Soberwolf

I'm talking about drinks that you can buy for 50p or 79p (UK)

I've never seen a normal drinker having just 1 white lightning for instance

There are popular alcohol brands that non alcoholics buy all the time then there are the 'other' popular brands that a lot of alcoholics buy

Any thoughts are welcome

Forward12

Maybe, maybe not. At least for me, and I think for many other alcoholics, just go for the cheap stuff as we're not just having a couple for the taste, we're drinking to get hammered.

jazzfish

Of course there are. Just 20% of drinkers account for 80% of alcohol sales, so it makes sense (maybe not morally) that they would develop products for them.

MissPerfumado

There must be all sorts of discussions going on at the highest levels in alcohol companies about how best to exploit alcoholics.

Not only that, alcohol causes cancer, and this is a widely known, widely recognised health fact. It is a Group 1 carcinogen, according to the WHO. Yet there are no warning labels on alcohol products. Every press story about it will contain a tired shrill line from an alcohol spokesperson saying Oh, but there's NO PROOF it causes cancer.

Sociopathic liars.

There will be a reckoning one day. Big alcohol for sure already has multiple strategies to deal with that. But the class action law suit that will happen is an equally sure thing.

MarkTwain

You're in England, Soberwolf, so you may not have heard of this, but we used to have a sugary salty cereal here in the United States called Wheaties, and they promoted themselves as the Breakfast of Champions. (Speaking of sociopathic lies....!)

We used to joke that the tall cans of 16-ounce Budweiser, or, in some places, the clear quart bottles of Colt 45, were the true Breakfast of Champions!

Some joke, huh?

nmd

Not familiar with UK brands, but the malt liquor and single serving tall boys in the US are definately aimed at getting drunk cheap. They seem targeted at the the " I don't have enough money for a six pack and want a strong drink" croud: underage kids, young people with no money and broke alcoholics.

The world is full of "craft beer" and fine wine alcoholics too (and hard liquor drinkers). We all end up in the same place if we don't get sober.

It's targeting of alcohol advertising that bothers me more than the type of alcohol. People today have been sold a bill of goods on the health benefits of drinking, and that drinking wine and craft beer is classy and sophisticated etc. Drinking beer or an expensive scotch is manly, etc.

Everyday there's news reports of deaths from heroin ODs and the "heroin eppidemic", and yet in the same day we probably had more alcohol related deaths. I have no answers, it's just sad.

Bunny211

I had no time for "Skinny Girl" cocktails. They had about 1/3 less alcohol content than regular cocktails. No thanks.

Also - ultra light beers - Nah. There's hardly no booze in them.

Straight alcohol please. That was my go to. I was a wino, so I would start off with a bottle of decent stuff (like a $12 bottle) and then the second and third bottle would be absolute garbage wine.

Also - it has been my experience that many of us alkies love the boxed wine. More bang for your buck and you can lie to yourself about how much you are drinking.

mecanix

The perception of an alcoholic as guy swigging out of a paper bag or drinking a 4 pack of cans on a park bench is a bit wrong imho , false logic says make these drinks more expensive or ban them and the problem will go away, all it does is put the people in poverty in worse dire straits , or they then buy black market fake drink with methanol in it.

I knew plenty of drunks who made home brew once a week .

I've drank cheap cider, for the bulk of my alcoholism i drank bottles of wine in the £15-£50 bracket , a real wine know it all ... it was classy and something to be educated about,
all of it was guff,
all of it was clever marketing of a neuro toxin that made me sick and poorer .

The price , the cost of it didn't change my alcoholic behaviour of a spiralling decline in health and wealth.
My snobby attitude and discrimination in consumer spending just afforded me a little bit of a veneer of denial that i wasn't an alcoholic , just a high living bon-viveur ..

Humbug , i say ..

m

Sc0ot3r2017

One thing that has become popular in the US lately is gas stores are starting to sell the minature shooters for .99cents...and normally its the high content...that was my go to...I would buy 12 shots of yukon jack for 12 bucks and still have money left over

Bunny211

Yep. I used to drink wine nips. Some gas stations sold them. Sutter Home. Revolting but they came in plastic bottles so they didn't shatter when you fired them out of the car window driving down I-90.

