Midnight on St Mary Street in Cardiff and everything is exactly as expected. Half a dozen young women slump in a gutter, men urinate outside a health-food shop and, as hordes stagger between nightclubs, someone lifts up a blow-up doll with a sex toy protruding out of it.
The street smells of urine and lager, police struggle to break up a fight outside the Walkabout bar and a paramedic bundles a comatose girl on to a wheelchair. But it's a quiet night for 20-year-old Naomi Jenkins. She has 'only' drunk three shots of peach schnapps, cider and three shots of Jagermeister (during a drinking game called I Have Never) and still feels 'a bit sober'. Her friend Hannah Freeman, 19, was punched in a fight and stumbles about swearing and searching for a bathroom.
'We only do embarrassing things when we're really drunk,' Naomi says. 'I kiss random men in the street and Hannah has had sex behind a chicken coop.' She screams with laughter as Hannah lurches unsteadily in the stairwell of Charleston Bar and Grill on Caroline Street (known locally as Chip Alley) and unashamedly urinates in front of us.
Rocky road: Scantily clad girls swap shoes in a Cardiff street while another bends down to pick up her handbag
Amazingly, none of the 80-strong throng of passers-by seems to notice – or perhaps care. Hannah rearranges her minuscule dress, steps over her own urine, shouts 'f*** off' and the pair stumble back to Walkabout. It's only midnight, after all.
To anyone who has spent time in the often Hogarthian surroundings of Britain's towns and cities at night, nothing about this scene will be surprising. Indeed, when Polish photographer Maciej Dakowicz displayed his collection called Cardiff After Dark at the International Festival of Photojournalism in the French city of Perpignan last month, the squalid snaps of barely dressed women striking crude poses or vomiting were depressingly familiar.
It would be easy, perhaps, to explain away this phenomenon as young women letting off steam after a monotonous week on the factory floor. Boozy Saturday nights have, after all, long been part of working-class culture in cities such as Newcastle, Leeds, Cardiff and Glasgow.
But as I found out on the streets of Cardiff after midnight, many of these women are – by day at least – well qualified pillars of the community. Among them I met teachers, nurses, occupational therapists,
personnel professionals and full-time mothers, all determined to shake off responsibility and have fun in the only way they know how. By getting 'smashed'.
Every week, the ritual is the same: Groups of between four and six girls congregate to dress up and competitively drink bottles of cheap wine or sickly shots. Competition ramps up over who can wear the tiniest mini-dress, the highest heels or the reddest lipstick. Drinking carries on during the bus ride to Cardiff (many young women travel from the surrounding Valleys) and continues in bars between 9pm and 11pm, or until they feel bold enough to dance.
Condom in purse and telephone number for a pre-booked 3am taxi in handbag, they stagger between nightclubs. The ritual continues long into the morning when, dulled by hangovers, they congregate for McDonald's or fried breakfasts to giggle about the drunken 'fun'.
Girls' night out: A trio dressed up for an evening out in Cardiff. But this group didn't get out of control
New figures show that alcohol misuse costs the nation £7.3 billion in crime and antisocial behaviour and that one woman in five drinks at levels hazardous to health (more than 14 units each week).
I went looking for the answer to the real question: Why? In a series of raw but illuminating interviews, I discovered that beyond the superficial bravado, their nights of booze-fuelled excess make them anything but happy – but they still have no intention of changing. Naomi Jenkins is a classroom assistant from Carmarthen and is adamant that downing sickly Jagermeister shots (which she nicknames medicine) is 'a laugh'.
I hear the same knee-jerk answer again and again. Human-resources administrator Becky Sherlock
from Chepstow tells me: 'Tomorrow morning, I'll lift my head off the pillow and think, “Oh s***.” But it's worth it.'
'A hangover is the sign of a good night,' says her friend Danielle Malson, a secondary-school teacher.
What quickly becomes apparent is the ease with which these young women distinguish their responsible weekday personas from their 'fun' selves. Naomi easily switches from diligent teaching assistant to Saturday night party girl when she squeezes into a skintight minidress. She tells me: 'I wouldn't do this if it affected my work.'
Occupational therapist Sally Baldwin, 24, added: 'If I bumped into any of my patients or their relatives, I'd hide. It doesn't give off the right image... But as long as it doesn't interfere with my work, I'll carry on.' By splitting their characters into two personas (professional and social), these young women appear confident that their professional reputations remain unblemished. In their own minds, at least.
'I just like knowing I haven't lost my mojo,' admits a 27-year-old full-time mother, dressed in a skimpy football kit and slumped in a shop doorway on St Mary Street. 'The world seems a better place when you're wearing beer goggles.'
