I thought of doing this as a poll, but reasoned that there would be more room for nuance if left open for discussion.
So, the question as aforementioned…
(I am a #6)
I fucking hate it. I never drink alcohol, and I despise all people that do.
I don’t drink, and drunk people bore me, but I’m not militant about other people’s intake
I’m not that fussed. Will have a drink occasionally at a social.
I like drinking in moderation. I’m not often shit-faced, but it is a helpful social lubricant/catalyst.
I like drinking; I could do without it, but my life would be less rich.
I like drinking, and I would struggle if all alcohol on the planet suddenly vanished.
I drink every day, and really struggle to not do so; I don’t show up to work drunk, but when I get home from work I reach for the bottle pretty quickly.
I am an alcoholic and I always have at least *some *booze in my system for all of my waking hours
However I do drink, just rarely. Not that I kept close track of it but I think the last alcoholic beverage I had was the evening of November 8, 2016. And I got pretty sloppy drunk that night for the first time in maybe 10 or 15 years.
I’m close to #1, though “despise” people who drink is a bit strong–have less respect for them than I might otherwise is more accurate. (I have the same opinion on all other mind-altering recreational substances.)
I think I am number 5. Most days I’ll have a bottle of beer or a glass of wine with dinner or at a bar. I like the taste and how it balances the flavors of foods.
I haven’t been really drunk since college, decades ago.
Not sure which category I fall into. My body can’t handle alcohol (I think I lack the enzyme for processing alcohol, or something like that,) and so it makes me really nauseous and ill, but if it weren’t for that, I think I’d probably be drinking so much that I’d be an alcoholic or semi-alcoholic by now.
If I must choose, I’m probably 2#. But it’s not because I dislike alcohol.
I drank more in college before I realized it just turned me into an emotional asshole. Then I stopped entirely because I was an emotional asshole WITHOUT drinking and figured alcohol would just REALLY make it worse. Now I’ll have a beer with pizza or wings or an occasional meal, but if I never drank again I wouldn’t be too torn up.
I’m somewhere between 2 & 3. I don’t understand why some folks (including some of my family) can’t seem to accept a social situation without alcohol. And I don’t think drunks are funny.
I rarely drink away from home because alcohol makes me sleepy. And even at home, I might have a Kahlua and cream every 3 or 4 months if I remember to get some cream. Just last week, I dumped the remnants of 2 bottles of wine down the drain - one was from 2011 and it was still halfway full. I never drank any of it - just used it for cooking a few times.
Bottom line - I’m not anti-alcohol. I just don’t get the appeal.
I’m a 3.5. I can go weeks or a month without having any alcohol, but if I cook a nice meal for my wife I will occasionally open a bottle of wine to have with it. I believe red wine in moderation is actually good thing for your health. A beer on a hot day can be very refreshing, but so is iced tea.
I’m somewhere between #5 and #6 . There was a long stretch of my life where I was a solid #7 but now I have a different relationship. I guess that depends whether or not you believe in AA’s tenet “once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic”
Drunk people don’t just bore me, they truly unnerve me…it’s like witnessing people suffering the effects of being poisoned, all the more unnerving because they did it voluntarily. I don’t have a problem being around people who are drinking in moderation, but I cannot be around people who are outright drunk.
I don’t touch alcohol myself. After too many bad experiences in the past - some of which still make me physically nauseous to think about - I have realized it is not worth it. Not when there are other substances that provide a superior mental experience and don’t have the same physical consequences.
#3 for me. I have a whole liquor cabinet 8’ from me as I type this, filled with single malts and tequilas. But it’s probably been a good 3 weeks since I touched any of it, and I had a single shot of Lagavulin on New Years Eve. I don’t go to bars to drink and I think the last drink I had in a restaurant was close to two years ago.
3+. Drink in moderation but not as a social lubricant. A glass of wine or a beer or a mixed drink several times a week with dinner. Haven’t been shitfaced in I don’t know how long.
I’m probably a 4.5 or so. I drank a beer last night, when I was home alone, because it sounded like it would go well with dinner. And I’d say at this point in my life, 80% of my social events involve some sort of drinking. Last time I had more than a couple, though, would have been New Years.
#3 is probably closest. I’ll have a couple drinks if I’m at a wedding or Christmas party but very rarely drink around the house or “just because”. It’s not a moral thing or even a conscious choice but, since I drink so rarely, it doesn’t take much to make me feel it and I’m rarely setting out to feel tipsy.
I used to drink considerably more in college (and had much more tolerance) but it sort of shed off after entering the real world and then disappeared almost completely when I became a single parent and couldn’t afford to be sitting around tossing back drinks.
I’m between a 2 and 3. As the child of an alcoholic I used to be way closer to a #1 when I was in college but now that I’m a Full Blown Adult I don’t worry too much about other people and what choices they are making. I do still get slightly annoyed when alcohol and the availability thereof, or the over-indulgence-of, makes an impact on anything I’m trying to do. But really, whatever.
To be honest, I’ve never experienced drinking in a way that made me feel “better” or any alcoholic beverage that I found to be tasty (minus the high-sugar stuff that is tasty for other reasons). All alcohol has a negative effect on my physically, and none of it tastes good (some of it tastes tolerable) so I suspect I am having a wildly different interaction with alcohol than most everyone else. And I admit that does make me jealous. I think I would totally drink beer if I could, or get drunk more if it made me feel good. But after much experimentation, that will never be the case for me.