ScottFromWI

I'm sure there are, but at the end of the day it's my responsibility to decide if i'm going to drink or not. Some hardcore alcoholics make their own wine/beer so even if the entire "alcohol industry" were somehow wiped off the face of the planet, people would still drink - they have done it for centuries. Same thing with other drugs...if a meth addict can't buy more meth, they can just cook some up on their own. The problem is inside US.

MarkTwain

And for us Americans, the classy English accent and the centuries of tradition would look really good too!

This reminds me that I had a friend who didn't drink. He had real classy cocktails.
"Let's have a cocktail."
"Let's go out for a couple of cocktails."
"I'm making myself a cocktail."

He's dead. Cocktails.

Femaleboss1980

Im in the UK also and agree although ive never drank it or special brew or supper tennants (like petrol im told) however wine was my fortay and i often bought 3 bottles for £10
Never drank lambrini either
I do believe alcoholics for drug addicts that swap drugs for drink do this (know this as fact) it should be abolished IMO

Good thread makes you think doesnt it

Have a great day all

JoeCree

Well, now you know the advocates for prohibition in the 20s were probably speaking from experience, but we all know how that ended up.
The only way alcohol will meet its maker is when the science community does to it what the tobacco company went through. The public needs to understand that alcohol is pure poison. Sure (like smoking) one here or there wont hurt you, but i dont see kids picking up smoking anymore. It takes a generation to change the narrative.
Alcohol is a gateway drug, that poisons brain cells, rips apart families and keeps jails running at capacity. Nobody ever thinks that they are the next in line to suffer the wrath of alcohol... until they do and it is too late.
In 40 years, society will look at alcohol the same way it sees tobacco now.

notgonnastoptry

I've heard that the plastic bottles are made for alcoholics and their tendency to litter. I know I littered mine when I could. It was annoying because I don't litter, but somehow I felt that was ok.

I never bothered with the shot bottles (except when I was flying. then I'd get six at the nearest gas station to the airport. three to drink in the terminal and three to go through security to bring with me on the plate. Hey, at least I was money conscious! woo hoo. not).

like someone else said, I never bothered with beer, wine, or anything else of low alcohol content. I went straight for the vodka and that was all she wrote. It was cheap, fast, and did the trick. Yes, I think skol and those other cheapie brands, "golsen" or whatever it is are definitely made for alcoholics. Who but an alcoholic buys a half pint of skol? I can't imagine anyone would want that unless they were seeking what we sought.

notgonnastoptry

I also HATED (it still makes me mad lol) when I was in states where they had really special rules of where hard liquor can only be sold at certain places. Used to drive me nuts on vacation where I'd just want to slip out to CVS or Walgreens only to find they only sold wine, or worse, nothing at all. Finding a liquor store on the gps was annoying.

Dee74

I took the thread to be about the availability of really cheap potent alcohol.

I saw a show not too long ago where this English guy was drinking some cider stuff from a 500ml can... for 99p.

It made me glad I lived in Australia where at least tax made drinking a little more expensive - probably saved my life.

D

Forward12

One thing that comes to mind is I remember someone posting a while ago that only alcoholics buy shooters/half pints/pints, and I think that is true. I've never seen a "normie" buy those.

FarAwayTimes

Only fairly recently did it become legal to sell even beer and wine in convenience stores in Massachusetts, and only until 11 PM.

I can tell some of the clerks and owners have mixed feelings about it. I'm sure they like the profit, but the problem is you have people who show up at 11:06 demanding to buy alcohol from the only place that's still open, the 24 hour store, they can see it sitting there in the cooler, but the clerk has to be the one to say "No, I'm sorry, it's past 11 PM."

Saw this one young woman stumble in drunk to my local 7-11 late one night trying to buy a six pack and cigs. It was past legal hours, and she only had her college ID anyway, which isn't good enough here for age verification. The clerk was a young Indian guy and she dropped every swear and racial slur on him in the book before storming out when he refused to give her what she wanted. Disgusting.

Wholesome

Yes some drinks are made for alcoholics. I used to work in the industry selling alcohol, namely beer, and we ordered certain high alcohol content beer that we only sold to the regulars who came in every day often more than once to buy the brands that had 8-10% alcohol in them. That's what they wanted so that's what we stocked.