Abuse of Alcohol - Binge Drinking

During our course studies we worked out different presentations on the topic abuse of alcohol. E.g. we thought of places where the so-called binge-drinking (excessive drinking) takes place, researched statistics and damages caused by alcohol. This is what we we found out about the topic and presented during the meeting in Bremen:

Meeting points to drink in Bremen
First we tell you something about the “Discomeile”. The “Discomeile” is a street near the main station, where you can find many different discos and bars. Examples for discos are “Stubu” and “La Viva”, they promote themselves with free entrance up to 11 pm. At “1€ Bar” you can get every alcoholic drink for one euro.
Each disco has their own discopromotion´, for example “Tequila Party”,where you can drink the whole night tequila for one euro. Another one is “It’s your birthday”, it means, if you come with eight friends you all get free entrance and a bottle of vodka for free.
Furthermore in Bremen there are also special events where many people drink a lot of alcohol:
At the “Freimarkt” (big fairground happening once a year and lasting for 2 weeks) is a “Bayernzelt” where many people sit in and drink liters of beer.
The carnival parade is another one. There you go with different wagons through the city and also drink a lot of alcohol.
During the World- and European championship many people met at the “Domshof” in the city centre of Bremen to watch the match and enjoy the great atmosphere. There public viewing of important Werder Bremen matches (e.g. German cup final) takes place too.
A Northern German tradition is the “Kohlfahrt”. The adults go with a little wagon, play games and drink quickies, in the end they go eating.
Last but not least many youth celebrate house parties, these are meetings just to drink, where everybody brings some alcohol with them. Often they play drinking games, mostly with cards and cubes.
by Christopher & Jennifer

Statistics of Binge Drinking
Our topic was statistics of alcohol abuse. The first statistic of our presentation was “binge drinking among students of university of Stuttgart”. There is information about the students and their behaviour regarding alcohol cosumption given.
The interviewed students are undergraduate women and men, so we can say that men drink more often than women.
On the one hand most men say they drink excessively 1 or 2 times in a week. On the other hand many women say they never drink alcohol.
The second statistic was “beer cosumption in Germany” and the interviewees were over 14 years.
It shows that most people said that they never drink beer but it can also be seen that more than a quarter of the interviewees consumed beer either every day or several times a week.
Our last table was “patients at hospital with alcohol poisoning 2000-2006”. It shows that the number of patients at hospital has constantly been rising.
During our work with this topic, we also came across the consequential damages. They are for example that your liver and your brain gets severe damages. Your body suffers from underfeeding and is toxicated. At that stage when you don’t give your body alcohol you are subject to detox syndrome.
by André and Anna-Lena
statistics taken from:
www.destatis.de, www.uni-stuttgart.de

Finally you had the chance to see a movie made by Dennis and Stefan capturing the topic of alcohol abuse and an alternative to it. This is the result:
(Song 2 not by Blur, music used is under no license and was provided by Medienzentrum Nord Bremen)