Alcohol

[deer of the dawn]

I have no problem with people who want to drink. I've been clean and sober for over 15 years but I am perfectly okay with people having a glass of wine, a beer, even a respectable uisgebaugh around me. I don't even terribly mind people getting drunk. I remember it was fun. I also remember doing things I wasn't proud of, later on...

I just really hate that people can't limit themselves to a few glasses, but have to drink until they're annoying, even dangerous to be around.

In fact, to be honest, that's why I quit, and my husband later for the same reason: we saw what alcohol did to people we cared about, and it was rarely good. It wasn't "never" good. I remember one anniversary we had where I was really stressed and a glass of champagne loosened me up just enough for my husband and I to really celebrate properly. But for the most part, tolerable people become intolerable; phlegmatic people become morose and depressing, cheerful people become forcefully cheery.... it's never like on How I Met Your Mother, where chums all hang out and have a great time and generate more good memories to laugh at later.

Someone very close to me has several, large glasses of wine every single night. During the day, he works hard and is very pious and kind and fun. After a few glasses he's just a great bore and depending on his mood either gets maudlin or starts badmouthing everyone and everything.

That's my experience. I would dearly love a glass of wine now and again. But this pretty much sums up the path I've chosen:

Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace... It is better not to... drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.

I know lots of people, probably the majority, who can handle it-- can enjoy a glass of wine and remain themselves. There are a few who can't, but it ruins it for the rest of us. How do you feel about it?

[Ananda]

I don't really drink much. I have Baileys around jul and a glass of wine here and there over the year if it goes well with the food. But, I don't care what other people do. There are always people who can't handle it. But there are people who can't handle many things. Look at some people and food. They get really fat and they still eat crap. There are people who get addicted to watching reality tv serials. I just think people are easily addictive to many things. But, as long as they aren't hurting other people, it's their life. You are right though, that it is not always nice to watch from the other side.

[Cagliostro]

I used to be really into beer and scotch, sampling as one would gourmet meals. I'd drink to get drunk now and again, but nowadays it is too punishing, and with acid reflux, it isn't as fun as it used to be. Plus, the drink bone is connected to the smoke bone for me, and trying to not smoke also makes it so I don't drink very often either. I was never a drunk, and usually had fun while drinking. I never had a need for a drink, except for a small bit of time where I felt the lure of addiction, and this happened mainly because I was trying to quit smoking.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

This is funny, as I am quite sure I'm charming and affable after a few drinks.

[Ananda]

This is funny, as I am quite sure I'm charming and affable after a few drinks.

You mean even more so, right? Because you are already those.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

That's the rumor.

[sgt.null]

i can drink or not. i remember counting one year - i had three beers all year long and no other drinks.

i also dislike the idiots who ruin everything. i just stopped hanging out anywhere they may hang out.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

This is an American phenomenon, I'm pretty sure.

[Menolly]

I have heard there are health benefits to having a glass of red wine daily. Not a large glass, but a glass. I am fine with that, and with those who enjoy drinking for pleaure having "a" drink to relax with dinner or whenever it suits at the end of a day.

But I see no need for more than one, in most I have observed drinking. That is just me though, and I do try hard not to judge. It can be difficult at times, though.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

Outside of situations of addiction/abuse, alcohol removes inhibitions, so the effects vary depending on the character of the imbiber. If social interaction is a medieval joust, it can drop your shield and trade your sword in for a mace, if you let it.

For people whose inhibitions keep them civil, alcohol can make them insufferable, because it acts like a truth serum, and you find out what they are really thinking. The worst kind of drinker IMHO is the one who feels it somehow gives them a free pass to be an a$$hole.

For people whose inhibitions keep them from having fun, especially fun they really deserve, alcohol frees them enough to have a truly great time. These are the best people to drink with - but honestly, these are the best people period.

If alcohol totally reverses a person's character, I would take that as a big red flag that all is not well within.

dw

[aliantha]

I drank a fair amount in my 20s when I was hanging out with friends, but I've only been drunk to the point of talking to Ralph on the big white telephone a few times. (That I remember. )

Then I married a teetotaler and basically stopped drinking, because it's no fun to drink when you're the only half of the couple who's doing it.

Nowadays I'll have a glass or two of something, once or twice a month. It's not my go-to substance to abuse -- but then, it never was.

