Any of you who follow me will know how anti excessive boozing I am. This is not from a judgmental place but from a place of pure observation and personal experience. I am currently on a short break in Marbella after finding what I thought was a good deal on the Internet. I have been to Marbella many times and enjoyed many alcohol driven lunches and partying in the past but this trip has shown me something I have not seen before.

I am sitting by a pool at 10am in the morning surrounded by big groups of middle aged men and women, humongous bellies and foul mouthed, hung over, loud Brits boasting about how much booze they are able to consume. I cannot believe my ears or my eyes and I am not a prude or a prig. This is holiday bender on a whole new level.

On one side the party of eight, 40-50 something married women are reminiscing about not being able to remember the previous evening and discussing openly, so the whole pool can hear about being sick, falling over and being chatted up by married blokes in an even worse state than them. On the other side there is a group of 10 hungover men on a stag weekend, still pissed from the previous evening and desperate for the bar to open, looking forward to hair of the dog and starting again.

I have ear plugs, with loud music, but I could still recite both parties entire life history as well as their plans for another mammoth bender tonight and I am just praying they don't decide to amalgamate and take over my entire day.

I am all for people enjoying themselves but if only they could realise how ugly and unhealthy this behaviour is and how offensive it is to others trying to be quiet and relax, they might reconsider.

I completely understand holidays are to let go, relax, unwind, let your hair down a little and there will always be someone who goes too far looked after by a more sensible friend but large groups of adults where everyone is in a complete state was an eye opener for me and made me feel embarrassed to be British if I'm honest.

When your whole life is based around either getting over alcohol or looking forward to alcohol you are addicted.

Photo by: engin akyurt Unsplash