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Location: Stuck on the East Coast, hoping to head West
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gentlearts
Of course it has ruined many lives. My point was that even if one is not addicted, it still is a good idea to quit, or severely limit, alcohol anyway.
I agree and I think your post made some really good points. I think problem drinking is an issue---I see it all around me. It's not quite enough to make you sick or earn you the label of "alcoholic"; but it is enough to interrupt your daily life.
Good for you for making the changes that make your life better.
I first tried alcohol in college, at frat parties and dorm parties. I was surprised how nasty it tasted. I thought drinks would taste delicious, based on all the commercials I saw and the way people around me chugged it down. Nothing prepared me for the "bad chemical" taste of booze.
Still, for years in college, I would nurse a drink at parties, so as not to look like a freak, and later at work I would order a drink if everyone else at dinner was ordering one. I didn't want to be the odd one out. But I disliked the taste and would usually not even finish one drink.
galaxyhi wrote:
Quote:
Also, when you are sober, it IS interesting to note. How much others drink and what absolute fools they become under the influence. You don't notice it when you are drinking also.
This is the absolute truth. I have been around many friends and boyfriends and coworkers who drink; they get progressively louder and dumber and sloppier as the evenings wear on. Not that fun to be around if you aren't drinking.
After my first year of work, it got to the point where I would have one drink each year, at the company Christmas party, because the company had paid for an open bar, and it seemed ungrateful not to accept their hospitality.
I left that company 20 years ago, and since then I have not bothered to drink alcohol "just because" I don't like it, and I don't care about being the odd one out anymore. I have noticed how heavily social events and advertising emphasize drinking alcohol, and I can't help but see how large it looms in many people's lives. For example, some of my siblings have married into families whose social and family lives feature a lot of drinking. It's highly noticeable when we go over to their homes because they are sloshed and uninhibited when we arrive, and it just goes downhill from there.
Nobody seems to worry about alcoholism or liver disease. Alcohol use is so accepted in our culture, and I don't understand why.
I haven’t had a drink in about 37 years. In my 20’s I would drink wine occasionally with dinner and other alcoholic drinks if out with friends. Then, when I would take a few sips of wine, I would get an immediate headache. It happened with both red and white wine and made it very unpleasant to drink wine. So I stopped drinking wine and for no apparent reason also stopped drinking other alcoholic drinks. Never missed it.
I haven’t had a drink in about 37 years. In my 20’s I would drink wine occasionally with dinner and other alcoholic drinks if out with friends. Then, when I would take a few sips of wine, I would get an immediate headache. It happened with both red and white wine and made it very unpleasant to drink wine. So I stopped drinking wine and for no apparent reason also stopped drinking other alcoholic drinks. Never missed it.
I get that. I’ve always felt that way about beer. I might get about one beer a year, with a burger, just to make sure I still hate it.
I used to like wine a lot more than I do now. I don’t miss it. Even my formerly beloved bourbon smells a bit sickening to me now.
I never took it up because alcoholism was all over my family tree. I think my genes might be those of an easy addict.
I have the opposite genes because nobody in my family ever drank.
I do not like the taste of beer it's awful. I would rather have a seltzer water with twist of lime.
Hard liquor? Awful tasting stuff makes me wanna puke.
There is one alcoholic drink I like and that is a sparkling wine and if it doesn't have the sparkles I won't like it. When I do have it it might be a maximum of two glasses which might come along once every three months.
Last time I was legally drink was nearly 50 years ago and that turned me off.
I never liked the taste of alcohol. I could do some sweet wine and fruit drinks to disguise it, but never enjoyed anything like hard liquor or a dry red wine. Nor did I really like the buzz. It just felt artificial to me. A type of high/relaxation, but just artificially imposed on me, so it felt like it was in me but not of me. The high/relaxation I feel after meditating and doing yoga is much deeper and feels much more organic (and longer lasting to me).
Ever the worrier about achieving good health, I felt bad that I didn't drink much (maybe one glass a week) after hearing about all the health benefits. But no more---with the study that came out last month about the link to cancer with even quite moderate drinking. I'll stick to eating the actual grapes!
Not drinking can cause some social issues. I've been accused of being holier than thou for not drinking (and my eating whole foods plant based makes it a double whammy), even to the point of someone saying she wouldn't want to share a meal with me because my not drinking and the way I eat would make her feel bad about her own choices and that she really likes a drink with a meal. (Not that I would be saying anything to make her feel bad, but my not partaking would make her feel bad---kind of a sin of omission rather than commission.) But so be it. At this point in my life, must do what feels right and enjoyable to me. Being an introvert helps with being a social pariah as well---don't need to collect people anymore than I need to collect wine bottles!
My husband never had a problem drinking. He's never been drunk. But he was very regular drinker, two glasses a day, one around cocktail hour and one with or after dinner---beer, wine, the hard stuff. Never had more than two glasses a day, ever---which was a good thing since his mother abused prescription drugs and at the end of her life, alcohol. Since the consensus medically has always been that men could drink up to and including two drinks a day, he took that as a given and saw nothing wrong with it. Finally his internist asked him if he really thought fourteen drinks a week was healthy while fifteen would be magically unhealthy. He saw her point and cut it down to ten a week, then seven, now three. He's had some weird medical glitches that no one has ever attributed to alcohol, but what if it's poison to people or at least some people? At 160 pounds, he doesn't weigh more than a lot of women, so maybe he should have been drinking according to the guidelines for women.
This subject is timely for me since I just watched a TED talk where the person talked about "gray area drinking." Nope, she wasn't talking about senior drinking, but the type of regular drinking that isn't readily observable as problem drinking but isn't just every once in a while either:
Just realized that I've never been "around" so many nondrinkers or very light drinkers! Makes me feel a little less weird/alone. When I have tea time in a few minutes, I'll raise my glass of herbal tea to you all! Want a virtual non-alcohol party?
I tried drinking back in college where people sort of pressured you into it but I didn't like the taste. I just couldn't believe anyone would willingly partake of something that tasted so horrible.
I already knew I hated beer because my dad used to ask me if I wanted a sip of his while he was watching sports on tv.
I've had a glass of wine with a restaurant meal or a glass of champagne on New Years and that tastes okay but not great enough to make me want to have it any more often.
I can only remember being drunk a couple times in my life. I started drinking very young because I was living in Europe and I could just walk into a bar and order, just like everyone else. The dining hall where I ate my meals had pitchers of red and white wine on every table. It was a real novelty when I first arrived but it wore off and booze has never been that big of a deal to me.
The only alcohol I love is a shot of fake Bailey's in my coffee. Yum and it makes my feet warm! I probably drink 3 or 4 bottles of it every winter. I watch for sales too!
I have all kinds of booze and it just sits there till someone comes over and drinks it. I marinated my turkey this year in champagne because I had 4 bottles that were getting too old!
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