The thing about alcohol is that it only *seems* to be a jolly thing. Really, it acts on the body as a depressant. Either it suppresses inhibitions or it makes you depressed. There was one time in college where I'd had a glass or two of something, and found myself sitting in my dorm room, practically sobbing. Part of my brain knew it was from the booze.

But people who feel like they need to have a drink to live, or to have fun? That's called problem drinking.

[Iolanthe]

Alcohol gives me heartburn, so I don't now drink it, unless my daughter brings her home-made wine as a present, and then I have an inch of wine with a lot of lemonade.

But that wasn't always the case. I once ended up in a plaster cast due to too much drinking at the first valedictory at college (1971). The loos were in the gym changing rooms and there were those very small tiles on the floor. Must have turned my ankle, because the next morning I couldn't walk and had a severe sprain. My friends may tell you that I was heard to say "I can't find my botty" whilst trying to sit on the loo without falling forwards, but I am sure that didn't really happen

I remember also sitting on the floor of the ballroom under the Carfax Hotel in Winchester (no longer there) probably much too drunk, telling my boyfriend my sexual history since the age of 16! As he eventually married me he must be a most forgiving man.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Well said Dukkha.

I recently undertook a 1 week road trip with my wife, as I had a class scheduled and then we had a wedding to attend in Huntsville, Alabama. I drank a fair amount for about 5 out of 6 nights, something I have not done in more than a decade. Interestingly enough I never got a hangover, and this despite mixing a wide variety of alcohol including one night of Wild Turkey 101 on nothing more than ice. I did notice a lot of effects in others, though, some good some bad. But I think alcohol is a social lubricant that is sometimes indispensable, whether when proposing a toast or when hard truth needs to be spoken among family, including seldom spoken mutual love. I've seen all of this lately. In vino veritas.

[deer of the dawn]

Although I consider myself a recovering addict, I had some sliver of wisdom; or perhaps I maintained an illusion that I was in control because I wasn't into the hard stuff, and I wasn't a drunk... anyway I woke up in a chair at a party and no idea how long I'd been there, or what had occurred during the past 2-4 hours. After that I limited my drinking.

I had a different experience with cocaine. I wasn't all that interested because we had in our school what we called "coke whores" and I didn't want to be one. Anyway a friend wouldn't leave me alone until I tried some stuff he had, so I sniffed a line and went to French class. I'm telling you, I felt sooooo goooooood!! As I came down I realized, I can never do coke again. It was so good I would be addicted like *snaps fingers*. And I'd be one of those horrible coke whores.

btw Io, if you have reflux, lemonade may not be the best choice for you, either!

[Orlion]

You didn't have any of those terrible coke headaches? I went, like, two days without Coca-Cola and had the worst headache ever!

I agree with Ron, Dukka, and Sarge. Alcohol is a great accessory to having a good time. Binge drinking in college is helpful because it helps you to find your limits and to know what to expect when you get drunk and how drunk you get in (what should be, but certainly isn't always) a safe and isolated environment. Some people never learn. Instead they think the point is to drink themselves senseless, and they'll continue to do so, even after they get shunned by friends after urinating on their couches or starting a fight.

Yeah, as Sarge says, you know who's going to be insufferable drunk. So avoid them as such.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

It's like most anything else in life. If you can't find the asshole after 10 minutes, odds are it's you.

[SoulBiter]

I used to drink quite a bit when I was much much younger. After my kids were born, I decided that wasnt what I wanted my kids to see as their dad. I didnt drink at all until a few years ago when I started to have a glass of wine with dinner.

So now I drink a glass of wine with dinner. I go to wine tastings now and again and here ya go.. I drink a single beer when I watch football (American Football) on Sundays. This year I have season tickets so I probably wont drink unless its an away game. I have this thing about not drinking if I need to drive, even if its just a small amount.

[Avatar]

Yeah, I don't drink much. There's always an open bottle of red wine in the house, and a few beers in the fridge. I tend to have a glass of one or the other with dinner, but that's about it. I almost never drink spirits.

On the other hand, I smoke a joint every day.

--A

[sgt.null]

i am a happy drunk. also kicks in my libido.

you've been warned.

[[Syl]]

I got drunk one time in college. Before that, I hadn't been drunk since shore leave in Italy. So on average, probably once every couple of years, always at a chosen time and chosen place. I think it's good to let it all out once in a while.

On the other hand, I drink just about every weekend. It might be a couple glasses of wine, a beer or two, or a rum and coke. To me, it's the equivalent of unbuttoning that top shirt button and loosening the tie.