RE the article about binge drinking (LT, March 31). How did we get into the state, when children so young are allowed to buy and consume such large amounts of alcohol?

I admit I went through a binge-drinking phase when I was about 19 (although it wasn't called binge -drinking then). It lasted a couple of years.

I am now in my late 60s and a grandmother to teenage boys. I rarely drink nowadays. After my heavy drinking days I settled down and found other pastimes, family jobs, interests etc.

If someone had told me that I would be taking five or six months off my life if I continued, I would not have regarded it as incentive to change. I don't think I would now either. No one is going to change their lifestyle for the sake of a few months.

We need a crackdown on sales, there are too many bargain booze outlets. In my day these places did not exist.

Drinking was done in pubs, not on the streets, children of 14 never thought about drink and would not have been served anyway.

BARBARA FRANKS, Coal Pit Lane, Bacup.