This happened to a friend of mine. She’s in her early 30’s and was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis - the drugs they have her on are not compatible with alcohol.
She’s kinda bummed - she likes throwing parties for her friends, and having a well-stocked liquor cabinet for it, but now she can’t do more than smell the booze. 
I’d be fairly upset. Alcohol is a huge part of my life. It’s my job, what I go to school for, how I survive those two things, and my hobby and pastime.
I drink every night, attend beer and wine events, go tasting and touring (both wineries and breweries) once a month or so, and plan my vacations around visiting bars/pubs/wineries/breweries, etc. We are also home winemakers and brewers.
I’d be more upset about losing beer than wine, though. I’m so used to spitting wine, if I were able to still taste and spit, it wouldn’t be such a huge deal, but I always swallow beer, spitting just wouldn’t be the same.
I mean, I guess I could find other hobbies and whatnot, but there is just no way they’d be as fun and tasty.
Minorly annoyed. I don’t drink much or often, but not being able to do something I want to bugs me. I’m 8 1/2 months’ pregnant right now, so I haven’t a had drink in a long time. Before I would go maybe 3-4 months without drinking, and then buy a 6 pack of something, and drink it over a couple weekends or share with my friends. There have been about 2 or 3 times during this pregnancy that I really wanted a drink, but didn’t. Not that I think one drink would really harm my baby, but that is the recommendation, and it’s not that big of a deal. Just a minor annoyance. Having gone this long though, I do look forward to being able to have a drink again soon.
I’d be seriously annoyed. I really love beer and wine. So, finding out I could never have a Festina Peche or a Nugget Nectar again would be like finding out I could never have chocolate or steak.
I have 2-3 drinks/month.
When I get knocked up, a MUCH bigger thing for me will be giving up high mercury fish. Blerg. Drinking won’t be an issue.
I like drinking, and I drank more often before I got serious about working out and eating right. I hate that it takes me a full day or two to feel back to 100% after I drink a bit; I also feel it cuts into my bottom line of the progress I make at the gym/working out. So I rarely drink. So giving it up forever wouldn’t really bug me.
I had a two beers at a BBQ last week, but I in general I very rarely drink. My wife doesn’t drink; neither does her family. I might have an average of one drink a month. So I wouldn’t miss it much.
I don’t drink much and am not very excited about alcoholic beverages, I would not feel deprived if I was forced to give up alcohol completely.
I love wine, mainly red, and I have, on average, a glass every other day or so.
Hard liquor? Meh. Beer? Meh. But you can pry my wine from my cold, dead fingers!
(I guess I’d miss the gin gimlets, too)
I think there are two kinds of people: people who really enjoy using intoxicating substances, and those who don’t think it’s all that great, if they partake at all. Alcoholics are only found in the first group, but most of the first group do not have a ‘problem’ - although many people who don’t understand that someone can really enjoy drinking alcohol and do it often without having a ‘problem’ will assume they do, even if there are no symptoms of addiction in their life besides using a substance regularly.
I’ve been through this in my own family. Mom and dad both drank regularly, mostly with meals. Mom would get drowsy and act goofy after 1 glass of wine. Dad had several drinks nightly and more on weekends, and I can’t ever recall seeing him act intoxicated (as well he did his share of childcare and house work, and worked full time and overtime). Yet somehow my mom and her extended family (who have a history of giving people incorrect psychiatric diagnosis) began accusing him of having a ‘drinking problem’, he told them how much he drank was none of their concern, and it became a big bone of contention. Maybe there was a problem other than the fact that he bought and consumed alcohol regularly, that I missed? But I was a pretty observant kid/teen.
I’m the one said that over in Dinsdale’s thread, that non-problem drinkers don’t care if they drink. Let me clarify - I’m not saying so much that people wouldn’t mind, as saying that people who are not problem drinkers can live without it. So for example, this response here -
agrees with my contention.
