No, we think you’re being a <moderator warning> for nailing us on legal minutia then you weasel about on absolutes.
“Leave out a part of my argument? You must be a Nazi Fascist Drunk Driver then!” oh, you don’t mean “Stupid Drunk…I meant Stupid Drunk. Obviously your problem is one of not knowing what I’m meaning to say.”
I said earlier that I can sit down with people and have a drink with them and not think anything about it. The response back ignored that.
MeanOldLady’s interpretation of ‘drunk’ was having four drinks and going home. Obviously, that may be legally drunk, as in .08, but it isn’t a bottle of whiskey in the same time period drunk, which when I was younger many of the people I knew would do on a regular basis at a party. And, yeah, they ended up fighting, drooling on themselves, puking, or passing out. I didn’t like that behaviour then and I still don’t. So, yeah, definitions are important and if there was weasling, it was only because we were talking about two different things and didn’t know it.
Here’s a funny thing. I have a group of friends I hang out with. We meet regularly. We have a few drinks, we go our seperate ways. We’re from different walks of life and if it weren’t for alcohol, I’da never met them.
Well, I actually haven’t met them in person. We meet online on a multi-feed video chat. I’ve been there with 16 other people at a time.
Now, by a certain view, I’m drinking at home, alone. By my view, I’m having just as good a time as I’ve ever had with local people, and I don’t have to worry about the drive home.
When I do this, do I have one drink or four? Well, sometimes, I’ve had one (or none), and sometimes I’ve had four.
We’ve had people pass out cold on camera. It usually elicits nothing more than a screengrab and some ribbing the next day.
Folks drink or don’t drink and nobody cares. And a poorly behaved person is but a banhammer away.
I like it, and yet, a certain type of person could easily say ‘look at that loser, drinking at home, alone’. I’ve seen it happen.
See, this is what I don’t get. The whole “if you drink before Noon, you have a problem” or “if you drink alone, you have a problem”. This kind of silly nonsense about alcohol just enhances the idea that alcohol is a big deal. In countries where it’s not such a big deal, alcoholism rates are much lower.
I drink alone quite frequently. See, I like a glass or two of wine with dinner. Or maybe to sip a glass of wine or a mixed drink while I’m having a nice long soak in the tub. The problem? Well, though my husband and I technically live together, he’s away on business a lot. When he is, it’s me and my 9YO daughter in the apartment. So if I want to have some wine or a mixed drink, here are my choices:
Leave 9YO alone (not a problem; she’s plenty capable of being on her own for a couple of hours, and she has my cell number, and emergency contacts) and go to a bar, which necessitates, well, leaving her alone, just so I’m not drinking alone.
OR
Having a glass of wine or a cocktail with my 9YO, which I believe is illegal in this state, and may even qualify as neglect or abuse.
OR
Say, “Gee, I wish someone else was here so I could have a drink”, thereby setting up the ‘forbidden fruit’ idea in her mind, thereby leading to possible problems down the line.
OR
Say ‘screw it, I’m taking a glass of the Chardonnay into the bathroom with me and soaking in the tub’, which constitutes ‘drinking alone’, which is apparently proof of a problem!
As for drinking before Noon, well, it’s perfectly acceptable if you go to brunch and toss back a couple of Bloody Marys or Mimosas. But if you should go to the same brunch and request a rum and Diet Coke? Alkie!
Doesn’t make any damn sense to apply such strange standards to booze, imho.
Oh, mimosa. The **acceptable **morning booze!™ How I love thee.
Cute, but please refrain from insulting other posters, even if it’s in bowdlerized form.
It’s also acceptable if you’re going to be late for work.
People in this country are too uptight about alcohol. They’d die if they went to Spain. “Oh my! They’re drinking wine with breakfast!”
(Puts down her gin) What now?
The one that is somehow magically okay to drink in the morning. See also: bloody mary.
Note: I am not commenting on my own opinions, but rather on the attitudes of others. This is why I always make a point of referring to mimisas as The Acceptable Morning Booze when I order them.
Yeah, sure I’ve been drunk lots of times. But I can’t remember the last time I did any drinking except for a sip of champagne at midnight on New Years and at my son’s wedding.
I’m pretty sure that’s not right. I know that a great deal of European countries have higher consumption rates than the US.
You can drink more and still not be an alcoholic. It’s not the amount you consume, it’s how it affects you and your life.
It isn’t the point at which your body becomes dependent on alcohol?
You can be an alcoholic without being physically addicted to it. Conceivably it could work the other way around, as well.
Generally, alcoholism is the state in which someone will continue to carry on their drinking habits in the face of persistent negative consequences. Those could be physical, emotional, or social.
What do you mean by “your body becomes dependent on alcohol”?
For the purposes of studies, alcoholism can be defined in a whole bunch of ways. As a result, statistics vary greatly. A lot of people tend to think that consumption rates and alcoholism rates may be correlated, though.
After drinking large quantities of alcohol for an extended period of time, you can’t stop without experiencing withdrawal symptoms. Just like many drugs, there can be mental and physical dependence on alcohol. Alcohol has perhaps the worst withdrawals of any drug which can result in death.
So, I could be an alcoholic because I choose to drink in spite of other weightlifters and bodybuilding telling me that if I want to get “strong and ripped” I will have to quit drinking even the occasional beer?
That seems very loosely worded.
*yeah, what snailboy said.
Yeah, and drunk to me means, “… fighting, drooling on themselves, puking, or passing out.”
Drunk to you means something less than that.
None of the people I refer to had alcohol poisoning. But maybe your experience was with people who drank rationally. Mine was not when I was younger. My experience is that drunks ARE assholes. Yours isn’t. Apparently, you hang out with a better class of drunks. Got it.
It seems to me that you’re picking a very narrow class of drunkenness to label with the entire word. It just feels kind of like, oh, I don’t know, someone saying “I hate Muslims” because of suicide bombers, and then when someone points out that those terrorists don’t represent the vast majority of Muslims, the person says, “Well, that’s your definition of Muslim, but I only think they’re the people who blow themselves up.” Obviously that’s an extreme example, but hopefully it will convey the feeling.
Why do I get the impression that I’m questioning someone’s religion here?