I never argued that there were no intelligent sports fans. I said that typically, on average, the kind of people you find in a sports bar aren’t going to be of the nuclear physicists variety and that you judging the intelligence of people who occasionally imbibe an alcoholic beverage based on a few drunk people in a sports bar is silly. I’ll give you that it’s usually the dumb drunks that end up talking the loudest, so perhaps you’ve got a bit of a selection bias to begin with when you speak of the conversations you’ve heard.
Still, not everyone who drinks does so in bars. You’re automatically limiting your concept of people who drink to people who drink in places whose sole purpose is to give alcohol to people. Such places are often going to be more rowdy than other places. Have you ever eaten at a restaurant? What about all the people drinking alcohol there? Do you automatically assume your fellow diners are less intelligent since they’re having a glass of wine or beer with their meal?
I’ve come up with plenty of intelligent ideas when I was intoxicated in one form or another. The hard part is remembering the ideas.
I’ve been drunk exactly once in my life, and that was 16 years ago.
I don’t drink. It’s not a matter of morality or health, I just don’t like the taste of any alcoholic beverage I’ve ever tried, and I’ve never wanted to get drunk badly enough to search for a tolerable tasting drink.
But once, in Ireland, my brothers convinced me I HAD to get drunk, if only once. So, I had a couple of Scotch & sodas, and that did it.
The result? I just became extremely woozy, and had to lie down. Alcohol doesn’t make me more outgoing, or more belligerent or more fun-loving. It just makes me extremely dizzy.
So, if nothing else, I know what I HAVEN"T been missing.
Different alcohol affects you differently, if only due to proof. Beer will just make me bloated and sober. A good Martini will keep me happy for 90 minutes. A good single malt scotch will hit my bloodstream via my tongue and go straight to my head.
One experience with Scotch and soda that you drank too fast has obviously colored your expectations. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Drinking solely for the purpose of getting drunk is not going to show you much besides the actual effects of the alcohol on your body. You will not have the same experience that most of us who enjoy drinking have, whether it is that of drinking beers all day with a few buddies by the campfire and enjoying a long, low level of intoxication leading to deep discussion and melting bottles in the fire to try and make an ashtray (never works), doing a few rounds of shots with friends in celebration of someone’s new job or long-needed divorce, or putting back enough beers at a live music venue to feel that all-encompassing brotherly love for your fellow show goers.
Alcohol is an enhancer. If you are sad and drink, you are likely to wind up crying in your beer mug. If you are pissed off, you may wind up in a fight. But if it’s Friday afternoon, your bills are paid and you still have money in your pocket, and you walk into the local bar to see your friends waiting for you with smiles on your faces and drinks on the table, it can be a social enhancer beyond compare.
You are correct, and people who don’t drink often don’t seem to get this. Nobody takes a swing at his boss at the company party because he’s been drinking unless he already hates his boss. You don’t catch a buzz then suddenly decide that you hate everyone. The same reason some people become surly while drunk is the same reason some people tend to exclaim “I LOVE YOU GUYSSSH!” In either case, the person may want to learn how to hold his liquor a little better, but all we’re dealing with here is a person’s feelings being intensified and/or an increased willingness to make those feelings known. For the most part, even if someone is very, very drunk, the worst you’re going to get is delayed reaction time and slurred speech. Even then, most people don’t tend to reach that level of drunkenness on a regular basis. Most drinking is just a bunch of people sitting around, drinking beers and talking about stuff. Nothing fancy.
All this talk is making me thirsty. Where’s my cocktail shaker?
Alcohol affects different people in different ways, I feel, but I’ve never seen somebody get beer drunk vs Whiskey drunk. Only in that with whiskey they took 5 shots in an hour and to get that kind of alcohol with beer you’d have to do keg stands until you puke.
As for “mixing” alcohol, I always call BS when people say don’t drink whiskey after beer or whatnot. It’s all amount. Alcohol is alcohol and is processed the same in your body whether it comes from moonshine or comes from a locally brewed beer. There aren’t different types of alcohol, just different amounts.
And what you do while you’re drinking. Two shots of Jäger at once, on an empty stomach, will be different than two beers, over an hour, with pizza, even if the amount of alcohol is the same.
I’ve also noticed that I’ll get happy drunk on a single beer at home, relaxed, and can put away three or four at a party without it feeling like the same level of drunk.
I can get happy drunk on a single beer and I’m 270 lbs. Tolerance can skew the effects some.
This thread is pretty funny. I feel like I’m trapped in an after school special about peer pressure. “C’mon, live a little! Everyone will think you’re boring unless you drink!”
You know what? I just looked over the thread and until you and BrandonR decided to come in and be kinda snotty, no one was doing anything more than recounting their experiences and occasionally reasons for not drinking much. It has turned more hostile since then, I think as a direct result of “boring” and “prude” being tossed around.
Oh yeah? I thought it was cool until folks started describing being drunk as “incredibly stupid,” claiming to be afraid of drunk people, and asserting that drinking makes people stupid, and the like.
Oh fer Og’s sake. Do you know what that means about the effects of alchohol? Please don’t tell me you know so little about what you are purporting to talk about that you think it’s as simple as “depressant” = “makes you sad”.
Alcohol depresses the central nervous system. It slows the brain. I rarely call that “enhancement,” but hey, whatever floats your increasingly hostile boat.
I suggest both sides lighten the fuck up. We’re allowed to have different thoughts. We purport to be a smart group of people. How smart is a person that can’t accept that someone else’s feelings are just as valid for them?
Sure, everyone has their different likes and dislikes, especially when it comes to things that have mental effects. I dig the effects of caffeine, for example. Other people feel nasty when they have it.
There are no moral components for me from drinking or not drinking unless there are other things involved.
I’d say it started at post 7. On that note, it’s my friend’s birthday today. Guess what I’m about to do right now! I’d better go quickly before the Drys come.
I was joking. If I wasn’t I wouldn’t have purposely put in a smiley. I don’t know how it turned into such a debate, but I didn’t intend it to. I couldn’t care less if people don’t drink, but when people say they don’t do it because alcohol universally turns everyone into a bumbling, stumbling idiot, I must disagree. People who don’t touch alcohol are hardly an authority on it in the first place. Can’t we all just get along?