In the latest death to result from an overdose of alcohol, David Reid, a 22 year old bank worker from Manchester, had spent the evening with friends, drinking, playing cards, and watching DVD's.

After watching the DVD "American Pie 5: The Naked Mile", in which two of the characters in the film challenge each other to a game of "Last Man Standing", David and his friends decided to emulate the film.

The rules of the game are quite simple. Drink as much as you can, and the last man standing wins, or as is the tragic case for young David Reid, loses.

According to James Lynch, a friend who also watched the DVD with David, "We spent the evening drinking cans of lager and margaritas while playing cards.

The two men then shared half a bottle of tequila, half a bottle of gin and three shots of whisky within 45 minutes. Mr Reid was eventually carried up to bed and placed in a sleeping bag after complaining that he could not drink any more. He was found dead hours later.

Mr Lynch alluded to the fact they had got the idea of the drinking competition from the DVD that they had watched earlier in the evening.

When Assistant Coroner Leonard Gorodkin pressed him for the name of the movie Mr Lynch replied "American Pie".

According to the coroners report David's death was as a result of "Misadventure". Mr Gorodkin said: “We all know about drinking to excess and it has claimed the life of this young man.”

David Reid, who worked for the Bank of New York’s satellite office in Manchester, had died from alcohol poisoning.

Mr Gorodkin estimated David Reid would have been 6 or 7 times over the legal drink drive limit after consuming an amount of alcohol which had, in such a short space of time, "simply stopped his brain from working."

Its a scenario which the UK is witnessing all too frequently as figures released recently point to a huge upsurge in alcohol related death's. Almost double the amount it was 15 years ago, up from 4,144 alcohol-related deaths in 1991, to 8,757 in 2006.

A spokesman for the charity Alcohol Concern said: “It is vital that we provide better information for young people about the inherent risks of drinking heavily during any one evening. In situations like these, we are too often nowhere near as invincible as we’re encouraged to think.”