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Writer Marius Goubert looks at weekend binge drinking in Bristol. Part one of a three part series.

We all like a drink, and let’s face it; some of us in Bristol like to get hammered. To stumble drunkenly past the police as they line up outside the nightclubs at 2am. To fumble clumsily with a kebab until it hits the pavement with a ketchup slap and leaves you pondering whether or not to try and scoop it back up with your greasy fingers.

To sit spinning in some seedy taxi rank, off guard, senses dulled, wits having long since dissolved in a few pitchers of Vodka Red bull, completely desensitised to everything apart from a growing sense of nausea and the stench of stale cigarette smoke.

To barely notice any scuffles, arguments and screams going on in the vicinity. To somehow make it home with no functioning memory as your brain struggles to record like a busted video player, and seems incapable of properly alerting you even when your face happens to connect with a wild punch.

The following Sunday morning you try to make sense of it all, and sit wallowing in paranoia as you watch the Hollyoaks omnibus and struggle to piece together memories as fragmented and disjointed as your mysteriously chipped front tooth. To have been there right in the epicentre - a willing participant revelling in Bristol’s binge drinking culture – but barely able to remember a thing about it.

Unfortunately, this is about as much perspective as most of us have on what politicians describe as one of ‘Sick Britain’s’ major symptoms, and what the newspapers choose to sum up with a photo of a drunk urinating up a war memorial.

No matter how many times you end up wandering the high street in the early hours of a Sunday morning, it’s difficult to soak up the atmosphere and really take in the scale of rowdiness and disorder across Bristol and the rest of the UK. The state of British city centres in the early hours of the weekend has been dubbed a national embarrassment. Amidst cries for 24 hour licensing laws and tougher guidelines on the promotion of cheap drinks, no one ever seems to consider the fundamental cause of this curious phenomenon.

For Hazel Blears the whole thing seemed so simple. But given that her attempt to curb the excesses of the weekend bingers were about as effective as a cat flap in an elephant house, perhaps there’s more to it than ‘people just like getting drunk’.

Having worked in a notorious Bristol fast food outlet myself for over a year which didn’t shut until 3am on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, I am someone who became all too familiar with Britain’s binge drinking culture. Someone who formed part of the clique of police, bouncers, fast food workers and taxi drivers, all united by our mutual loathing for the general public – and by the fact we were forced to observe things week in, week out, from a sober vantage point.

Next week: Letters home from the weekend war zone

Marius Goubert is a freelance writer with his eye on Bristol and beyond.

Please note, the opinions expressed above are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect those of Guide2Bristol.