The medics currently define binge drinking as having more than a couple of pints of beer in one session. How quickly they seem to forget their own time as medical students -when by that definition, every evening would have been a veritable ‘bender’.
Overconsumption is a serious problem though and so today’s invention is a way to help limit the damage which people do to themselves via alcohol.
Someone entering a bar would be equipped with a glass for the night. The barstaff would stick a tamper-evident label on the base. Every hour, the colour of the stickers on clean glasses would be changed. In the same way that access to swimming baths is managed, people with a certain colour label could only buy a drink when their glass was empty and their colour was declared active. The frequency of colour changing would be managed to achieve a balance between happy customers and sensible behaviour.
This approach would limit everyone’s rate of drinking to a safer level and also avoid synchronous stampedes to the bar.
