Ugh. My dad is an alcoholic so my mom is even more annoying about that because of the genetic thing and the fact that she’s the biggest worrier and nagger in the entire world.
I don’t have any Buzz Killington friends though, they all drink too. I did once briefly date a guy who acted uncomfortable when I offered him a drink (and he wasn’t a complete nondrinker, he said he had a drink or two maybe twice a year). Maybe I just need to grow up but I can’t date someone I can’t go get fucked up with every so often.
My brother just came back from a one-week trip to Vienna and he doesn’t even mention desserts in his recap of the trip. Mom asked about them and he just looked at her funny and reminded her he has never liked sweet desserts.
Concert by one of his favorite bands, check.
Concert in the same hall where the New Year’s Concert is held, and by sheer luck getting a first-row ticket, check.
Organ concert for free in a baroque church, check.
So many huge palaces he eventually got tired of them, check.
Spanish-style horse training, check.
Two other concerts.
OK food in general, and one meal in a really fancy, very old café, with dishes that were so pretty and “assembled” they should count as edible sculptures, in enough amounts to satisfy a 30yo male with a healthy appetite.
If your only reason to go to Vienna is the desserts don’t bother, no cake in the world is worth the cost of flight and stay.
I have saved quite a bit of money over the years by serving the blow first, then telling the party goers about the good time they had with the hookers the next morning.
My Al-Anon sponsor pointed something out to me a while back that really drove this point home. She said that AA teaches members how not to drink, and how to avoid alcohol. It doesn’t teach independence, emotional maturity, or how to change behavior. Instead, it teaches helplessness, extreme selfishness, and gaslights the hell out of its members because it teaches that sobriety is impossible without the group and that feelings, emotions, and relationships are not to be trusted. If you’re happy about something not related to alcoholism or AA, you’re on a “pink cloud” and you might drink. If you’re upset or angry about something, you’re reminded that “anger is a luxury of normal men” and told to “let it go” without processing it. If a loved one joins Al-Anon, you are told that she will learn to throw you under the bus because she won’t support you 100%. If you do something that would horrify anyone in civil society, such as adultery, you’re “being true to yourself”. If you dare make a decision for yourself, without consulting the group, the group will try to bring you to heel. And if you figure out that you don’t really want to be in AA, you’re sarcastically declared “cured” and the group consensus will be that you’ll “relapse”.
Bullshit like this is why I decided to formalize my divorce from AA. It wasn’t a healthy relationship I needed to be in.
I was kind of with you until this. The amount of alcohol you drink isn’t necessarily the hallmark of alcoholism, but it’s a damn useful baseline. I’ve never heard of someone addicted to, say, two drinks a night. If you’re an addict, then two drinks will turn into three, then four, and so on. That’s kind of how addiction works: One is too many and a hundred isn’t enough.
I think the truest alcoholic of them all is Eric Clapton who said, “In my lowest moments, the only reason I didn’t commit suicide was that I knew I wouldn’t be able to drink anymore if I was dead.”
Yeah. I don’t really find this definition of “alcoholic” useful, and poking around the web, I don’t find that it matches other definitions. Alcoholism is generally defined as drinking too much on a regular basis, to the detriment of health and happiness. Drinking on a regular basis is not alcoholism, any more than eating a cookie every night is obesity.
Did anyone suggest to the proselytizing alcoholic in the OP that attending a Super Bowl party is not the best strategy for avoiding booze?
As counterpoint to the newly righteous or sanctimonious people who lecture others on drinking, there are the moderate to heavy drinkers who find it necessary to sneer at or ostracize non-drinkers on social occasions.
Reminds me of the time a hospital I work at opened up a bariatric treatment center (weight-loss surgery), and announced over the P.A. system that everyone was invited to the grand opening, where cake and cookies would be served. :smack:
Which is kind of silly. Asceding all power and surrendering the idea that you have power over something is a rather ineffective way to reclaim your power over it.
Thank you very much. I have been assailed by others (not here, but elsewhere) who have told me that my attitude is actively evil and that I am responsible for good people staying addicted to alcohol. Holding an unpopular opinion can really be unpleasant.
“Fucked up” is exactly what I dislike about alcohol. I don’t like being around people who are drinking because I don’t like the way it changes their personalities, or at least gives them license to do so. I have no problem when people drink just because they like it, but when they use it as a vehicle or an excuse to behave differently, that’s when I make my exit.
MsRobyn, it sounds like Al-Anon taught you exactly what you needed–how to cope and separate yourself from alcoholics and their curse. Break out of the cycle of trying to change them, trying to blame them, trying to enable them.
Isn’t that a good thing? Doesn’t that mean Al-Anon was successful for you?
I’m surprised I don’t get more of this from my family, as my grandfather died in his 50s from alcoholism, my dad is in AA now (don’t know why, I’ve never known him to get drunk or have a problem when he was drunk,) and my mom after her divorce was in relationships with several alcoholics and was in Al Anon. I’m surprised that they allow me to mention drinking at all without going all “you’re an alcoholic!” on me.
My brother just came back from a one-week trip to Vienna and he doesn’t even mention desserts in his recap of the trip. Mom asked about them and he just looked at her funny and reminded her he has never liked sweet desserts.