Alcohol

Alcohol:

After 20 odd years of drinking more than most of you could manage, I cut down last year and eventually quit, while I don't think everyone should be teetotal, there seems to be an inability in our society to enjoy alcoholic drinks for the taste and rather to use them as a shortcut to temporary midlessness, I do think that the extremes of heavy drinking do you no good. Maybe if people enjoyed their day-to-day lives a bit more they wouldn't feel the need to "get bladdered" on a friday and saturday night?

whilst alcohol/drug abuse is nothing new i would like to see figures showing the extent of the problem. it may be that it is now much more available as there are more bars/nightclubs open more, and that it is can be bought very cheaply. but there are wider issues that may have contributed, such as a century of warfare (possibly unmatched before in terms of loss of life?) creating a society in which people feel let down by those in authority (not that they weren't before, just that it is now so blatant). governments create an atmosphere of apathy in which people are not encouraged to think beyond their immediate social sphere and so getting wasted (not that it isn't fun once in a while) may be a way to escape their feeling of insignificance. to give it a pseudo-socio-political spin.