Refuelling: Revellers stock-up amid the rubbish at the roadside
A pattern emerges: first they tell me mindlessly 'it's fun'. Bolshie camaraderie quickly kicks in and, egged on by friends, they proudly share anecdotes of 'a drunken foursome' (shop assistant Lucy Griffiths, 19), exhibitionist nudity (Danielle Malson, 23), and flashing their breasts for free drinks (hairdresser Lucy Walker, 21). Later, an 18-year-old law student from North Wales who has just swallowed ten peach schnapps shots propositions the photographer.
Girly camaraderie is clearly a massive draw, regardless of whether they have husbands or boyfriends waiting for them at home. 'Normally we go out to pull men but tonight not one of us is single,' says shop assistant Lucy Griffiths. 'It's still a laugh, though. When men come on to you, you don't kiss them or anything but it's still a bit of fun.'
One rather more honest 18-year-old from Caerphilly admits that she decides what to wear depending on whether she is on the prowl for a partner. Tonight – in a transparent Primark blouse and black bra – she undoubtedly is. 'I wouldn't wear this if I had a boyfriend. He'd be like, “You ain't wearing that,” ' she says.
Even dulled by hangovers, the young women I speak to continue to revel in solidarity. Naomi says: 'Hannah couldn't remember peeing on the stairs. When I told her this morning, I was laughing so much I could hardly get the words out. Hannah cracked up laughing too and begged me not to tell anyone.' She was embarrassed? 'No, she thought it was funny.'
The real reasons for their binge-drinking are buried within these anecdotes. Peer pressure looms large, as does a lack of confidence, boredom, burdensome responsibility and misery.
'I drink because life is a pile of s***,' says hairdresser Lucy Walker. She is particularly miserable because her mother is on holiday, leaving her responsible for two younger sisters.
'This place is really rough. You've got to be drunk to feel happy here,' she continues, sitting in the gutter. 'I've drunk so much but I'm still not p*****.' She clearly wants to be.
When we speak the next morning, her version of the night is very different: 'Yeah, it was a good night. I was laughing my t*** off,' she says.
In the gutter: Feeling tired and emotional after a night out drinking
More pitiful still is Jessica Hooper, an 18-year-old health and social care student from Ebbw Vale, who tells me that being drunk feels 'really nice'. 'It doesn't hit you until you go outside and realise how drunk you are, then it just feels lush. I feel good about myself... My excuse is it's all rubbish so I just get hammered.' But what is rubbish, exactly?
'Everything. It's all so boring. I drink to laugh and I drink to speak to people. Usually, I'm not confident enough to talk to strangers.'
No one is ashamed or regretful when I speak to them on Sunday morning but Naomi sadly admitted: 'Sometimes I tell myself I'm not going to drink that much again and ban myself from particular drinks. But if you don't drink when you go out with your friends, you're being really antisocial.'
Days later, her story changes again when she sends me a text message: 'Due to the nature of my job, it is very important that any information you have on me is not put in the
public eye.'
Eight girls ask me not to use the interviews in the four days afterwards. I agree and have changed several of the names in this article. Tellingly, no one will explain why anonymity is now so important to them but I suspect my presence has blurred the line between weekday and night time and, on returning to their workplaces, they have panicked. Many are no doubt worried that their parents or bosses will find out about just how extreme their Saturday night personas are, compared with the way they usually act as daughters or employees.
Psychotherapist Adrianna Irvine believes that regular binge-drinking feeds on buried feelings of depression. She argues that many of these young women can't communicate this to me because they are unaware of it themselves.
She says: 'It's not a thinking process, it's a feeling process. Picking up the 11th drink comes from despair, anger, pain and loneliness. If we dig deep, this is true of most regular binge-drinkers. It is important to remember that those feelings are not operating in isolation or just around alcohol. They will be present when dealing with relationships, money and work too, then all come to a head on the weekend.'
Down... and out: Lying on the kerbside amid cigarette butts and litter a young woman puts her head on her handbag and falls asleep
Unsteady: Friends try to drag a girl back on to her feet, who fell after her heel broke in Warrington town centre
To make matters worse, the women get in a vicious circle impossible to break without losing face or friends. Softly spoken Jessica admits pitifully that two weeks ago she was tricked into participating in a crude sex game on the stage of a bar. She believes that if she refused, her friends would think her 'a freak'.
She was lured on stage with the promise of free drinks and then told what she had to do – enact a series of sex positions with a stranger. She says: 'If I'm honest, I felt humiliated and miserable. If I'd said no, everyone would think I was stupid.'
