Its report says parents should discuss alcohol with their children and set firm boundaries on drinking, avoid being drunk around them and actively ensure they develop sensible expectations of consumption.

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He once confessed: "I performed some of my most famous scenes whilst blind drunk" and said his heavy drinking meant he was unable to remember his first four years on the show.

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Traditionally, Italians have drunk wine with meals and avoided the sort of binge drinking that is commonplace in Britain, but Dr Salmaso warns that habits are changing for the worse among the young.

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Sometimes I was drinking a bottle of whisky and I couldn't even get drunk, so I'd go onto two bottles of whisky a day, wake up, fall asleep, wake up, start again.

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And the binge drinking which in effect means you go out with the purpose of getting drunk which is not something that youngsters in other European countries by and large, although it's changing, do.

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