If you’ve watched a lot of Intervention (as I have as well), then you’ve heard the line, “I will do anything that I can to help you stop [your addiction], but I won’t do anything to help you continue.” That’s the line between compassion and enabling. Compassion is the understanding and willingness to do anything to help the person get out of their addictive spiral. Enabling is helping them to stay in it. You can understand and even sympathize with the causes that lead to addictive behavior, but that doesn’t mean you have to sympathize with the behavior itself.
Though I’m no Hogarth expert, yeah, I’ve seen those. It’s the most blatant propaganda ever made, but I do sympathize with Hogarth’s point of view there (apart from the English nationalist angle).
I have a very occasional drink. For me, “drinking heavily” is having two drinks in one week. I usually have one or two drinks a month, though I can (and have) completely abstained for much longer periods. I LIKE alcohol, but it’s empty calories, which I prefer to avoid for the most part. I do notice that I’m somewhat affected by the one drink that I allow myself on occasion. I’ll drink beer, wine, straight hard liquor, or mixed drinks. But I’ll always have a glass of water as well.
See, the thing is, I DON’T completely lose control. I only lose a little bit of my inhibitions…usually the inhibition which keeps me from singing. I usually only drink when I go out to eat with my husband, and on the ride home, I will sing assorted show tunes or old Beatles songs.
In your experience, is there a consistent ratio of happy drunks to mean drunks? Do most people get slobbery, or do most get angry? I’ve always been curious about this. I don’t see that many drunks, but would I assume a bartender would notice trends.
Who knows - all I know is that I’ve seen almost as many different reactions to being drunk, as I have seen drunk people.
I feel lucky to be a happy, energetic drunk who doesn’t experience significant changes in my behavior, much less personality when I’ve had a lot. I don’t drink very much, though. My boyfriend does, but it effects him the same way.
Hm, this isn’t what ‘being drunk’ is like for me or anyone I spend time with. Unless you count the one time when I was 19 where I blacked out (but nobody knew and I didn’t do anything untoward), I’ve never ‘lost control’ of myself. I’m a very cautious and controlled person, if that was what drinking did to me I’d NEVER do it. Alcohol doesn’t have a crazy effect on me, I know my limits, I have no urge to go beyond them even when intoxicated.. and I drink a lot of water before I go to sleep. Being drunk is fun! Even though I don’t get around to it often.
Anger and depression, while seemingly far apart, are very closely related to the “fight or flight” response to a bad situation in life. You can wallow in self-pity, or attack whoever or whatever is causing (or you think is causing) the bad situation. Usually we realize that whatever we are dealing with isn’t bad enough to isolate ourselves at home, or to punch the guy sitting next to you. However, alcohol loosens these inhibitions.
In addition to the different effects of the drug on different people, the circumstances surrounding the drinking contribute to your reaction. Are you at home alone in a dark house? Start crying into your beer.
Are you at a dive bar where some asshole is yelling and upsetting you? Get ready to punch him.
I think that the differences in response from beer v. whiskey in this thread are the reasons behind drinking beer v. whiskey.
Stop at the store and decide to buy a 12 pack along with the milk and bread=semi-normal day… semi-normal reaction to alcohol
Drive out of the way to the liquor store=the world has gone to hell fuck it all…terrible reaction to the alcohol.
Well, I do know a guy who beertended at a clothing optional bar in Key West … 
It is a common perception that beer or wine is somehow better or safer than hard liquor. Alcohol is alcohol. You can get more alcohol in you faster I guess guzzling a bottle of whiskey but it is plenty easy to get drunk on beer. There are probably more beer swilling alcoholics than any other type. People don’t buy that crappy cheap beer for the taste.
Whenever someone tells me they don’t drink hard liquor anymore, but that beer is okay I chuckle to myself. Ya I’ve heard it all before. I am not saying there is automatically a problem but swearing off hard liquor is a classic behavior of people in the earlier stages of alcoholism realizing they are having trouble controlling their use. Limiting oneself to beer is one of those things that sort of sound like controlling use without, you know, not using.
So basically, with or with out alcohol, you’re a sociopath. Got it.
(my bold)
Bingo. One can consume a good deal of liquor in a short time before the effects are even felt. With beer, you simply have to consume vastly greater quantities of liquid before the same intoxication levels can be felt; it’s sort of a built-in safeguard.
In regards to the above post, you also have to pee a lot. You can use the amount of difficulty it takes to get to/back from the restroom as a yardstick toward how plastered you are.
Just sayin’. I’ve heard.