Binge Drinking versus Smoking

[happy_face]

Was watching the news and GMTV this morning and they were discussing the way England seems to take binge drinking to an extreme and it has been worsened by the extended drinking hours. One girl they asked had drunk 40 units at home before heading out for the night to add more units to it. GMTV had a professor of liver disease in the studio who said that amount of drink (although quite common in young people) was like pure poison for the body. He also explained the damage that drinking does to ones life and surrounding life.

Why do smokers almost get seen as criminals when no one comes down that hard on an alcoholic?. I would say that alcohol does as much damage to the person as a smoker, if not more. Yes know smoking can cause cancer and heart failure but it's not proven that it's always smoking that does that. A helping factor yes but smoking can't be blamed 100% as there are many people I know who never smoked and have cancer. And then some who smoked like chimneys all their life and died healthy. But isn't it 100% certain that if you're an alcoholic you will die of liver damage if not something else?. They've proven passive smoking is damaging, which is fair enough but what about all the damage drinking does to the people and area around the drunk. Time and time again we see on the tv yobs fighting and vandalising property. How many people in A&E on a weekend is not there because it's drink related?

So what is worst? I know they say alcohol in moderation is beneficial and most things in life in moderation is good for you. But I'm asking about binge drinking.

[sp1814]

Interesting point...I wonder how many women are battered after their spouses come home from the pub steaming drunk? How many children would still be alive now if the drunk hadn't gotten into his/her car. How many days are lost to industry because people haven't been able to make it into work the morning after.

I don't have any answers, but I noticed how many newspapers treated Flintoff's 24 hour bender after the Ashes win as something of a good joke.

By the way happy_face - love the idea of someone 'dying healthy'!!! ;-)

[Loosehead]

You are correct in terms of health effect and the effect on surroundings and others.

The reason smokers are seen as the spawn of satan is for one main reason: They infect all around them with the vile smell of smoke, they force others to enhale their filth, they pollute buildings, cars, they gas their children on a regular basis, they smell constantly despite their futile attempts to disguise it, they are selfish. You don't see drinkers going around pouring lager down the throats of strangers. I don't think people care about the damage smokers do to themselves what they care about is their own right to breath clean air.

[Grunty]

Now don't sit on the fence Loosehead. Do you approve of smoking or not?

Actually I agree with your every word.

[Oneeyedvic]

Yes Loosehead - Somkers are selfish - but are you implying that drinkers are not?

Have you been to a casualty department on a Friday / Saturday night. Have you seen the filth that drinkers leave behind them in town centres. Have you seen the abuse they give to taxis / take away shops. Have you seen the damage they do to other people's property. Have you seen the trails of urine in doorways?

Personally, I would prefer to be with a sober smoker than a drunk non smoker. (and I speak as an ex-smoker who can't stand the smell anymore).

[mullein3]

alchol is the worst of the two..as you say alchol induces violence..children are going without because their parent or parents drink to excess...i live near a poor working class area and their are people queing up outside witherspoons wne bar at 09.00 in a morning ..some of them will look agitated pacing up and down in desperation waiting for the place to open..one or two local pubs open at 08.30 and that was before 24 hour drinking came in..its really sad that people live for drink..and cant control the urge to over do it..well it will ruin their health ..deplete their body of essential nutrients and they only have themselves to blame!!

[jno]

smoking has always seemed unpleasant to me and I think to other non-smokers, but for a long time it was assumed you'd just have to put up with it, as people had the right to do what they wanted with their own bodies. It wasn't till the news about secondary smoking got out - and it became clear smokers were killing non-smokers too - that the anti-smoking lobby became very much stronger.

As for drinkers: partly because there are more of them than smokers (almost everybody drinks sometime, but not everyone smokes), partly because the damage they cause to others is indirect (it's not your drinking that will kill me, it's your driving), I think people find it harder to condemn drinkers.

[Loosehead]

Of course not Vic, I agree entirely, I was just pointing out why I thought smokers where generally more persecuted. I suppose it's the passive aspect of smoking that I'm annoyed with.

[flip-flop]

This in no way answers the question, and for that I apologise, but this whole binge drinking thing gets right on my tits.

On the news the other day, it said that you were binge drinking if you had more than 4 pints in one session.....what an utter utter load of cobblers: this may be the case for a seven stone weakling, but I'm a 16st flanker, and trust me, four pints after a game doesn't even touch the sides, and certainly doesn't make me even remotely drunk (although it would stop me from driving).

