Now you’re being this way on purpose. :dubious: 
Of course I believe you. It’s just not my fault that I didn’t understand what you meant the first time that you said it. 
That’s easy for you say. 
Non-drinker here. I have no moral objection to it, in moderation, but my body just can’t process alcohol. Even a non-alcoholic beer would be enough to make me queasy.
And I have a reasonable social life (getting together with friends once or twice a week), which mostly revolves around food and watching movies. Sometimes a bunch of us will just hang out at someone’s place and talk. Sometimes, some folks at these gatherings will have a drink or two, at which point I just have a Dr Pepper (which doesn’t particularly resemble anything alcoholic, and which doesn’t matter). I don’t go to bars, but if I did, it’d be with this same circle of friends, since I just happen not to like hanging out with strangers with whom I have nothing in particular in common. So I wouldn’t say that my social life has really suffered much at all for my teetotaling. Although it may suffer by virtue of me being a nerd, that’s completely unrelated.
This:
wasn’t from you? It seems clear that you are implying most of the social drinkers friends are more interested in drinking that being actual friends.
Maybe “offensive” isn’t the right word since there could be some truth to it. The problem with basing a friendship on a shared love of any vice (drink, drugs, gambling, womanizing) is that the vice can be a stronger force in the persons life than the friendship. We occassionally go away to visit my girlfriends college sorority friends. The problem is that when we go out with them, her friends get so wasted that they become shitty friends - the lose track of time or wander off so we don’t know if they stranded us at the bar. They put my GF in a position where she to stop drinking so she can drive their car home for them. They spend all their time hitting on guys instead of hanging out with the group (which can become problematic as you don’t know where they go).
It’s really the same kind of behavior we used to do in college (we’re all in our 30s now). The group goes into the party together but ideally everyone goes home with someone the meet (or leaves when their tolerance for rejection has been exceeded).
So basically, I think drinking does affords you the ability to build a much wider network of less meaningfull relationships. In addition to your core friends, there’s a lot of other folks who the only thing you have in common with is drinking and a mild familiarity.
Sigh…
Perhaps it came out wrong. Later in thread I asked about being with people that you only drink with and nothing else. (Did anybody read that post?)
THAT IS WHAT I MEANT BY THE ORIGINAL QUESTION. ANYTHING ELSE YOU OR ANYONE ELSE READ INTO THAT POST WAS OF YOUR OWN INTERPRETATION. I MEANT NOTHING ELSE REGARDLESS OF WHAT YOU WANT TO BELIEVE!
Imagine if you were in a book review club and the only time you interacted with those people was at the book reading club meetings.
SAME THING.
I don’t drink. I don’t know what a “drinking buddy” is for or what his/her place in my life would be.
THAT IS WHY I ASKED!
The purpose of a drinking buddy is to have someone you go out drinking with.
The typical social life of people who drink revolves around a loose network of friends and associates. Through this network, you generally try and find something to do most Thurs, Fri and Sat nights. Sometimes other nights. Typically, someone’s house/apt or a local bar will serve as a kind of staging area for the evening. The purpose of this is to minimize the number of cars you need to take and of course the more the merrier. “Let’s all meet at Bobs place around 10 and pre-game”. “Pre-gaming” is drinking a few beers while everyone gets ready to go out. This not only saves money but gets everyone in a party mood.
Once your posse is assembled, you go to the first place. Some people like sports bars. Others like nightclubs. Sometimes dinner might be the first stop. Other times it might be a house party. Anyhow, drinkers typically “hop” bars or parties every few hours. Note that this is different from a “crawl” where the objective is to change bars rapidly. The advantage of the cell phone is that you can cordinate with your friends in real time so you all can meet up as your plans change.
As I mentioned, it is a loose network. I might be out with my work friends and call my college buddy and his roomates to meet us out. He then might call his girlfriend and her friends. That’s how your network of acquaintances expands.
After jumping around all night, usually people finish up with a late night breakfast. Slice of pizza, a diner, maybe a late night restaurant depending on the mood.
Let’s give an example of my evening on Fri
4:30 - Office work function at a bar in Midtown - Head over with my work friend “Will”. Drinks are paid for by the company so it’s a good place to fill up. Have to be carefull though because the night is still young (and it’s a work function). Drinking mostly sangria and gin&tonics
7:00 - My friend Will has dinner plans and has to go but our work friend “Kevin” is having a party for his girlfriend later. We make plans to meet up later downtown.
7:30 - My friends left but I have a few hours to kill. I meet a bunch of folks from another group. Go with them to another bar on the East Side. Switching to beer now. Nice folks but kind of lame and everyone has a SO.
9:30 - “Mark” calls. He has a shore house this summer and is heading down early tonight. He will call me tomorrow if it’s good.
