You are at a party and you see one of your friends binge drinking.

Vous êtes à une soirée et vous remarquez qu'un/e de vos amis/es boit à outrance.

Are you sure you are not going to get drunk like that?

chug chug chug chug

HELP! It's not as hard as it looks to get someone who already drunk to forget about drinking more. There are so many things to talk about to get them distracted enough that you can move them away from the alcohol.

I would gently encourage them to stop.

I would go and remind them not to over drink but if they really want to, I would just let them do it.

I would keep an eye on the friend and make sure that nothing serious happens to him or her.

I would keep an eye out on them. I would make sure they didn't leave the party alone or driving a car.

I would probably make sure a friend is with them to watch over them.

I would say nothing, everyone has the right to do whatever he wants without bothering the others

I would stay around to make sure that they were safe. If I knew that this was something they didn't generally do, or thought it would end badly and thought I could prevent this, I would try to talk them out of it.

I would take care of her, and not give her any more drinks.

I would take him/her aside and tell them that I am worried about them. If they are too intoxicated to be coherent, I would take them home.

I would tell them to slow down.

I'd better be sober or drink less so I can take care of my friend.

I'd suggest that they should probably stop or slow down. I'd make sure I would keep an eye on them through the rest of the time.

If I see they are behaving the way they might regret it later, I would try to give them water and convince them to slow down a bit. If everything seems ok I would probably join drinking

Make sure s/he doesn't drink to much and tell her/him to stop if it looks like they have.

Nothing special; I won't be able to change that.

Stop him/her if it gets to be too much and watch to make sure okay. If not, medical.

Stop them from binge drinking, and lead them away from the party for a while.

Tell them not to be stupid and bring them home.

Try to talk him out of it saying it is more fun and enjoyable to just have a couple of drinks and enjoy the people around you.

J'essaie de l'arrêter.

J'essaie de l'empêcher de boire.

J'essaie de le séparer de sa bouteille.

j'essaie de veiller sur lui

Je fais attention à lui/elle. Si cela se passe mal je vais le/la coucher et plus tard je le/la ramène chez lui/elle.

Je l'empêcherai tout simplement de continuer à boire par tous les moyens.

Je le défie.

je lui conseille d'arrêter de boire

Je lui demande d'arrêter de boire et je m'occuperai de lui s'il est complètement saoul.

Je lui demande de modérer sa consommation.

je lui demande de se contrôler plus et je m'assure qu'il y aura quelqu'un qui va l'accompagner en fin de soirée.

Je lui dis : "Tu sembles en forme ce soir ! "

Je lui dis d'arrêter.

je lui fais remarquer qu'il boit un peu trop, et cherche une personne avec lui/elle pour qu'il/elle s'en occupe.

Je lui signale qu'il faudrait peut être ralentir sur la boisson, dans tous les cas je l'empêcherais de prendre la route.

Je me mets à boire avec lui/elle.

S'il devient malade je l'aide mais sinon je le laisse boire comme il le souhaite.

Discussion

Many of the American responses seem to say that they would either try to help or encourage them to stop (with the exception of those who do nothing or encourage them to continue) while the French responses seem more inclined to make them stop (again, with a few exceptions). Why do you think the French responses are more inclined to make someone stop rather than just helping them or encouraging them to stop?

Is binge drinking less of a socially accepted action in France?  Do you go through a phase when you are in college to bringe drink like many do here in America?  Some American college students say they do it because there's nothing else to do at a party.  What do you do instead?

I think there are nights in America where people drink a lot - often as a result of something bad that happened recently or for a birthday or something. It is common for friends to accept it and know that it will happen. In this case, people will often just sit back and make sure that there are no serious health risks that will be posed. Does this happen in France at all? Are there any situations when drinking as such is acceptable?