Utter Rubbish.

[Drusilla]

Smoking may well damage the health of the smoker and those around him, but I doubt that one cigarette too many will turn him into a raging lunatic, intent on smashing in the faces of complete strangers, urinating over his neighbours car, or sexually assaulting the nearest female for 'a crack'.

[stevie_c2it]

Binge drinking seems to be a particularly British peculiarity, rarely indulged in to the same extent in mainland Europe (with some exceptions), and is one of the reasons I feared for the consequences of introducing continental drinking laws into this country.

There has always been a level of tolerance if not approval in this countries drinking culture, which extends to endorsing the self-confessed bragging rights as to how much someone has/can drink, and as to how inebriated they�ve been. The sheer number of slang terms that exist in our language should give you an idea of how prevalent is our love of drunkenness.

Until our society in general reaches the same level of disapproval for hearing how �pi**ed� someone was last night, and the stupid/reckless/dangerous/damaging things they got up to, as it has towards smokers and smoking in public, binge drinking will continue to blight the lives of many.

I have seen signs of improvement and change though, 20 years ago no-one batted an eyelid at smokers in restaurants, or worried too much if someone had a few drinks and drove home. These things can change if enough people refuse to tolerate the anti-social and damaging aspects of this type of behaviour, and is indeed what happened. As I hope we will eventually see in the respect of our society rejecting a culture tolerant towards excessive drinking and the resultant destruction and heartache it causes.

[indieanna86]

This is more a vague opinion than a direct answer, mostly because I'm scared of people shouting at me if I say something they don't agree with : S

Here goes...In my opinion, smoking is worse.

I don't drink, never have done. This is because when I was a kid my best friends dad was an alcoholic and would beat his wife to a pulp almost every night. He even knocked my mum unconcious when she tried to help her and threatened to strangle my dad. I even had to flee with my best friend so he didn't harm us and the police spent 6 hours looking for us, we were terrified. So you'd think I'd say drinking is worse eh?

Well, no. The main reason for this is because not all drunk people are violent. Most people I know just fall asleep when they've had one too many, or don't stop talking all night, hehe. Whereas all smokers harm other people. Every single one of em. And they are usually quite sober at the time and still don't think twice about lighting up around people who don't smoke.

So there ya go, thats what Anna thinks...

[Ouisch]

Yes, smoking is bad to the smoker and those around him...but on the other hand, I've never heard about a family sitting at home hungry because Dad went out and spent his whole paycheck on cigarettes. Or of man that came home and beat up on his wife because he'd spent the evening smoking cigarettes. Or of a woman who was so off her head from smoking a carton of Benson & Hedges that she drove her car into a crowd of innocent children waiting at a bus stop.

[noxlumos]

I was born in a very working class area (West Belfast) and it's true that drinking causes all manner of violence and that children and families shouldn't have to put up with that in any shape or form. What I did notice was that most heavy drinkers were also heavy smokers, so the two to some degree at least seem to go hand in hand.Add up two heavy drinking parents (�20 per day one bottle of spirits each say) and with them also smoking say 60 a day each (�25) it's easy to see how a dole cheque doesn't extend to that and crime takes place to feed both addictions.I think it's high time that smoking and binge drinking was viewed in the same way that we view drug addiction ( I mean if I said I smoked and drank no-one would really be shocked, but if I said I spent �325 on coke every week everyone would be aghast.) Whatever I spent it on, my kids would be equally hungry and imho it would be equally wrong.

[stevie_c2it]

noxlumos, excellent answer,

and interesting name, whats it mean?

[Sasha13]

Right - this always gets on my tits (and I'm an ex smoker). Someone tell me - what are the statistical chances of dying through passive smoking - can anyone quote figures from a reliable source? And then compare it with, say, the risk of eating a portion of red meat every week? I ask because I think that the risk of becoming ill through passive smoking is actually fairly small. I'm all for banning smoking in public places because it's smelly and if there's no smoking in pubs it'll mean I can go for a drink without longing for a fag, but I think, as a nation, we are completely gullible when it comes to the risk of passive smoking. I know I'd rather be in the same room as a smoker than a drunk for one thing. And another thing - why ban smoking in bars to protect the staff??? If the staff were that bl00dy bothered about it, they shouldn't have got a job in a s0dding pub/club in the first place. Rant over :-)