to what extent does your life revolve around alcohol?

One time we got drunk on our lunch break. Three people fell asleep at their desks (ONE FELL ON THE FLOOR!), everyone else was very loud. At the restaurant one of the guys broke a glass and we all ran out. The next day we had an emergency staff meeting.

Now that I live in a better bar town,.. well, yeah, alcohol is found at many a cornerstone in my life these days.. heh heh... ugh.

Didn't drink much, if at all, from 14-19. Resumed at a party in 1995 or so, and drank now and again from then until May 1998 at age 21, at my college's outdoor music festival a couple weeks before I graduated, when I got absolutely plastered, far beyond anything I'd ever done before, and spent five hours alternately vomiting and unconscious in a women's public toilet (no one knew where I was, so no one came to help me) until I staggered back to my dorm room at five or six in the morning.

(About five hours later, my father almost died in a fall. Not a good day.)

Since then, I've had but little to drink -- getting that ill took away most of the fun. I don't like the way alcohol makes me feel anymore, either -- it used to have a euphoriac effect on me, but now it just makes me feel queasy, jumpy and vaguely lightheaded. So I have a glass of wine or Chartreuse or a beer every few months or so, and that's basically it. I suppose I miss the glow -- it was especially nice to have 2-3 glasses of wine at a good concert -- but really, once you're legal, it's not that much fun anymore.

That ususally doesn't happen though, and I am the person to see if you want to find out what exactly happened on our evening out...

I'm Irish. I might as well accept that I am a good ol' fashioned habitual drinker.

360 degrees

Times have changed. I was encouraged to drink stout. Something about B vitamins. Nourishing and relaxing for nurser and nursee. Too bad this is no longer true.

These days even habitual coming home and watching Simpsons/Neighbours often involves the cracking open of the cask o'goon. I'm trying to cut back though...

Wait no, thats for another thread.

i missed the second last episode where they got out (they got out). also harold strangled paul. there was no alcohol revolving at the time

This may be largely true for my life as well but I can't work up any concern about it -- it doesn't feel to me like teh booze is being used in any consistent way to conceal or abet or bypass anyone's issues that can't be otherwise resolved -- so I don't mind it either for my sake or my friends'. Is the mere fact of frequent social drinking a worry? I mean, if you think it is, then obv it is for you, but I'm asking: are you concerned by the frequency alone, or do you, like Trayce, know what function it's performing and is it the MECHANICS of the sitch that bother you?

been drinking since i was 12, which makes it more than half of my life. recently i didn't get drunk for 3 weeks, this was the longest i had gone sober since 2003, when i stopped drinking for around 5 months. alcohol doesn't prevent me working and shit, i go in hungover plenty but deal with it fine and it's not a problem for my manager. it doesn't effect my relationship with anyone important to me in a negative way and in fact most of my best friends are my most fervent drinking buddies.

so, there's no necessity for me to stop - and i frequently go a weekend or two without getting drunk, so it's not like i can't go without it - but i really, really want to stop. in recent years my bouts of drinking haven't gotten more frequent, but they have became more heavy duty. i rarely get just a bit drunk, tending to drink until there's nothing left or until i fall asleep. also drinking 3 days on the trot has became more of a thing for me than it was before. alongside this i've felt a real increase in the negative influence of alcohol on my health, both mental and physical, although mainly the former. dark fucking moods that last days, and this is on top of an already pretty naturally bummed-out, depressive kind of psyche. on the physical side i get the shakes a lot worse now and the tachycardia and heart palpitations are ballin' out of control at times.

i don't really know what i want to say with this post, like i don't know if i'm looking for advice. the best advice would just be "stop getting drunk". it's just that i'm so hardwired to think of drinking as punctuation between working periods, to think of myself as a big drinker, and to think of getting drunk as the only form of recreation that a special occasion/night out/period of free time merits that i don't know what'll do. the aforementioned period of five months without drinking was a pretty shit period - was stuck in the darkest stage of a funk that lasted from puberty until about the age of 22, extended teenage angst maybe, but that particular stretch was a real period of anhedonia anyway, so not really suitable to use as a period to compare theoretical future sobriety with. i just sat in the house feeling glum and reading, sleeping or playing playstation.

bah, just want to vent i suppose, and would find it hard to vent to my friends, who are in the main older than me and are still drinking lots and some of them doing drugs still, or on the other hand aren't big enough drinkers to get this "quandary".

I can relate to the impulse that all free time should involve getting drunk. I'm currently going through some difficult stuff, and drinking seems (and I emphasise the word "seems") to be a good way of dealing with things- or at least not having to deal with things immediately. That, and taking up smoking again.

