Now the drink problem lies with the fact that most people are fairly flush with cash. They work hard all week, earn lots of money and then blow in on a drunken rampage on the weekend.
In many ways the Irish have now come to represent the English binge drink culture.
Dublin in the past 5 years has become a seriously scary place on a Saturday night. Walking down O' Connell Street sober/soberish at 3-00am is an eye-opener. There are thousands of people around rotten drunk. Liverpool is much the same as Dublin, although on a smaller scale as it is a smaller city.
I used to enjoy alcohol as much as anybody and I still enjoy the occasional Guinness in my local, but as peewee said earlier, I could take it or leave it now.
I drank hard for 5 or 6 years solid. When I say "hard" I mean hard. I could polish anything off and usually did. It starts to mess with your life as it affects work, you eventually start losing friends and its impossible to stay in a relationship. I still get drunk every now and again, but probably only 2 or 3 times a year at this stage. Up until recently I went a few years without getting drunk.
Alcohol is ok if you can handle it, but believe me, anybody who gets trolleyed twice a week every week eventually can't handle it.