En France les étudiants organisent souvent des grosses soirées où l'alcool coule à flot. Mais boire comme un trou n'est pas le seul but (en tout cas pas pour tous ^^), on y danse et on y passe un bon moment avec ses amis. C'est surtout une pause que l'on s'offre après une dure semaine.

Quant à nos réponses, nous préférons stopper un ami qui boit trop plutôt que de l'encourager à arrêter, car dans l'état où il est, il lui est difficile de raisonner convenablement, on prend donc la décision à sa place (si on est assez sobre pour ça).

Ca, ce sont nos réponses dans notre état sobre. Je suis sur que si on recommençait le questionnaire après quelques verres, on aurait d'avantage de : "allez! un autre cul-sec". Dans les soirées (alcoolisées), personnellement, je trouve héroïque les gens qui arrivent à surveiller la consommation des autres.

I very much agree with the ideas you have been expressing.  I think that this situation is often made difficult in the United States because binge drinking is pretty common and most of the people at a party would probably be accepting or encouraging of it (depending on the party of course).  In addition, it is not necessarily enjoyable to be the only person in a room who isn't drunk, so people who would not drink as much may choose simply not to go to the party.

Would you say that in France there is more of a range to how much people drink, so that at a party everyone is able to have a good time with their friends whether or not they drink that much, or is the situation more complicated?

I think that an underlying theme here is the concept of choice which is very important to American culture. As mature adults, we choose to drink and go to parties (assuming we are over 21 of course) and deal with the consequences. However along with that is a strong desire and sense of responsibility (again, as a consequence of choice) to take care of our friends and make sure nothing bad happens to them. It is an interesting personal conundrum I think. 

I dissagree that bindge drinking is more common in the United States. Especially here at MIT, drinking a lot is common, but not to the point I would consider bindge drinking. At fraternity parties and the like, there are often games, (drinking and otherwise) going on at the same time with people getting to know each other better by talking and laughing. Does anyone think that MIT is that much different from the rest of the US (and I don't mean in the steriotypical sense, since everyone believes we don't have fun).

I grew up around UCLA and USC. Based off of what I've seen, MIT is truly different from other colleges. MIT doesn't often get hit with stories of alcohol poisoning or serious accidents happening to drunk people, but at other schools this is not generally the case. In addition, we're pretty good at containing the aftermath, ie, you don't generally wake up to find half the campus TPed or drunk fraternity men streaking.

I don't think you have to drink to have fun at parties. I have a friend that is a devout Mormon but she parties a lot. A lot of people don't realize she's Mormon because she knows how to have fun without drinking and has mastered the art of acting drunk while actually being sober.

Finally, those of us in the greek system here at MIT (I don't really hear this anywhere else) get a lot of pressure to be "responsible." For some people that means not binging and for others that means having designated caretakers. I think having people around that are responsible might make people more likely to go all out than if they were among complete strangers.

I agree with Ana. It's not that there isn't drinking going on at MIT, but generally people know how to balance it and when to and when not to drink. There are some colleges where I know people who drink every other night just to get drunk. Maybe it's the workload? Are there differences based on the difficulty of education that differentiates how much people drink at a certain universtiy in France?  

Being in a fraternity, this seems quite a normal scene to me. I guess I would use my best judgement to decide what action to take. MIT has something called Party-Safe training in which they go through different scenarios and how to deal with those which I think is kinda useful sometime. Each fraternity is required to have at least a certain fraction of its members be party-safe trained in order to host a party at MIT.

I think also answer Elise about MIT frat's parties. We do have parties but I can say we are way way more responsible than the stereotypical greek parties somewhere else. Having been to our chapter at other colleges myself, there was definitely alot difference.

Personally I dont really like dealing with drunk people coz they can get really annoying and you have to make sure they don't just choke and die but sometime it's unavoidable. In that case, sometime it can also be fun since you can do funny stuff to them like recording them saying stupid thing or drawing on their face while they can't blame you afterward since they made us taking care of him.