I get that people who enjoy alcoholic drinks or things like wine tastings would find it aggravating. My contention is, non-problem drinkers would be perfectly able to get used to non-drinking if presented with a valid reason for stopping. Someone up thread mentioned gluten allergies and Hep-B. Or some people avoid it for caloric reasons. Or some for cost cutting. A problem drinker would not let any of those valid reasons keep him from drinking.
My wife hates it when I drink = valid reason to stop drinking, imo. Maybe the wife’s a bitch, maybe she’s well justified. Either way - if drinking is more important than your wife, you might be a problem drinker.
Or you’re just married to the wrong person.
I have a lot of sympathy with this. My wife is going on seven months pregnant. If she could safely eat sushi by ripping out my still-beating heart and dedicating her life to Huitzilopochtli, she would give it some thought. I’ve only managed to have sushi two or three times in the past six months, so I honestly wouldn’t blame her.
I would be highly upset. If the one time I attended an AA meeting is in any way accurate, I’d probably start chain smoking.
I love a good beer or a glass of wine or two with dinner, and we tailgate for Ohio State football games, so I’d definitely miss it.
That said, I managed to quit for almost a year when I was pregnant, so I could certainly survive. There are a couple of decent NA beers out there–Kaliber was my favorite.
Maybe. I suppose the key to a happy marriage is finding someone who will put up with one’s obnoxious behavior. Of course, a really happy marriage involves not doing obnoxious things to each other.
I wouldn’t be happy.
If I couldn’t drink because I was on medication, that’s ok. I’ve done that before.
If I came down with some physical condition and I wasn’t able to drink, that’s fine too.
I wouldn’t give it up by choice, however.
Like many others, I enjoy trying different beers. I enjoy talking to brewers about their beer and discussing them.
Many people who like a drink or two and would be pissed off not to drink any more, can handle a few pints or glasses of wine without becoming obnoxious.
Your phrasing indicates that if you drink, you become obnoxious. Is that the root of the issue, rather than the alcohol itself?
If you don’t become obnoxious when you drink, then perhaps it’s the other party who’s being obnoxious by objecting to something innocuous.
I’d really miss it sometimes, but ultimately I doubt I’d even think about it most of the time. When the ex and I split up, I missed having a glass of red wine of an evening but it didn’t dominate my life or anything.
Oh, I’m obnoxious on a wide range of occasions, I assure you.
I agree that some people can have a couple pints - and even a couple more pints - without becoming obnoxious. I also agree that people who can handle their liquor like a gentleman can find being asked to forgo, quite obnoxious indeed. (Hell, I get testy when people suggest I should maybe lay off the diet coke a little.)
Where I would perhaps disagree with you is, I think the person doing the drinking is not a reliable judge of the relative obnoxiousness of their behavior while drunk. If the non-drinking person finds the drinking person obnoxious while drunk, the drunk person is in no position to argue that their behavior is perfectly reasonable.
But to the real point of this thread -
Drinking has well known, thoroughly documented drawbacks. Obnoxiousness is not even the half of it. Non-problem drinkers are open to the possibility that they might be crossing a line in their drinking. Problem drinkers insist that they can’t possibly be anywhere near a line and all their drinking is entirely problem-free.
I contend that a person who would choose drinking over their loved-ones is more likely to have a drinking problem than a problem loved-one. It’s possible that they have a drinking problem and a loved-one problem. But the odds that they don’t have a drinking problem and that the loved one is entirely delusional, controlling and offbase, are remote.
That’s how I see it, anyway. But this my third post so I won’t keep banging on about it.
I just wanted to say that I think this is wonderfully expressed. Seems like no more than stating the obvious, but I can’t recall seeing it set so clearly before. I think folk at all positions on that spectrum lose track of it. Thanks.
Not trying to beat up on you, and I know you said you posted enough. But I think the more common situation in our marriage (and I doubt we are unique) is when one of the couple changes in some way, and then objects to the other continuing as they always have. Now which is (more) obnoxious - the party who resists change, or the party who wants the other to change?
Or, you may have a shitty marriage. A situation that mind altering substances may help you deal with. Just sayin.