to what extent does your life revolve around alcohol?

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

practice

god that sounded so self-helpy, sorry. in fewer words: it's worth changing if you don't like what's happening, and yes you can do it, etc. xp

re, brainwasher: dunno. alcohol doesn't make me puke, like ever. nor do i get hangovers unless i really do myself in. cigarettes seem to cause more morning after damage than booze.

or yeah, what she said

cigarettes seem to cause more morning after damage than booze.

smoke more.

i drink pretty rarely, except for the occasional glass of wine with dinner. it takes very little for me to get drunk.

We're going to have a guest in a bit here who is totally one of my besties but who also habitually drinks 12+ beers a night. I'm not really sure what to do. "G,night, pal...I know what you usually get up to so I'm sleeping with your car keys tonight." Or if this is even a problem at all? I mean it's clearly kind of a problem for him. It's really the elephant in the room.

lurk here, but i thought i'd weigh in as it's a problem i'm currently trying to address. like abbott's friend, i habitually drink somewhere between half to a full bottle of spirits (or the equivalent in anything else alcoholic) a night. when i don't, i don't sleep and suffer heavy anxiety/auditory hallucinations/nauseau etc. i've lost relationships, been jailed, dropped out of a phd program etc. etc.

maybe the best anecdote i heard about drinking was from a friend whose ma supervisor was a hardcore alcoholic and utter wasp. he passed out into in his dinner, his wife looked at him and then said to my friend 'alcoholism is so boring.'

it is boring, and so are the war stories, regardless of whether they're james frey's or fred exeley's. but i still love it, as much as i always have.

i recently went for an assessment at the local addiction/mental health centre and am going to be starting group therapy soon. the thing is, drinking is the crux of every single social relationship i have, whether with friends or family, so it's near impossible to imagine a life without it.

i guess all i'm saying, and which i'm sure you already know, is that it's good to address it, it can get bad.

I was a heavy drinker for 10 years, and quit drinking in 2002. Once you reach your late 20's the physical effects can really start to kick in. The way I did it was firstly to quit the crap job I had (needed to drink partly to relax after crappy days in the office, also many of my drinking pals were colleagues, and the place had a drinking culture), then secondly to move away from the city where I was living. These two steps had the effect that I was no longer surrounded by people who thought my behaviour was acceptable, so I had to sober up.

Stopped 8 years ago, because, basically, every question on every one of those questionnaires got a 'yes': waking up in hospital with my face bashed in and no memory of how (still), waking up in (very) strange peoples' beds, blackouts, missing work, fights - a black eye from my girlfriend on the day of my mother's funeral - so I stopped. Truthfully, it wasn't that difficult, and it's not that difficult hanging with drinkers: I never really get a thirst for it, and after a few drinks, they get so they forget you're not drinking and tell the story they first told you 5 minutes ago. Drinkers are basically self- centred and you're not conspicuous if you're not drinking because they're not paying attention really...

I get a bit panicked when people get really out of it: but drunks are really suggestible: implant a good idea -like 'go to bed', 'give me your car keys' and it will take over completely. Quite easy to manage usually.

Maybe the hardest thing is accepting that a lot of the things I used to blame on my drinking are actually me: I'm lazy, distractable, unproductive, sober as much as drunk. I've achieved some things that I probably wouldn't have managed if I was still a drinker, but I haven't written that great novel, or turned out to be any more intelligent or industrious. I'm also as prone to melancholy, but at least it doesn't result in a lost weekend and further consequences beyond feeling a bit shit.

You are secretly my twin, right? That last paragraph especially!

I used to LOVE drinking socially (really disliked - and still do - getting drunk at home, it makes me extremely depressed). The physical effects (late 20s, yeah) have recently made it pretty much no fun to drink. I don't get so giddy and have that much fun (possibly because my proper best friends are on the other side of the world so all my stupid jokes are met with polite smiles) and I really find it hard to sleep after drinking *anything*. So, happy to just have the one or two drinks on occasion.

THE hardest part of not drinking, even if it's something you've happily chosen, is fucking idiotic friends who cannot get over the fact that you want a soft drink when you're out. There are some that expend so much energy on trying to get you to have a drink that it becomes their mission. Get away from these people or make it clear that it'd be nice if they could respect that you want to take it easy for a bit.

It's going to sound like a lame excuse, but in my city there's really fuck all to do except go to bars or hang out (where there will be beers, obv).

I don't particularly like alcohol, especially as I get hangovers too easily these days. Good beer is nice, and maybe some scotch, but I'm not the kind of person who's going to have a beer with a meal or just for flavor, I never drink at home or alone. One or two drinks to loosen up is great, but I have a tendency to keep going because I drink everything very quickly (I'll run through three or four liters of water a day at work) and that translates to booze as well. I'm not comfortable being the guy ordering water by itself, for some reason, but I should learn to be.

One or two drinks to loosen up is great, but I have a tendency to keep going because I drink everything very quickly

same here. i'm not a big fan of beer, but i started drinking beer more as opposed to whisky or vodka because i tend to drink as a durational activity - quantity of liquid as opposed to quantity of alcohol.

Growing up as the son of a nearly lifelong alcoholic, I've always had an up-and-down relationship with alcohol. Because my dad was in a really bad place as a kid, I swore I would never drink alcohol ever. That lasted all through high school and 3/4s of the way through my first year of college. Then I gave in and became what I guess I'd call a "heavy social" drinker. Only drank when I went out with friends or to parties, but most weeks that was 3-4 nights a week. I never drank until I blacked out or lost complete control, but I did get heavily buzzed each time. That was pretty much my standard all through college and grad school, then tapered off after I got a real job and had less free time.

Now, I drink probably once every 2-3 weeks, and it has become rare that I even get "drunk". I would probably say I've been "heavily buzzed" or beyond maybe four times in the last full year. Even while unemployed. And I just cannot bring myself to drink alone, or when I'm just home relaxing with my wife (other than a glass of wine here and there with dinner). I'm guessing that part comes from watching my dad sit on the couch night after night after night, drinking until he passed out on the couch. I knew how unpleasant he was to be around, so I've probably built up this mental block about doing anything that might resemble that.

I drink a third of a bottle of wine a night -- it's part of the routine, like salad. Thanks to a combination of circumstances -- my ride and close friend moved away; aging liver -- I stick to two or three cocktails if I go out. Alcohol is just part of my life, and since I've been pretty expert at regulating it I can't imagine a day when it won't be.

i started drinking beer more as opposed to whisky or vodka because i tend to drink as a durational activity

I do like beer quite a bit, but I also think this is a big part of why I prefer it to the alternatives.

I've recently started on medication that I don't want to drink alcohol on (it's always recommended not to drink when on any medication but usually folk take that with a pinch of salt), and it's now been over 100 days since I had a drink. Not that I'm counting or anything, of course, but as a recent uni graduate, it's fair to say that I would go drinking two or three times a week, always getting somewhere between "a bit tipsy" and "fuck, that's tomorrow ruined." I'm not missing it because I feel better physically, mentally and emotionally - and apparently I'm looking good for it, losing weight and better skin - plus I'm saving a fair amount of money, but it is hard in some situations to maintain it. Like, on a night out with workmates who are all quite loud and heavy drinkers, I worry I'm seeming quiet and dull, but I've learned to throw myself into it more. What's really helped me is having close friends who don't mind going for dinner and a coffee instead of to the pub for an evening. I think when I come off the medication I'll probably go back to socially drinking, but never more than two or three in a night - at least, I say that now...