Enjoy Yourself, It's Later Than You Think

There are plans by town hall chiefs in Manchester to start charging drunk people for hospital treatment in A&E http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1489387_drunken-patients-may-get-charged-for-treatment-at-ae-departments-at-manchester-hospitals?all_comments=1

“We have to start being really imaginative – alcohol is a cancer in our communities. If you spend any time at A&E over the weekend, you’ll find about 80 per cent of people are there because of alcohol”

Well, it's a well known fact that 142% of statistics are made up on the spot, so let's just take that number. 80%? Because of alcohol? That's a massive claim to make. The immediate question that comes to mind is how much alcohol, and why was it being consumed? We are lead to believe that a safe amount of alcohol is 2-3 units for women and 3-4 units for men, but lets face it. On a night out, no one sticks to these limits. That's why binge drinking is so skewed. Binge drinking is drinking twice the recommended limit. For me, that's 8 units. 8 fucking units? I wouldn't even feel it.

To put that into context. One bottle of wine is about 9 units. So if you drink a bottle of wine, you are binge drinking, you stupid dumbshit goddamn motherfucker. Drink 4 pints of 4% beer and you're binge drinking.

So, now we know that everyone is binge drinking, the percentage figure is useless as it's an unfair sample. You may as well say that 100% of people were admitted to hospital because they we're Human Beings when they woke up that morning.

It's not just that though. Who decides who is drunk? I guarantee that as a seasoned strong ale drinker, who regularly drink beers over 5%, and has been a judge on 3 National Winter Ales Festivals, I get “drunk” a fuckload slower than most people. It took me 5 pints to feel the buzz at the pub last week. You can say whatever the hell you want, that the alcohol is slowing my reactions down so that I can't function in the normal world. Well, you'd be talking complete and utter bollocks of the highest order. One person I was talking to who'd just turned up thought I'd only just got there as well. On my sixth pint, I was playing darts and I finished 501 in 21 darts, with only 2 darts at double. That's good play for someone whose hand-eye co-ordination is allegedly shot and whose legs are now supposed to resemble some sort of jellyfish like creature.

I'm not saying go and drive a car. That would be stupid. I've done my fair share of daft thing whilst drunk but I've never sprained my ankle, broken my finger or broken my arm whilst drunk. I did all that sober. That fact of the matter is that I can drink more than most and feel the effects less. People who think this isn't true are the same sort of people who tell you that hot drinks cool you down more than cold drinks, if all the bees died out tomorrow, we would all die in three years, or that irregardless isn't really a word. People like that need to fuck off.

I fly in the face of science, I kick the arse of biology and most of all, I do it whilst enjoying a cracking pint or two.

Incidentally, irregardless is now a word, because so many people kept saying it wasn't. Just clearing that up.

Some people think that it's OK to charge people who are drunk because they've done it to themselves, and if they can afford to buy alcohol, they can afford hospital treatment. Whilst this argument is as stupid as putting tomatoes in a fruit salad, it should be pointed out that the insane amount of tax on alcohol is used to put towards the social cost of alcohol. It's a tax that I am quite frankly, very happy to pay. I've been to hospital once for being drunk, yes, it was a total waste of time and I probably should have dragged myself to bed but, after the ambulance has been called, you can't do a hell of a lot. It was obvious I didn't need it. I walked to the damn thing. I've never been sick on the street, I've probably broken the odd bush by falling into it and I've broken the odd pint glass by knocking it off a table but I would think that I've paid a hell of a lot more in tax that I've taken out. I'm quite happy for that extra tax I've paid to go towards people who need a little more help than me. If only we all had this view on all taxes, we might still have a health service for the people.

If we are going to charge people for alcohol treatment, we need to look around more. We should charge people for all sports injuries. They didn't need to be playing sports. Broken legs due to football, strained backs due to golf, flattened faces due to boxing. All injuries sustained whilst commuting in cars, on bikes, skateboards or on foot. There is perfectly good public transport. There was no need for you to be making the journey yourself. Any treatment stemming from your unhealthy habits. Heart disease, strokes, kidney failure, liver failure, any fucking failure. If you were careful, you wouldn't have gotten ill.

I suppose the point here is that if we start charging people for alcohol admissions, people will start to say, hang on, why don't we charge people for other things that they could have stopped. That's the slide. That would be the fastrack to the total breakdown of our NHS services. Don't give them the bait. All they're waiting for is for us to ask for charges for alcohol and suddenly, charging for everything will be a good idea because it's not essential. Our government have already set this disaster in motion. Don't let's let them do it any faster than they need to.