Sorry not to have more helpful thoughts to contribute- but I see where you're coming from, for what that's worth.

Jim I spent a lot of years in a mindset where all free time meant drinking as much as possible, and I got to the point you are at, ie just wanting to stop for various reasons. You already know from what you wrote that it's going to involve significant lifestyle change - you'll need to force yourself to break out of your comfort zone and find new things to enjoy sober. In the end what made me successful was literally leaving the country and finding a new social circle who weren't as into drinking. Maybe not a practical solution for you, but certainly it took a very large shift in mindset which would have been difficult to achieve had I stayed in the same city with the same social activities. Good luck.

i feel ya, jim--feels like a waste of a weekend when you don't get good + loaded at least one night. otoh, as i've gotten older i've learned to appreciate things such as not getting hangovers and being able to wake up early on a saturday or sunday. i def drink more than most people i know but have gotten good at avoiding that point of oblivion.

ha, wrt leaving the country: i've thought about it (though not just for that reason)! seems to me living in santiago de chile it would be a lot easier not to be a drunkard than it is in glasgow.

im conflicted over my drinking too. when i go out, i really go out though, and my capacity for drink is a bit frightening and i drink like someone is about to take the drink away from me any second. on the one hand, im relatively harmless when pissed and i havent had people saying to me that its a problem and i shold stop. although one friend who has been dry for the last 5 years did suggest it to me. there was a stage in my late 20's where it was ridiculously out of control, pretty much drinking to the state of getting a blackout all the time. looking back on it now, i was definitely depressed and angry and was using drink to take the edge off of everything.

ive gradually cut things out (drinking spirits, drinking in the day) but i find it v. difficult socially and mentally to stay off the drink when im out. drink does so much of the hard work for you. i went back to college last year so im kinda enthused and want to do well there so ive straightened out (a bit). so the all day benders are a rarity. compared to a couple of years ago where i was working in a dead end job with nothing to look forward to but getting fucked up on the weekend. having said that 2 weeks ago, i drank all day sunday and dont remember getting home. it feels almost a cliche to point it out but throw yourself into new activities that dont involve drinking. i started doing some amateur drama and its a good way to meet people and it doesnt feel artificially generated like in the pub. i know what your saying about a lot of identity is tied up in being a big drinker and maybe you think youll be a boring bastard if you give up the drink but you know thats not really true either. try and give a month or so off the booze and clear your head.

it is a problem in my life

it has caused or exacerbated problems in my life

I rarely drink, only in social situations really

and I'm a proud lightweight, two or so drinks and I'm good - don't get the appeal of getting blackout drunk and then throwing up all day the next day

see, the trick is you don't throw up

echoing franny glass, the way i quit drinking and then transitioned to 1-2 drinks every other weekend or so was through major lifestyle changes, mainly a relationship w/ someone who doesn't drink very much. the reason i drank in the first place was because i'm naturally a bit depressive and had issues on top of that so i was escape-drinking. anyway bad combo, i worked on said "issues", and now i just... don't want to get drunk ever, i don't like how it feels, it's super-boring.

good relationships are awesome of course. hopefully you have one or two good friends you could reconnect with who are into other things. i think you have to be really honest with yourself about why you want to stop drinking and explore the reasons you do so much of it in the first place because what "activities" you want to do instead could rise out of that. the physical energy it takes to drink and get drunk, that devil-may-care gusto, was part of its appeal for me and now i run instead--i get that same expenditure of energy but it's a lot healthier needless to say. i was never much of a social drinker but going out to clubs had this excitement to it. if there was dancing involved, even better. and now i'm getting into mixing, trying to create that energy myself without the artifice of alcohol.

anyway, i feel really good about changing wrt alcohol and if you really want to stop, you should do anything you can to let it happen, no matter how drastic. sounds like you've got to cut off some relationships and forge new ones, not easy but can be kind of refreshing tbh. good luck!

how do you avoid throwing up though

I'm honestly counting on early death by vehicular manslaughter, I have no idea how I'm going to provide for myself in my old age otherwise.

Neando I think you should do all your conference calls from increasingly outlandish locations going forward just to mess with the project manager.

'Are you at.. are you at a bullfight??'

I was walking back to my car once after seeing Slayer at the Jaguars stadium and I was kinda in the road cos there was no actual sidewalk and one of the cops yelled at me "are u nuts being in the street, just about everyone driving is drunker than hell" and I yelled back "then I'm no safer on the sidewalk either" and kept going

Died and hour later, RIP me

angel of death!

ME (getting ready for dinner out this weekend with friends): "I'm going to try not to drink a cocktail before dinner."
WIFE (laughing): "I'm going to try TO drink a cocktail before dinner."