A new study from England used measures of blood alcohol concentration, self-assessed and observer-assessed drunkenness to confirm the huge problem of extreme consumption of alcohol in the nightlife scene in England. One in ten people intended to drink more than 40 units of alcohol by the time they went home, with those using later drinking hours at pubs and clubs having the most extreme alcoholic intentions.
Mark Bellis, from John Moores University in Liverpool, worked with a team of researchers to study 214 people in Chester, Liverpool and Manchester.
"The UK has a well-established culture of heavy drinking in nightlife settings. Despite this, there is relatively little information available on drunkenness with laws restricting sales of alcohol to drunk individuals being largely ignored. Using new techniques, we examined the amounts people had drunk at interview and planned to continue to drink before going home. Combined with blood alcohol concentration measurement, this provides a method for examining even extreme levels of alcohol consumption without exposing researchers to highly inebriated consumers who cannot remember how much they have drunk," said Bellis.
A little more than half of the people who said they felt drink when interviewed said they planned to drink more alcohol that night. The researchers found that when people were told about their blood alcohol level, it was more likely to encourage them to drink than to reduce their consumption of alcohol.
"Commercial use of breathalyzers to encourage individuals to drink more has already been attempted in some bars in the UK," said Bellis. "As such technologies become more easily accessible, there is a real danger it will further increase alcohol consumption."