To echo Ana's point, yes MIT and IFC(Interfraternity concil) does put alot of pressure on living group about this issue. For good and bad reason, it made people party more responsibly but sometime it's way too strict beyond what it need to be(too strict that sometime it might potentially cause serious issue to the living group from which anyone with alcohol poisoning were transported to MIT medical, which from medical point of view is unethical since it discourages people from calling the emergency service for some serious case)

While I agree that MIT is in general much more responsible than the rest of the U.S. in terms of monitoring drinking, I still believe binge drinking is a problem on campus. The good thing about MIT students is that we DO take care of each other and make sure everyone is okay. It is not that rare for students to be taken to Medical for alcohol related issues.

For me, I think its the mentality that students, not just at MIT but all throughout the U.S. when they go to a party. Often, before the night even starts, people say things with regards to how much they will drink, how they want to forget about the week, etc. With this mentality, students sometimes will drink beyond what their bodies can handle.

I think it's quite possible that since American are not legally allowed to drink until much later than the French that they have unhealthy views about it. People want what they can't have, and so perhaps this is the reason that more binge drinking occurs and that it is more acceptable. The French seem to have a much healthier attitude toward it.

It is also interesting that so many of the Americans just 'observe' the friend, whereas the french either take deliberate action or decide to have no involvment.

Comme vous l'avez si bien su le dire, on est pas obligé de boire pour s'amuser. Je me suis toujours demander une chose comment peut-on plus s'amuser si on est saoul et non lorsque l'on est sobre vu que la majorité des choses que l'on fait saoul on ne s'en souvient pas?

Je n'arriverai jamais à comprendre pouquoi l'homme ne peut se passer de l'alcool qui ne génère aucun effet positif pour la santé. Si seulement quelqu'un pouvait m'expliquer l'intérêt de boire à outrance durant toute une soirée pour aller vomir dans les trams à 6h du matin. Je n'arriverai jamais à comprendre cela.

Comme Paule et Pape je ne vois pas l'intérêt qu'on puisse trouver à être ivre mort, on est juste malade et on ne se souvient de rien contrairement aux autres qui ont assisté à tout ça.

Par contre je comprends que l'état d'ivresse (pas trop avancé et qui n'engendre pas de perte de mémoire) puisse plaire. On est euphorique, on n'a plus de tracas et on ne pense qu'à s'amuser avec ses amis. A consommer avec modération bien entendu :)

(par contre je trouve dommage de boire uniquement dans le but d'oublier ses problèmes, c'est lâche, ça ne résoud rien et ça fait perdre du temps)

Moi je ne bois jamais mais je pense que si beaucoups de gens se saoulent autant c'est juste pour fuir leur responsabilité.

En effet quand l'homme n'est plus dans son etat normal, il à le pouvoir de faire tout ce dont il a envie sans en assumer les consequences.

abuser de l'alcool peut toujours provoquer des dégats, des crimes des conneries tout a fait comme il a dit iliyass .. Déjà je suis contre l'idée pour s'amuser il faut boire, parceque en verité on ne se souvient plus de rien! Revenant à la question de ce forum, je dirais que ça dépend de quel genre d'ami tout d'abord , c'est à dire si cet ami est très proche ou pas de moi (même si je ne pense pas que j'aurai d'amis proches qui boivent)  : Si cet ami est de mes meilleurs amis c'est sur que je vai l'engueler, ou l'empêcher de le faire ou au pire prendre soin de lui en attendant qu'il se rend compte de ses réactions.. sinon même si j'apprécie la personne et on se fréquente comme ami simple ou collègue de classe je ne mêlerai pas de ses affaires c'est à lui d'être conscient de ses actes.

 

 

J'apperçois un ami (le boss) qui abuse de l'alcool, sans poser de question je l'empêche de continuer par tous les moyens parce qu'il n'est plus conscient de ce qu'il fait et donc c'est de mon devoir de lui venir en aide.