Well, I’m lucky, I have no choice—because of a medication I have to take, I am violently allergic to alcohol. Even food cooked in it or cough medicine with alcohol gives me food poisoning.
Now, heroin, on the other hand . . .
I don’t drink now (45 days sober whohoo!) but I am a recovering alcoholic. I am just now starting to have days where I don’t have cravings for it. Life without booze is just too wierd let me tell you. I guess when you live your life a certain way for 16 years it takes more that 45 days to learn to live it differently.
I drink. I prefer import beers or microbrews. I avoid hard liquor because it tends to make me short of breath and splotchy-faced. I drink more to enjoy a tasty cold beer than to get a buzz, although I’ve been known to imbibe perhaps a little too excessively at times (not that I’d be any less psychotic if I stayed sober). That being said, I never encourage anyone to drink, nor do I give anyone flak for not drinking. Despite what the Vegas pictures may indicate, I consider myself too mature for that sort of thing. Besides, having a friend who doesn’t drink is great because then you have a designated driver! 
My point: Stick to your guns, relic.
Eve:
Really? Doesn’t the alcohol evaporate? Does vanilla extract affect you this way? Pardon my ignorance here.
I’ve been sober for 12 years, and I still have thoughts of “I wish I had a drink.” It takes about a year of daily not drinking to get use to it. The most important thing in your life has to be staying sober. You get to the point where “What am I going to do without drinking” becomes
“Whatever I do, I’m not going to drink.”
Keep on plugging, and good luck.
I don’t drink. There are several overlapping reasons, all of which have been mentioned by previous non-drinking posters.
I never did drink much, and I hardly think about it except when I’m in a social situation where everyone else is drinking. Then, most of the time, I’m glad I don’t!
I don’t drink. I BETTER not, considering I’m kinda young for that, but I wouldn’t anyway. The only time I’ve ever had any alcohol was New Years of 2000 and I almost threw up a lung when I tasted it. Learned my lesson, that’s for sure.
I’m going to echo Azargoth here. I drink. I drink a lot, actually. But it’s not a “let’s drink to get a buzz” or “let’s drink to get drunk.” It’s more of an adventure in tastes. I like the taste of alcohol. I collect alcohol. I’m a total champagne whore. But most of my friends drink one kind of beer, all the time, and drink to excess. What’s the fun in that? No variety to me means no excitement.
It also gets on my nerves when people who don’t drink get all high-and-mighty about drinking. I notice the same thing with ex-smokers. They get very self-righteous about their not-drinking. I’m not talking about anyone specifically in this thread, just generally. To me, a good rule of thumb would be: Drinking is no big deal. If you like it, do it. If not, don’t. And we won’t tell each other how to live.
Heroin, Eve? But no alcohol? Wow, darling, you’ve got class. 
“Really? Doesn’t the alcohol evaporate? Does vanilla extract affect you this way?”
—Yeah, you would think. But there’s some chemical in it that I must be allergic to. Friends have tried to fox me by making chicken or cake cooked in alcohol and not telling me, and I am always sick as a pup the next day.
Necros—well, a girl has to have SOME adorable little vices . . .
I drank like a fish in college, but I’m older and wiser now.
I did the whole binge drinking thing every single weekend for my first couple years there. I eventually developed a ridiculously high tolerance, which was actually a bragging right where I went to school (UW - Eau Claire). I finally stopped when the whole routine just became a cycle of drinking, blackouts, and hangovers, and I didn’t know why I was doing it every weekend. I’m sure I was having fun at the time, but I don’t really recall much of it now.
I think the main reason I stopped is that, by happenstance, I was actually sober at a few parties later in college and I realized that all the drunk people were really annoying. It made we wonder if perhaps I was not as funny, attractive, and fun to be around as I felt when pounding back all those kegs of Hamms and Old Milwaukee. OK, I probably was, but everyone else was still just annoying.
I do drink beer still, but certainly not to get drunk. I just can’t do another hangover. It’s not worth it. I also got past my taste for really bad beer and have become something of a beer snob now. And the last thing I want to do after paying seven bucks for a six pack of a yummy microbrew is slam 'em down and not enjoy the taste.
Opengrave- good for you. 45 days is a fuckin’ miracle for most alcoholics. AnnieXmas- you rock.
