I enjoy a few beers or glasses of wine every now and then, and getting a good buzz going can be fun in the right company, but I've never been able to relate to the pleasure of actually getting drunk, even though I'm one of those lucky people who can do so without ever getting a hangover. Felt the same way about getting stoned the few times I tried it; I just don't enjoy that sensation of not being in control of my mind. I don't feel any moral revulsion towards people who enjoy drinking to get drunk on occasion or anything like that; I just simply don't get it.
What has always bothered me about 'binge drinking,' particularly as I remember seeing it in college (and to some extent grad school), is the dissolution of that usual unspoken compact to look out for each other, to pull your friends back from doing something stupid to themselves, that too often happens once the heavy drinking sets in. Now, as a professor, I read about the same things happening via the campus security briefs in our school newspaper after every weekend. Sexual assaults at frat parties, guys putting their fists through a wall or some "friend's" head through a window--stuff like that. I recall an occasion when a female classmate of mine who'd just been assaulted while walking home at night (an attempted rape; she did get away, but not without some bruised ribs, sprained fingers, and grass and dirt all over her) fled to a nearby bar where several of her friends happened to be hanging out and none of them--none--were sober enough to register what she was tearfully trying to explain had happened to her and help her out; she had to call herself a taxi instead. Or the Saturday night my freshman year when I walked down the hall of my dorm to the one closet-sized bathroom which was open on our floor at that time (they were renovating) and found some girl in her heels and fancy minidress and all that passed out sprawled across the room with her head on the toilet, puke all over the place. I had no idea who she was, let alone which party she was from, so I called the RA who in turn called for medical help. Man, did I get a lot of crap for "ratting" on her and her friends, but I wasn't gleefully looking to get anyone in trouble or anything; it just really frightened me to think that someone in what must have been a blatantly obvious, highly intoxicated state could've tottered out the door all by herself like that, failed to come back, and no one had the presence of mind to go looking for her. It's that kind of thing that really does disturb me about the 'culture' of binge drinking, if I can call it that. I realize it's far from the rule, but if even one incident like any of the above happens, that's one too many by me.
In alot of bars/clubs/pubs there are special promtions which mean that drinks are super cheap, like 3 for £5, £1.50 for some double shots and mixers. Alot of people get drunk alot quicker obviously and most bars would continue serving them. 
