - consuming alcohol in a methodical attempt to get blind drunk - is so widespread in Britain that authorities are starting to get worried.

There is certainly no lack of opportunity for young Britons to drown their sorrows in booze - there are 356 bars in 1 square kilometre in Nottingham, central England, and over 2,000 in the centre of the northwestern city of Manchester.

It is a tricky business for the government, which is forced to strike a balance between the significant interests of the alcohol trade and protecting public health, not to mention the economic costs of over-indulgence.

According to the Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS), 48 per cent of British men and 31 per cent of women aged 19 to 24 admit to having been blind drunk at least twice a month during the past year.

Similarly, 38 per cent of Britons of both sexes first got drunk before the age of 13, compared to just 12 per cent of the French. Within Europe, only hard-drinking Denmark outranks Britain, with a tally of 40 per cent.

Although such binge-drinking is an entrenched part of Friday and Saturday night tradition, the roots of the problem are murky.

Some blame it on Britain's restrictive licensing laws, which oblige most bars to close their doors by 11:00 pm, preventing customers from enjoying a drink at their own leisure.

The rules were introduced during World War I to stop munitions workers drinking too much, disrupting production, and have stayed largely unchanged ever since.

But these days, according to a study ordered by Britain's Home Office, "binge drinking is now so routine that young people find it difficult to explain why they do it."

"We do not go out to drink, we go out to get drunk," explained a 21-year-old woman quoted in the report.

An IAS survey on the motivations for this boozy culture found while 91 per cent of those aged 19 to 24 drink "to be sociable," 78 per cent also do it "to get drunk."

Not only is the phenomenon worrying for health, the binges have an economic price: A government report in September 2003 estimated the cost to the nation at 20 billion pounds (US$36 billion) a year.

The study also found 17 million working days vanish each year through hangovers, costing employers huge sums.

Nowhere feels this more acutely than Britain's National Health Service, where emergency rooms are often overwhelmed with what are colloquially termed "beer injuries" - 70 per cent of hospital admissions between midnight and 5:00 am are related to alcohol.

Tackling binge drinking has now become a priority of the British government - at least officially.

Campaigners slam funding for the fight against alcoholism as woefully insufficient. "Only 95 million pounds (US$170.5 million) a year is spent on alcohol services, compared to 500 million pounds (US$897.5 million) for drugs," says Lesley King-Lewis, chief executive of Action on Addiction, a charity dedicated to new ways to prevent and treat nicotine, alcohol and drug abuse.

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