Thread: What it is with some people and alcohol?

Originally Posted by p38arover

But it seems, to me, to be worse than when I was a teen 45+ years ago. Yes,. we'd get drunk but we never had, or caused, problems.

I wonder if it's a mix of alcohol and drugs thse days. I never saw drugs when I was growing up in Sydney's west.

Its worse than when I was at UNI 12 years ago. I didnt go out much, used to go out and get pretty drunk about 4 times a year but I dont remember ever seeing the cops in the pubs like we have to do these days and I in 4 years of UNI i dont think I ever saw a drunken brawl. But if we get through a friday or saturday night these days without someone coming into the station or calling for us to attend the pubs in relation to a punch up or some ****ed idiot punching someone in the mouth and taking off we are doing well.

Alcohol fueled violence didnt appear in the news as much as it does these days 10 yrs ago.

It seems that people are unable to drink responsibly these days. Drinking is one thing but these days people drink to the point that they litterally cant stand up and the next day dont remember a thing, how can it be a good night if you dont remember what you did?

I also think that the affects of alcohol on people and the link to domestic violence should also be looked at. If you can find a copper that has been to a domestic violence incident where one or both of the parties were not drunk I would be surprised.

We have many couples in town who when sober never have a problem, but add alcohol to the mix and they go mental at each other. The magistrate here in town imposed Apprehended Violence orders on a couple to spilt them up. They would get on the **** all the time and barney with each other. The magistrate got so sick of them wasting police and court time that she told them if they got back together and breached the order one more time she would lock the guilty one up. We have laws now that requires us to apply for an AVO to protect the victim in a domestic violence incident. For genuine victims who want help this is fine, but for the rest of the domestic violence victims they make a statement on the night and then tell the court they dont want to bat on with it when it goes before the court and then they apply to have the AVO withdrawn.

You've obviously never been to a copper's farewell Ace Always an opportunity for alcohol fuelled violence there lol.

Originally Posted by MickS

You've obviously never been to a copper's farewell Ace Always an opportunity for alcohol fuelled violence there lol.

LOL, no but I have seen them in action at the Xmas party. I can only imagine what the farewells are like.

I have to agree with the trading hours thing. Seems that when everywhere was given a licence to open until 3 and sometimes 5am then the drinking culture changed. When I was in my 20s I was in Orange and saw this change happen. The way we used to go out was to drop in to a pub after work have a couple, drive home ( under the limit) and be ready to go out at 7:00, grab something to eat (sometimes ) and be at the pub by 8:00 to get drunk by 12:00 and then either go home or to a party where we would have a few more drinks and maybe stay up till 04:00, the difference being that in going home we would be forced to not drink for an hour or so while we got to the party.

Now it seems that the practice is not to go out till 10:00 as the entertainment may not start till then, load up on grog at home and then go out for 6 hours solid drinking before the venue shuts. In terms of the ability for someone to consume alcohol the second scenario is far worse.

I think we should go back to the former licensing situation where most venues had to shut by midnight unless they have a late license that costs considerably more and pushes the cost of drinks/entry to the point where you have to make a conscious decision that that venue is where you want to go.

I think speed and ice are having an effect on the violence as well as potentially the mixing of alcohol with energy drinks although I must have consumed an awful lot of caffiene in Bundy and Cokes when I was a young bloke...

Regards,
Tote

Originally Posted by Tote

I have to agree with the trading hours thing. Seems that when everywhere was given a licence to open until 3 and sometimes 5am then the drinking culture changed. When I was in my 20s I was in Orange and saw this change happen. The way we used to go out was to drop in to a pub after work have a couple, drive home ( under the limit) and be ready to go out at 7:00, grab something to eat (sometimes ) and be at the pub by 8:00 to get drunk by 12:00 and then either go home or to a party where we would have a few more drinks and maybe stay up till 04:00, the difference being that in going home we would be forced to not drink for an hour or so while we got to the party.

Now it seems that the practice is not to go out till 10:00 as the entertainment may not start till then, load up on grog at home and then go out for 6 hours solid drinking before the venue shuts. In terms of the ability for someone to consume alcohol the second scenario is far worse.

I think we should go back to the former licensing situation where most venues had to shut by midnight unless they have a late license that costs considerably more and pushes the cost of drinks/entry to the point where you have to make a conscious decision that that venue is where you want to go.

I think speed and ice are having an effect on the violence as well as potentially the mixing of alcohol with energy drinks although I must have consumed an awful lot of caffiene in Bundy and Cokes when I was a young bloke...

Regards,
Tote

Thats it Tote, lock out here is 1am, but there is generally only one pub that really keeps partying on past 1am anyway. The pubs around here are generally dead until 10-11pm. No real set close time though, the latest I have seen them go, or should I say earliest, is 5am. most Friday and saturday nights they call last drinks between 3-4am.

When I was at UNI mandatory close was 3am and lock in was 1am. If you werent in a pub by 1am it was home time whether you liked it or not.

Well were do we start.
The issue is not so much alcohol or the price of alcohol. Raising taxes, increasing prices will not stop the idiots. It will only stop the family man/woman who just wont be able to afford it.
We were only talking about it the other day and I believe the main problem is lack of accountability by the drinker and often parents. Too many parents are ok with their kids drinking at 15 and even younger. A beer or 2 at Xmas may be ok, but buying them alcohol to get smashed and allowing them to have parties is a major contributor.
Then there is the arrogance, it seem the current 20-30yo age group are full of themselves and believe their rights over ride everyone elses.
Combine this with drugs and this is where we are at.
Throw into the mix alcopops and energy drinks and we have chaos. Alcohol that does not taste like alcohol is a recipe for disaster and I think some of these should be scaled back or perhaps only available to 25plus age groups.
I dont know what the whole answer is but starting with making people accountable has to occur instead of just moving them on.

The alcohol has always been there ... for millennia. What's different now as compared to thirty or forty years ago is:

• The lesser influence of religion, and particularly Christian religion in our society, and its inhibiting effect on the extremes of behaviour.
• The increasing effects of long term and continuous exposure to violence on TV, in movies, and particularly in video games.

Older generations are not as affected because they grew up before TV/ video games, etc. They already had their ways set by the time these came around. But younger generations have grown up with them as the norm.

So, no inhibiting effects of religion, plus the continual stimulation to violence, and you add a bit of alcohol and/ or drugs to lower inhibitions even further, and the increase in violence is not at all surprising.

What to do? Well that's quite a question. There are no easy answers, but if we start to think about these things various possibilities will spring to mind ... Its something we all need to think about and begin to make changes.

As my Mum used to say 'Make the world a better place, but begin with yourself' (Roughly translated from Dutch)

Willem