Jessica admits she would be mortified if her mother knew about the sex game and Naomi confides on Sunday morning that though she is happy to talk to me about her binge drinking, her mother is firmly against it. No one tells me their behaviour is censured by their parents or partners. No doubt, many of their loved ones are unaware of it.
Usually, though, Jessica is happy to get obliterated. Tonight, after drinking peach schnapps, Jagermeister, sambuca, a woo woo cocktail, two absinthe shots and two litres (about 3½ pints) of cider, she still feels remarkably sober.
But aren't these girls worried about their health, liver, sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and their personal safety? Most of them laugh off the suggestions and reassure me that they are 'responsible', despite the fact that some can barely stand.
Jessica admits she does worry and so gave up alcohol for four months in September last year. She says: 'I still went out but it didn't feel as good sober. You don't talk to anyone. Drink changes the way you think – for the better.'
It is a sad testimony that obliteration of reality is the highlight of the week for many of these young women. For Alicia Howley, 20, and Lucy Griffiths, both shop assistants, the ritual of dressing up in tight minidresses and wearing lashings of make-up begins at 4.30pm, straight after their Saturday shifts at Matalan.
Lucy says: 'After a few drinks, you feel like you can do anything. It's amazing. The only time I usually talk to new people is speaking to customers at work. Alcohol makes me loads more confident... Like the time I had a foursome.' They laugh.
Part of the problem, according to London businessman Moniz Gbinigie who owns The 411 bar in Cardiff, is that women are lured into a sense of false security in what they perceive to be 'safe' cities. He says: 'Cardiff is perceived as such a safe place. They happily put themselves in vulnerable states. Girls will walk home barefoot, even if it's 35 minutes away. I rarely see behaviour like that in London.'
Teacher Danielle agrees: 'We keep our wits about us and stick together.'
Bottom of the class: In short skirts, pigtails, knee socks and neon braces, two revellers dressed as schoolgirls end the night in a drunken clinch (and don't let smoking get in the way)
Moniz concedes that rival bars offering free or cut-price shots are irresponsible. In one night on Cardiff's pavements I was offered six flyers, offering buy-one-get-one-free cocktails and wine, free entry and £1.50 drinks, £1 beer bottles, £1 wine and £1 shots until 2am.
'I only drink special offers or two-for-one drinks,' says Sally Baldwin, the occupational therapist who I spot in a gutter on St Mary Street nursing her paralytic 32-year-old colleague, Sarah Howells.
Between them, they have downed two pitchers of cocktails (for £10), a 'few' fruity ciders, cosmopolitans, Jack Daniel's and a 'zombie' cocktail that contains whisky, brandy, gin and vodka.
Sally even took up the 'block shot challenge', a drinking game that comprises a large block of wood with a shot glass on top. 'The aim is to drink the shot without touching the glass,' she explains. Why? 'Because it was free.'
Another drinking challenge called 'suck and blow' involves sucking a jelly shot out of a tube while another participant blows the other end of it – successful challengers get stickers. Becky says: 'I thought it was hilarious last night but it seems a bit disgusting this morning. It's gross.'
Dr Fiona Measham, senior lecturer in criminology at Lancaster University, says: 'The alcohol industry changed drastically in the mid-Nineties and has become better at appealing to women. First, the types of drinking venues available changed from spit-and-sawdust pubs to glamorous glass and chrome cafe bars designed to appeal to women.
'Women had more disposable income and a new range of drinks, such as Smirnoff Ice and WKD, were marketed to them. Some had very high alcohol contents but this has since been reduced. It meant women could drink a lot more units in a smaller volume that tasted nice. It made binge-drinking possible.'
Bizarrely, many women set self-imposed rules. One 26-year-old woman who holds a senior position at a charity confesses she uses 'tacticals' to increase her drinking capacity. 'It's a tactical vomit,' she says. 'If I get so smashed I feel sick, I make myself throw up in the toilets then get back on the shots.'
Sally admits: 'I ate a packet of salt-and-vinegar crisps between drinks so I didn't get too drunk.'
Like most women I interview, she is adamant that she 'deserves' these Saturday night benders.
She adds: 'I have a dog and a boyfriend so I have to be responsible during the week. I don't drink during the week. I save it all up for a Saturday night and then I think, “I'll do what I want.” '
And why would they want to stop? When the only deterrent, in their eyes, is a fleeting Sunday morning hangover while the glorious upsides are temporary anaesthesia – and a tawdry night in the small town limelight in which they are unequivocally the stars.
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