I’ve noticed that as I’ve gotten older (going on 34), alcohol seems to be having a different effect on me. These days I don’t get the giddy buzz, stumble around, slur my speech, or throw up. The only way you can tell I’m drunk is because my judgement suddenly goes bad…I start to do and say extremely foolish things (which has always been a feature of my drinking, but it seems to be getting worse). This is bad because I have lost the signal that tells me to slow it down, or tells others that I’m only acting dumb because I’m drunk. Also, my hangovers aren’t just physical discomfort anymore, they’ve become day-long existential crises in which I have trouble coming up with a reason I should ever get out of bed again.
Anybody else notice the same thing in themselves? Am I just becoming more critical of myself as my sense of propriety matures? I like beer but I’m afraid if I don’t give it up, the consequences are going to catch up with me (in the bad way). This would be difficult because I have a really hard time socializing without chemical assistance.
If you’ve been a heavy drinker most of your life, what eventually happens is that you start to lose that tolerance you have built up during your life. You start out getting drunk easily, then after you have drank for a few years, your tolerance goes way up. At some point, it comes crashing down though. This can either be because you are unintentionally drinking more than you used to, damage to your liver and kidneys, or a combination of both.
I suggest you take it easy for a while. Maybe give up the booze for a few months. If you want to try the drinking life again after that, more power to you. If you find yourself still unable to control yourself when drinking, you’ll have a major decision to make.
Well, there’s no doubt something has happened to my tolerance. But I guess my question is why I can no longer rely on passing out or throwing up as a signal of when I’m about to start acting like an idiot. It’s as if everything except my sense of judgement has developed immunity to alcohol, leaving me looking and sounding like a perfectly lucid asshole.
I think the better question is why you’d rely on passing out or throwing up to signal this in the first place.
Oh my god do I hate not being able to swing at such a fat pitch…
But anyways, yeah, my response to excessive drinking has changed over the last couple of years. I used to be able to drink pretty much all that I wanted with no hangover. Now I end up with headaches the next day, and I’ve had a couple of weird food binges that I know about only from the piles of crumpled wrappers I discover the next day.
I have a theory I’m working on about alcohol %'s, absorption rates, and so on.
Try drinking wine instead of beer one night and let me know what happens. I’m talking about real wine, not MD 20/20 or anything any 1/2 way decent wine of your choice.
I’ll bet you get that “signal” telling you to slow down…if you listen to it or not is something else.
Actually you’re right, to some extent. About 3 weeks ago I was drinking wine and found that I lost my equilibrium before I completely lost my mind.
Not that my typical goal is to drink myself into a heap on the floor… I am just accustomed to being able to drink for 3 or 4 hours, and trust that the sickly feeling or stumbling will tell me I should stop before I go tell everybody that Princess Diana was a lesbian and the Dutch are to blame for WW2.
