The appeal of alcohol.

It seems a day doesn’t go past when the news isn’t reporting a story related to the effects of alcohol. And as I think, I can’t think of any in my memories history of one that has spun a positive light on alcohol, maybe just a local news report about someone’s successful local winery.

I understand, honestly, that people can be annoying when drunk, shouting in streets when people are trying to sleep and sometimes, yes, admittedly it can turn violent. Which of course I can’t condone, even I try and avoid town on a Saturday evening due to the sheer amounts of people and the possibility of lots of drunken behaviour, but hey, this is me, I’m a wimp.

But I for one, have had enough now, of people ripping into the young people of the country who supposedly drink excessively, I very much doubt that those who tend to do the claiming aren’t being just a little hypocritical.

One particular video being shown on the news at the moment, among reports that alcohol prices should be raised (good lord, please no!), shows CCTV images of a young woman falling over on a pavement, so what?? No one else is around, she’s not hurting anyone, and at the end of the day, it’s her own embarrassment she causing, she looks as if she’s had a good night, and that is what people are complaining about, us having fun, excellent.

Alcohol, for a person, let’s take myself for example, acts as a release, if this is a good thing or not? Who cares? Being tipsy is fun. After a long, stressful week at work, a couple of double vodka’s help you relax, they make me giggly, happy, hyper and more sociable. I look forward to a good night out, as I know Im going to chill out, open up and forget all about my full time rubbishy paid job.

This brings me back round to the subject of alcohol prices being raised. On the news report I saw they asked random people on the street if raising the price of alcohol would stop them drinking, the majority of which, said no. Myself? Im quite lucky, I live at home, I can withdraw £30 from the hole in the wall at 7pm and get home a good few hours later having a good night out. But still, it’s not something I could do every day, as going out is expensive, to me anyway, I earn just above minimum wage, working in a supermarket, it may be a rubbish job, but it’s an essential one to aid our country’s lifestyle choices. But even if the price was raised £30 would probably still buy me a fair few drinks... And I ask, seriously, what is the point? If it aims to do what the government want it to do, does it not means less tax for them? And that is a genuine question, as that is what I presume, but I could be wrong.

So all Im asking is for people to open their eyes, I admit there must be a few, but who hasn’t been on a night out, (or a day even) and been totally...(hmm what’s an appropriate word) catatonic, afterward? Maybe people have just forgotten how much fun they actually had. So let us have some fun, and leave us alone, you may find release in other ways, but all we ask is that you realise that you were young once to, and that all we are doing is trying to survive, sure we may be killing our livers while we’re doing it, but at least we’re not all in therapy as the 30th customer of the day has asked where the sugar is.