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- Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, USA
We have a massive problem with drinking in the UK and a lot of it is due to very cheap, very strong booze sold in supermarkets. People drink at home, in parks, wherever, and drink far too much. It's cheap and available. When I was a teenager, like twotypes, I drank lager mostly, and I drank in pubs where a) it was more expensive = I drank less, and b) it was about being sociable, not getting legless.
Now traditional pubs are closing and we are left with open all night 'all you can drink' bars where you can drink yourself to death for a tenner.
If I thought it would do any good I'd advocate 21 as the minimum drinking limit here. Unfortunately 21 year old here as just as bloody immature as 14 year olds.
I guess I'm just nostalgic for a (slightly) more innocent time when it was about the dressing up and socialising and not all about drinking something more akin to meths with a gang of scruffy spotty oiks in the park.
It's interesting that you share this experience. Much common wisdom in the U.S. says that our underage binge drinking problem is due to the age being high- and therefore kids and young adults drink to excess because it's forbidden. Most people point to other countries with a lower drinking age and how they have less binge problems. Which means either these people are wrong, something is changing in England, or maybe the problem in the U.S. is just of greater magnitude.
Was alcohol always sold in supermarkets in the UK?
Here in the U.S. how alcohol is sold is determined by the state. Some states sell everything in the grocery store, some states only sell beer in the grocery (you go to a special store to get wine and liquor), some states sell beer and wine in the grocery (but no liquor), some states sell no alcohol in the grocery (and you go to a distribution center or liquor store). I live in a state that sells beer in the grocery, but wine and liquor you go to a special store (they are trying to allow wine to be sold in the grocery, because that is a major industry in my state.)
ETA: and some counties (levels below a state) are dry and sell nothing at all.
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