I'm not talking about tourists. I think it is expected that tourists are going to act up especially when they have only a few weeks to get as crazy as possible in what is basically a candy-land for people to do almost anything they want without getting in trouble.
Tourists regularly get overwhelmingly drunk and act like fools in tourist areas and that is why most of us that live here decide to avoid these areas. It's not that we don't like to get crazy every now and then, it is just that once you are actually part of the expat community, you don't really like getting lumped in with the newbies who honestly, kind of make all of us foreigners look bad often. We long-termers try not to be too judgmental because we were probably all there at one point in our lives.
I was forwarded an article by someone recently entitled "Dangerous realities for expats in South East Asia" and when I was reading through it I was kind of chuckling because I know multiple people that fall into almost all of the categories that they had listed as their "realities."
I think the biggest one that ends up getting so many of the expats is the east of access to a drunken or drug-filled life with little chance of there ever being any serious repercussions. If you are the type of person that is prone to drunkenness, not in a fun way but or dangerous and self-destructive way, I don't think that Thailand or probably any of the the other countries around here, are going to be for you.
I have seen so many people piss their lives away over here and the only thing they really ever do is go out and get smashed. There is a pub that I go to in my local area around 12km outside of the city center in Chiang Mai and there is this group of mostly older fellas that are always there. I mean ALWAYS. I pop in a couple of times a week for a pint or two but the same guys who are almost exclusively in their 60's, are in the same spots, normally trashed, talking about the same things over and over again. By the time these guys leave the pub/restaurant they are normally having difficulty walking, and some of them even drive while in this state.
In the west we would seriously reconsider driving under the influence or drunk but here in Thailand you are almost certainly not going to get in trouble for this. You certainly are never going to get pulled over for it. Really the only way that you are ever going to get in trouble for this is if you crash and kill someone. Even hurting other people with a drunk crash can be made to go away with a little bit of money and I don't think this is a good system at all.
I don't want the police to be all up in our business here and really, they aren't and that is a big part of the reason why I like it here. However, there are some people out there that if left to their own devices are going to make bad decisions most of the time no matter what you say to them.
I'm not trying to say that this is exclusively a problem of foreigners. There are plenty of drunk idiot local people as well and they get away with the same irresponsible behavior as the foreigners do, probably a lot more frequently.
I just know that when it is a foreigner that has one eye open on the side of the road outside of a 7-11 it reflects negatively on the expat community as a whole, not just on that one person. This isn't fair but that is the way that it is.
I can't speak for other expat communities outside of Chiang Mai and maybe Phuket where I have some experience but this does seem to be a rather common problem with them all. For whatever reason people just throw all the sensibilities that they would normally have in their home countries out the window and just think that they can do whatever they want here with impunity.
I don't think that is a very good way to live your life because come on! I'm sure we have all noticed someone extremely drunk and annoying in public at one point in our lives or another. Do we really want to add to the problem?
I'm not saying to never get drunk, but all too many of the expat community make that really, the only focal point of their existence. Surely there are other things that they could be doing like, I dunno, maybe a hobby of some sort that doesn't involve booze?