I haven’t had a drink in almost 10 years. Depending on who you ask, I was either really good at it, or really bad. I drank everyday, like a fish, to get drunk. Fuck the taste, I want the effect. It took a long time for me to feel ok without drinking. I drank every day for YEARS- I was not getting well in a week, a month, or a year.
I was born this way, but many people aren’t. I’m not sure there is a great reason to get drunk ever, but drinking is fine if you’re not an alcoholic. A little wine with dinner or a beer on a hot day is perfectly acceptable for most people.
Of course, that never worked for me.
PS- opengrave, I want to see you on the board to celebrate your birthday! Don’t blow it & stay close.
Opengrave-MAJOR kudos.
I’m not preachy about not drinking, however, when people question why I don’t, and act like I’m strange (it happens all the time), I get annoyed. I mean, hell alcoholism runs heavily on BOTH sides of my family-my grandmother’s sister is a recovering alcoholic who does counseling for Al-Anon, I lost my favorite aunt who was also my godmother to it, and countless ancestors have died of it. I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I’m on Ritalin and Paxil. With all that against me, I really don’t want to tempt fate.
Plus, I hate being around my family members when they drink-as they always make me feel so alien, like some freak.
I don’t drink, for several reasons (some of which have already been mentioned:
-
I can’t stand the taste. This is, of course, the big one. My friends tell me to try wine coolers. I’ve tried them–I can taste the alcohol. Makes it taste just plain wrong.
-
My doctor tells me not to. I take two prescriptions drugs, one of which keeps me alive, the other of which keeps me from becoming depressed; both of these tell me not to drink alcohol with them.
-
I’ve been drunk, effectively, once. The medication above that keeps me alive is tegretol (carbamazepine), an anticonvulsant. I’m on it because I threw three grand mal seizures in one day, after which they gave me a gram of phenobarbitol. I was asleep for a good twelve hours, and completely loopy for a week or so after that.
Of course, all of that is hearsay, because except for little snippets I don’t remember that week.
And therefore, I will never let myself be even close to drunk again.
- Alcoholism’s in my genes. Three grandparents, one parent. If I start… I don’t want to worry about having to stop. Opengrave, Annie, EJsgirl–I congratulate all of you. I don’t think I could ever do it.
LL
I’d say it’s a good idea not to drink for the hell of it, or because of peer pressure. You can have good times drinking, but it can also lead to pretty miserable after affects. I guess that applies to any body/mind altering chemicals.
As for my story, I’ve cut back to 2-3 drinks a week, as opposed to 4-6 drinks a day (for about the last six weeks), and I feel much better for it (despite having the flu twice in that time - but that’s beside the point). I still crave it, though, and because there’s a couple of people I’m around (through no choice of my own), who drink a lot and probably act like I used to when I’d been drinking, I’m trying to get it out of my system completely. It’s not an easy thing to do.
At parties, if people are pressuring you to drink, you can make sure you have a non-alcoholic drink in your hand all the time, so you can answer ‘I’m alright’ when they offer you something, rather than giving them a challenge by saying ‘No, I don’t drink’. Drunk people will generally assume you’re drinking alcohol anyway, and they’ll leave you alone.
HenrySpencer
Man! I can’t add much here. They’re all excellent threads.
If you don’t want to drink, then don’t. If you chose to do so, then do it in moderation. Remember the laws and the consequences if you go beyond the limit.
I’ll give you a few pros and cons here:
Reasons to drink:
1). Taste. Many different liquors have many different tastes from the fruity (brandy) to the bitter (dark ale) to the crappy (moonshine).
2). Health. A glass of wine a day is good for the heart and digestion. (A glass, not a bucket.)
3). Attitude. Drinking in moderation makes you feel good. A beer after work, a single mixed drink or a couple increases the feeling of pleasure and relaxation.
4). Increases sexual desire and function. A couple of glasses of wine or some mixed drinks loosen up the inhibitions and stimulates the sexual feelings. It also tends to allow one not to be distracted by anything other than one’s partner. (Like environment, clutter, scents, noise and stuff like that.)
5). Loosens up inhibitions around others. That’s why there are/were so many 4 cocktail business lunches where deals were made.
6). Tends to allow one to feel more friendly towards others, to ‘loosen up,’ to enjoy the environment more.
