Now, although I enjoy a pint and probably 'binge', my reasons for doing so are different from that of an alcoholic. This is why I think Gordon Brown was wrong today, a minimum price on alcohol would not be an unfair punishment on occasional piss artists like myself. I can choose whether or not I wish to get myself into a heavily inebriated mess or have one pint, I don't drink everyday, I don't drink illegally in the street and my drinking hasn't effected my ability to function in a socially accepted way. In other words, I'm not alcohol dependent.
There is a difference between binge drinking and real alcohol abuse. The 'Daily Mail' might try and tell you otherwise but it's a terrible paper anyway and deep down you know it speaks an admirable amount of total bollocks. Alcoholism in the most destructive form takes place out with pubs and clubs on a Friday/Saturday night. Instead, walk to work / university / college on a Monday morning and look out for the chap with the tin of Special Brew or bottle of cheap white cider. Although he* might appear happy enough, unless you are too intimidated to walk near him, he represents alcoholism in its most dehumanising, self-destructive form.
Street drinkers do their drinking on the street as their alcohol consumption takes on such an intensity that pubs and clubs can't handle them. They are likely to exhibit behaviour that is liable to get them banned from drinking dens and instead the city centre becomes one big pub. The problem is that this big pub doesn't serve pints, instead its many bars (newsagents / off licences) serve disgusting beverages at a low-low price. Sounds great? Hold your horses Mr or Mrs 'mad for a session'. The cheaper the better? No, the cheaper the nastier, less pure and higher the chance of you headbutting your best mate. But if you are an alcoholic confined to street drinking, chances are the taste of tipple is second to getting heavily intoxicated.
Alcoholics who are street drinkers or similar destructive consumers drink cheap alcohol because they tend not to have the disposable income you or I do. They drink for different reasons and their behaviour isn't as manageable as we generally will be when we are drunk. People who drink with a serious reason - a vendetta - usually do so because they are escaping from something. Not the weekly grind that we escape, but past instances that most people don't have the misfortune to experience. This is the case whether they are escaping actions carried out by themselves or brought on by others. The wider the availability of cheap alcohol they can access, the more damage they can do and the harder it is for others to help them positively address their issues.
Cheap alcohol is killing these people. If a minimum price on alcohol was introduced, we would still be able to go out to the pub on a Friday, get hammered and fall over. It really wouldn't affect us too adversely. But the serious drinkers of the nasty cheap stuff would find it much harder. Although that would be understandably difficult for them, a limit might be one of the only workable measures the government can introduce to aid services helping alcohol dependent people at the very bottom rungs of the social ladder. There is a thin line between draconian action and worthwhile intervention and in the case of the poor sods at the bottom, as much help as possible is needed.
Stu
* I don't mean to use 'he' in a sexist sense - proportionally it is more likely that a street drinker will be male.
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