Thread: What it is with some people and alcohol?

I don't envy you your job - especially at this time of the year.

My wife is from Bathurst (her parents still live there, having retired off a farm out Burraga way a few years back) and we used to visit the place quite often.

I have always been amazed at the 'keep drinking, you may be drunk but we'll still take your money' culture in the many drinking establishments there.

I'll also admit that it didn't take too long to work out where to go for a quiet drink and where to go for a scrap whilst drinking.

Of course, your town is not unique. We have the same drinking cultures here and we certainly had them in Sydney.

I used to run a pub in another country. We had 145 rooms and were in what, then, was a fairly remote community. We had to deal with the full range of happy, sleepy, excitable and downright mean people who had consumed too many drinks on a regular basis - so we closed our public bar (it was known as 'the flying jug') and kept what many refer to as the 'house' bar. Legislation had, in fact, killed the house bar identity and we had members of the local community as well as house guests join us in our one remaining bar.

To us, the key to a happy time for us was to watch carefully and deny alcohol to those who had consumed enough; responsible serving of alcohol. It is a difficult model to enforce.

The travelling guest, also, had a different take on the whole process and we had a lot of problems convincing them that our opening/serving hours were bound by our license and not by the old memory of a 'house' bar being kept open until the last guest had gone to bed.

Between that and having to drag intoxicated guests from our pools and open air spa baths on a regular basis, I developed a distaste for those who drink to excess. To the point where I started limiting my own consumption (a case of "geez - do I look and behave like that when I have had too many?" ).

Good luck keeping yourself sane. I know a small fraction of what you have to endure.

my theory is that alcohol and drugs accentuate the natural tendancies and personalities. if you meet someone that is an asshole when drunk or high, best bet is they are still an asshole when not drunk.
i know plenty of people that are fun to be around when drunk, but they are also good people to be around when not drunk and i know a few that aren't nice whether drunk or not.

I know rather well what youre dealing with Ace, for quite a while i used to go out on saturday nights, didnt drink because i had to drive 50-odd km home, catch up with friends, have a bit of a perv on the talent and have a laugh at the drunks, but after a while it got to the point where i was spending my time either dealing with drunks looking for a fight, or rescuing female friends from drunk meatheads trying to cop a feel or more..... in the end i called it quits and have a quiet night in

was chatting with a friend of mine on the force one night about why he chose his specialty on the force, and the biggest reason he went to traffic was "I'd had enough of dealing with drunk ****heads"

cant say i blame him.....

I reckon it shows their mental state when not intoxicated.
A bully /aggressor in the out coming.
But I'm no shrink.
They are a cannon waiting to go off, they just need something to ignite the fuse and alcohol is the match.
Too many liquor outlets, too many hours to purchase it, freely availabe and the culture of people can't have a good time without a drink. It won't stop because people make money out of it and the Government gets tax revenue from it.
Look what happens when a brewery goes on strike, it's mass hysteria, the news makes a big deal out of it.
If a soft drink factory goes on strike, no one cares.
It's like beer is an essential service a must have.

Nothing new about alcohol and bad behaviour, Australian History and the NSW Rum story full of stories of men and women of the colony being badly behaved due to excess of drink.

Brenda Favolva made a fool of himself over drink this weekend and may of finally cost himself his $1 million player contract with the Lions.

Plenty of sports stars of all codes can't handle drink.

WA and NT experience with remote communities drinking excess and having to actually close drink to community to make them dry has demonstrated well welcomed by those affected by alcohol drinkers the drinkers themselves merely move to where drink is still available to continue their behaviour.

I am not in favour of prohibition or a wowser but it is no brainer that certain men and women cannot self regulate themselves when it comes to drinking and alcohol is a serious issue in our community and it's not a new issue it has always been a problem throughout the man social history

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.

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.

The difference Ron, is that you (and I) went out to have a good time, a consequence was that we would sometimes get drunk.

With many (particularly teenagers) now, the intent is to go out and get smashed, they seem to succeed very well. I also think the relative price of drinks, especially spirit based is much lower today. Often my drinking was limited by how much folding stuff I had in my wallet.


Martyn

or if you come up my way, price of the drinks is irrelevant..... most of the troublemakers make twice the average income......