As we come up to Christmas, getting a hold on your binge drinking is more important than ever. This page contains helpful hints and tips to quit binge drinking, once and for all. Alcoholism addiction can sneak up on you easily if you don’t keep your drinking in check. Binge drinking is a habit that almost every person in the UK has had experience with. Since alcohol is legal in Britain, many of us are exposed to it from a young age. Whether we see our parents drinking it, or whether we manage to get our hands on it when we are too young, alcohol is all around us. Our social and economic backgrounds influence how often we see it, but each of us does encounter alcohol in the course of our daily lives. Now, when it gets to times of the year like your birthday, your wedding, Christmas or New Year, alcohol is more freely available than ever. Many of us will spend the seasonal holidays drifting between relatives, paying visits and drinking more than we normally would. Although it seems harmless, keeping it up might lead to alcohol addiction. This is one of the many dangers of binge drinking. Let’s investigate statistics surrounding binge drinking and talk about the other dangers before we teach you how you can stop binge drinking altogether.
What is Binge Drinking?
Binge drinking is when you drink until you are beyond drunk and do so on a regular basis. If you routinely go out on a Saturday night and drink until your friends have to carry you home, then you are a binge drinker. This type of drinking is dangerous at the time because it can lead to falls, slips, and poor life choices. It is dangerous for your liver and, if you keep doing it, you could end up addicted to alcohol. Here at Help4Addiction, we specialise in finding help with alcohol addiction for our clients. However, we are well aware that preventing alcoholism is better than curing it. When it comes to binge drinking, this primary rule is the same. If you feel yourself binge drinking every weekend, it is far harder to stop drinking at weekends because your brain and body expect it.Binge Drinking Statistics UK
Here in the UK, binge drinking affects an estimated 15% of all adults. That is to say that a study conducted on alcohol and alcoholism by Drink Aware, the alcoholism change charity, found that those binge drinking in the last week stood at 12% of all women and 19% of all men. A further study by Alcohol Change found that one quarter of all UK adults drank regularly, and that as many as 28% of all UK adults admit to binge drinking at least once in their lives. What harm does this all do? Every year, Britain loses upwards of 8,000 people to alcoholism. That number increases each year and is steadily closer to 10,000.The Dangers of Binge Drinking
Binge drinking can lead to alcoholism if you keep it up long term. If you drink every Saturday, you will get used to it. It makes you feel good. You will require more and more of it to maintain that feeling. Before you know it, you are wondering why you only drink on a Saturday, so you take up binge drinking on a Friday night, too. As you can see, this starts a slippery descent into alcoholism. Asides from alcohol withdrawal symptoms and a bad hangover, binge drinking is bad for your health in other ways. If you keep it up, you might:- Develop an irregular heartbeat
- Develop an STD through risky behaviour
- Accidentally injure or kill yourself through uninhibited behaviour
- Affect your memory adversely
- Increase the likelihood of mental ill health
- Develop alcohol poisoning and wake up in hospital
