Do you know the saying: “Everyone likes a drink, but nobody likes a 
drunk?”
Veronica knows it only too well because as a reformed alcoholic, she is passionate about helping others kick the habit if it is destroying their lives.
She was furious with an article in the latest Red magazine which glamorises binge drinking and hangovers. Writer Bibi Lynch describes how she has always been a drinker, was lucky with her past hangovers, but growing older means she can’t stomach it in the same way. In the past, she describes being such a lush that one particular bar named a cocktail after her. How does one avoid the 48 hour hangover, she asks? Then concludes it is enough to turn you to drink.
Veronica has fired off a letter to the magazine’s Editor strongly objecting to the article:
“To publish an article on serious alcohol abuse that minimizes and trivializes it in such a way is staggering. You clearly have no understanding of the massive problem this country has with binge drinking, in particular with women. We now have cirrhosis of the liver appearing in young women in their 20’s that was unheard of 20 years ago. You have done nothing to educate or balance this article out, all you have done is succeeding in colluding with the denial most people in this country are under in regards to their drinking.”
I would like the magazine to publish Veronica’s true story as a warning to those who can’t control their drinking – and an inspiration to those who recognise that they need help.
That’s good that Veronica spoke up against those who accept binge drinking as the norm.
I think most people can take such an article with a pinch of salt. Presumably your one of these people who would like a ban on alcohol advertising, student night, happy hour, drinking games on a Saturday afternoon on Newcastle’s Bigg Market and bogof offers on wines and spirits in Tesco?
Good for her. I applaud her and her sentiments. Few people seem to get it through their heads that more people — especially young people — die from booze (in all its ramifications aside from illness, like road accidents, violence, suicide, etc. etc.) than all the illicit drugs combined. It is still by far our most lethal drug when abused.
Ian
A woman that I know is in AA, she’s been there for years having been given a short time to live if she hadn’t stopped drinking. She has been very discreet but I know that there are a very large and increasing number of young women in AA. It is a sleepy giant of a problem.
A couple of the reasons that binge drinking seems to be so endemic is because people stand and, as well as this, have to shout because of the loudness of the venues – there is no conversation of any worth, low quality quaffable drink in large volumes makes a dull and sub-standard gathering seem more entertaining to the participant. They call this a ‘good time’ whilst not knowing the meaning of the expression. Ask the same group to stand for three hours together sipping diet coke talking quietly and see how much they can stand each other’s presence.
The dehydration caused by shouting/standing as well as the vacuous company adds to the need to guzzle.
Thank you for your comments. in reply to Steven L, I believe we need to address the huge alcohol problem this country has, this isn’t ‘smelly old men on benches’ problem dirnkers have mortgages and jobs they don’t necessairly drink everyday. The issue here isn’t alcohol or being drunk alcohol does serve a purpose within our society, the issue is the lies people are telling themselves in order to behave in a way that is destructive to themselves and everytone else around them. Exactly as elctro-Kevin says, i was one of those people who was ‘pretending’ to have a good time doing what everyone else, i was a sheep. Thank god there is another way to live.
Well, you can’t censure the magazine, can you? The article was probably written as humour – I don’t know as I haven’t read it. But perhaps they should have published something about the serious and tragic side as well.
Thanks for replying Veronica, but personally I don’t consider my ‘binge drinking’ a problem. The DoH and their stooges class ‘binge drinking’ as going out and drinking 4 pints of Kronenburg or a bottle of wine. So tonight when I go out and drink 6 or 7 pints of lager I’m a ‘binge drinker’ am I? I am part of a ‘problem’.
What rot, it’s Saturday night, I’m 27 years old, I’m going to go out with my mates and have a good time. I’m also going to smoke about 20 cigarettes (while I still can) then have a portion of kebab meat and chips, full of deadly salt and saturated fat.
As for electro-kevins comments, I’ll be heading off out with some old school friends I’ve known for at least 14 years. We can stand each others company, and yes we like loud music too.
I think Veronica is correct in speeding off a response to such an article. I understand what electro-kev is saying and he is referring to, I think, the sort of bars that actively push alcohol down the throats of youngsters. How so? It’s not just women drink free or happy hour it’s stupid deals like hard liquer cheap rather than beer or wine. You cannot hear another talking, it’s just a cattle shed for eyeing up the talent and being lairy and drunk. I understand Steven_L’s position but have to say that men can stand, because of their physical make-up, 4 times the amount of alcohol than women. Fact. So he is less likely to do long term damage to his body than a woman drinking a similar amount, and women don’t realise this. I didn’t (and I could put it away at times)
Oh, and you should see what your local authority licensing team get up to. I’ve been out on the lash with them, how they can keep a straight face when lecturing publicans about ‘high volume vertical drinking’ is beyond me.
I imagine these journalists that are so keen to demonise binge drinkers like a few, and as for the MP’s, well we know a bit about what they get up too don’t we.
Maybe the tide is turning. There are some interesting TV adverts right now which make people think how they look when they are drunk.