10:00 - Will calls - Time to head downtown. Say my goodbyes and invite one of the girls to bring her friends to Kevins party (I don’t expect her to show). I promise to invite them when our group goes out drinking (I might or might not remember).
10:30 Kevins party - At a fancy Soho nightclub. Line is a hundred people deep and it’s not moving. I call Will, he’s about 5 minutes out. “Sanjay” and his friend “Rick” show up right after me. I know Sanjay through a mutual friend. Will soon arrives just before 30 of his fraternity brothers swell the line even more.
11:00 Kevin and his girlfriend show up and hustle us all inside. We have a table with a few bottles of vodka. All sober again so Sanjay and I are alternating between Chivas on rocks and vodka & cranberry.
We can’t help but notice that me and Rick are the only non Asians in the place. While Asian women “don’t all look alike to me”, they do look enough alike that I have trouble singling any one particular girl to talk to. I’m also uncomfortible because I’m still in by work clothes and not a pair of Deisel jeans and one of my “money” shirts appropirate for my current venue.
1:00am - By now the place is really crowded. Our friends have kind of dispursed. I’ve met about 20 people who I will never recognize. Pretty much Rick Sanjay and me have formed a sub-party and are trying to talk our way into other peoples private parties. By now I’m limited to just vodka drinks.
3:30am - I call the evening. Head out for a cab. I can’t be bothered to find anyone so looks like no late night breakfast.
Sorry to continue the hijack a little. This information is from the Irish Taskforce on Alcohol, who know what they’re talking about.
They classify drinkers into several groups:
The Non-drinkers.
The occasional drinkers (eg Granny having a glass of sherry at Christmas).
The regular drinkers (eg someone who has a glass of wine every evening with their dinner, or a couple of beers with their friends once a week).
The regular, heavy drinker (eg someone who has more than the recommended number of units of alcohol a day, but does so out of habit and enjoyment, and who does not have a physical or psychological dependence).
The Binge drinkers (someone who drinks more than 6 units of alcohol in one go, and who then may or may not drink for some time- think fraternity party).
The problem drinkers (someone where their drinking leading to anti-social or violent behaviour, think frat boys again).
The dependent drinkers (someone who literally CANNOT go a day without alchol because they are PHYSICALLY dependent on it).
Only the dependent drinkers are alcoholics- alcohol ABUSERS. Although the binge drinkers, problem drinkers, and heavy regular users are MISUSING alcohol in a way which may damage them financially, physically or otherwise, but they are not ADDICTED to it.
By definition, if you are not dependent on alcohol you are not an alcoholic. If you need an eye-opener in the mornings, have tried to cut down and can’t, get tremors if you don’t have a drink, find that getting your next drink is your highest priority, then yes you’re an alcoholic.
If you just think you’re drinking too much, have no problems cutting down, and find that your relationship with alcohol is secondary to your relationships with other people, then no, you’re not.
Painting everyone who does something stupid when they’re drunk, or who gets too drunk once in a while as an addict who must choose total sobriety or end up in the gutter is not helpful.
Or ‘Irish’
I need to take exception with the statement that fraternity = binge drinking, anti-social violent behavior. At my college of about 4000, about half of all men join fraternities by sophomore year. EVERYONE abuses drugs and alchohol, not just the fraternity guys.
Sorry, I was using the Animal House stereotype as I thought it would be helpful for anyone who didn’t get what I meant. I don’t actually think fraternities are that bad.
It is a stereotype with a certain element of truth to it. Fact is that most fraternities are really just drinking clubs for men. We do other PR crap and talk of “brotherhood” and such, but I pretty much joined because the entire social scene at my school revolved around fraternity parties.
Last year I got pretty drunk at a party and did something I felt pretty bad about the next day (nothing really huge or very exciting, but I hurt a friend’s feelings). It made me think about control and the things that I’ve done while drinking that I wouldn’t have done if I’d been sober. It was nearing the end of June and I decided that I wouldn’t drink at all in July.
Now, let me clarify - I’m a very casual social drinker. I go to a bar with friends maybe once or twice a month, tops, and usually don’t get more than slightly buzzed (the June drunkenness had occurred in a bar where I’d paid a flat drinks fee but since I’d arrived late it was only good for another hour, and I wanted to get my money’s worth). The only time I ever have alcohol at home is a glass of wine with dinner occasionally. At the moment there is no alcohol whatsoever in my house. Still, I found my alcohol-free July to be a revelation. I had never realized how much of my socialization revolved around alcohol. That said, I still liked my friends and had a nice time when I saw them. And when July was over, I went out and got a bottle of wine and went back to my standard casual drinking. I don’t consider having a few drinks with friends to be harmful and the fact that we get together at bars instead of coffee houses isn’t that big a deal.