7). Encourages aggression. Makes you feel brave when you don’t. Used a lot in business. Used also by shy people to meet members of the opposite sex.
8). Sleep aide. A drink helps one sleep.
9). Medicine. If sick, a couple of drinks, like a hot toddy, helps one feel better. A hot toddy is said to help cure a cold.
10). Depression. In moderation, it can cheer up one in mild depression.
11). Anxiety. In moderation, it can suppress anxiety.
Now, you want the bad things? I’m not sure I have enough room here.
Alcohol is a unique drug in that it has so many actions, far beyond any other drug available legally or not. It is the most widely used drug. It can be addicting to people who have a genetic tendency towards addiction. It can be psychologically addicting.
It can kill you if consumed for too long or in too large a quantity.
It can encourage violence, enhance depression to the point of suicide, make you black out and do things you don’t recall, can encourage rape, can encourage you to act in ways you normally wouldn’t, and can make you forget caution.
It can destroy brain cells, wreck the liver, the digestive system, the kidneys, the sexual function, the heart and make one prone to pneumonia-like diseases. The urge to drink can become an all encompassing drive that fills one’s life. One can drink even if one doesn’t want to, even if one pukes most of it up, even if being drunk wreck’s ones life.
For an alcoholic, it is harder to get off of booze than cocaine or heroin. One addicted always strives for that original glow of well being, which, as one abuses the alcohol, lasts smaller and smaller periods of time.
Like most drug addicts, alcoholics can reach the stage where they’ll stop taking care of themselves, become antisocial unless booze is present and would happily sleep on the streets after loosing everything because of being drunk all of the time.
Now, make your decision.
**HenerySpencer, Opengrave, AnnieXmas, EJsGirl, ** I’m proud of you, and everyone else.
I agree that a drink or two, in moderation, is good. I grew up having a sip of wine or port every once in a while and I love desert wines and Musktel (sp?), but I don’t like beer or hard liquer. So the social situations I have the chance to be in aren’t really for me.
And getting drunk and drunk people still creep me out.
I don’t drink…and, er, don’t laugh at me I never have. I feel like I’m the only one in this goddamned school who doesn’t. Everyone talks about how they got “so bombed the other night”…u know, and I feel really idiotic when I don’t…I just don’t see how I could, for one thing, what w/ parents. maybe things will be different in college, when i’m on my own- plus I don’t really have the urge to vomit up the contents of my stomach and wake up with une “tete du bois.” I’m really small. I think the effects of alcohol on my body would be adverse. Well, that’s all.
To start with, I’m twentysomething, single, and play in a rock band–of course I drink. But only to excess.
I’m also the son of two alcoholics who were the children of four other alcoholics, so on and so forth. My entire family drinks, and I’ve had only sixteen completely sober days since 1994. Is that bad? I don’t think so. Do I have a drinking problem? Possibly, I’m not sure. I’m what the 12 step people call “functional.”
Now excuse me whilst I fetch another horse piss–I mean, another Budweiser.
I enjoy drinking, particularly deep, complex red wine. And cold beer on a hot day, but only good European beer – US beer is like water with a slight buzz. But I go through phases with it. When I’m on one of my super-healthy kicks, I go totally off both drinking and coffee.
I don’t mind drunk people if I’m drunk. Sober, I can’t stand them.
Stompy
I drink, rarely, but I do. Don’t like being drunk, so don’t do that.
My experiences about drinking or not drinking:
When I was married to the recovering alcoholic, he seemed to make it a real point of honor “go ahead, you can have a drink if you want, really…” He never could seem to understand that it wasn’t about HIM, sometimes, I just didn’t WANT one. AND when I’d get one, he’d always want to “smell” it… geez. Reason # 321,999,989, 384 we’re divorced…
Amongst drinkers, they, too don’t seem to understand the concept of “no, thanks, I’d rather not”.
Back in my collegiate days, nobody made a fuss if you simply passed the joint w/o partaking. always wondered why it was different for passing up a drink.
-short hijack-
wring- he was in recovery but wanted to smell your drink? Not to be mean, but I bet that didn’t last long… 
You are probably better off now (in fact, I’m almost sure of it, being an alcoholic! We’re a real pain in the ass when we drink or crave the smell of someone else’s).
-end hijack-