Alcohol

Alcohol is considered to be a social norm, and it is used to brighten up almost any social occasion, from weddings to funerals, casual meetings to formal dinners. A lot of people drink at least once a week, some maybe every night, is one drink a night acceptable? How many drinks before it becomes a problem?

There are all sorts of drinkers, the alcoholics who drink everyday and have had their lives completely destroyed by alchohol . Super strength lager is only adding to this problem, being cheap and readily available it is wrecking lives. It contains almost 8% of alchohol, and for many of Britains alchoholics, it is the drink that starts and finishes everyday.

Then there are the binge drinkers, where people can drink more than the safe recommended consumption for two weeks. This effects around 30% of young women, and 40% of young men.

It is estimated that one in a hundred people are damaged by alcohol through no fault of their own. These are the innocent victims, who some medical experts believe mothers drank during pregnancy unaware of the potentionally devastating consequences.

British teenagers have a drink problem, they consume twice as much alcohol as they did 15 years ago. Half of 15-16 yeaqr olds told a recent survey they had been drunk in the last month, and a similar number said they had first been drunk at the age of 13 or youger. Where do they get ir from? We all know how strick showing ID has become, so its obvious they are not getting it for themslves.

Alcoholic liver disease can take decades of hard drinking to develop. It used to be a disease of old age but not any more. As recently as 1992 the average age of diagnosis was 69. But that has now fallen dramatically to just 49.

Remember alcohol is a posion and kills brain cells, it also has a large increase in people who commit suicide. Drinking can be dangerous behaviour.So why do people drink? For entertainment? To gain false confidence? To fit in socially?

Personally i think that drinking isn't a problem for the majority of people, it's just knowing how to keep it under control. I'm not a big drinker, but when i do, i probably do 'binge'. So whats worse drinking regulary or binging?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/4267548.stm