Probably a 5.5. I enjoy drinking, I enjoy the ritual of making that first cocktail, the bracing coldness of it, the iciness of the vodka on my tongue, and the slowly growing buzz. I don’t drink because I have to, I drink because everything about it is so pleasurable.
Monday through Thursday I avoid it and rarely think about it (unless I’m on vacation), but Friday through Sunday I end my days with a few drinks.
I’ve gone cold turkey for a month or two several times with no difficulty, for Lent or if I’m training for some athletic event, but otherwise I’d say alcohol and I have a very close personal relationship.
I’m between a 5 and 6. I probably have a beer or glass of wine with dinner 4-5 times a week, but not very often more than one. An occasional (once every week or two) glass of bourbon. Maybe once a month I’ll get a good buzz on, but I only really get shit-faced on Christmas Eve anymore (Bad Santa & bourbon on Christmas Eve is my favorite holiday tradition).
If alcohol ceased to exist, I would be very sad, but I’d survive.
There is a deep black hole inside of me. The only thing that can cover over it is complete sobriety. After just one drink I have to fill that hole with vodka.
I love alcohol. But I’m an alcoholic so if I drink, I drink to blacking out. Therefore I don’t drink at all. 2 1/2 years sober.
If there were a clinic where a person could go once a week & try a new recreational drug - DMT, PCP, Ketamine, Pot, LSD-25, LSD-6, MDMA, cocaine, Demerol, whatever you could possibly imagine - I would go every week until I had done them all.
But, I’d never use alcohol or tobacco. They are far, far too dangerous.
I specifically differentiated between people who shun or are afraid of it as having and unhealthy relationship, whereas those who have a take-it-or-leave-it as having a healthy relationship. I’m not suggesting anyone should drink alcohol, I’m suggesting that a strong emotional reaction is unhealthy.
I guess I’m somewhere between a 5 and 6 as I drink pretty heavily on nights that I don’t have to work the next day. I’ll stay up to the wee hours of the morning drinking cheap beer and woodworking, probably drinking around 12 or so beers total, and I love it. It probably doesn’t sound like the best combination but I find myself being more careful around power tools and blades when I’m drinking. I look forward to this throughout the week, so if beer suddenly disappeared from this planet I’d be pretty disappointed but I think I’d get over it.
I’m around a 4 or 5. I like beer, specifically I found some beers I really like. My drinking got a little high last year, I was averaging a case a week but I’m back down to about 10 beers a week now.
Alcohol is an excellent social lubricant and much of it is quite tasty. Also the correct wine or beer can really enhance a meal.
A 3 or so? I don’t drink much - perhaps one drink a month - because I don’t get much out of it, or apparently not the same out of it that people who drink a lot more often do. It either makes me sleepy (so I do occasionally add some to cocoa if I can’t sleep) or flat-out dizzy. I think I’ve been drunk maybe twice in my life.
In the last year, I’ve increasingly had periods where I’ll skip booze for several days during the week so that I can feel more mentally ‘with it’ in the mornings. But I’ll often make up for it on the weekends. It’s not like I don’t have self-control - I don’t drink and drive. I can wait until I get home from a friend’s house before cracking one open. I can have a beer and decide not to have another one. My thing is, drinking on some days is just something I do to pass time, as pathetic as it sounds. It’s sometimes like a hobby. I drink and watch sports. I drink and listen to music. I drink and watch TV with the missus. And before I know it, I’m a few beers into a bender.
What are you defining as “shunning”? If someone says “I don’t drink and I won’t drink,” that is “shunning” to me. And there’s nothing “unhealthy” about that. We’d consider it perfectly pedestrian about other recreational drugs.
I don’t smoke and I won’t smoke. Did I just shun cigarettes “unhealthily”?
Do you have to be willing to drink even if you don’t drink in order to be “healthy”?
Mostly 3. A six-pack of Strongbow Honey will last us 2-3 weeks at our home. Our social gatherings are with Christians, so alcohol isn’t on the menu most of the time. When I’m with family, a few drinks is fine because I am staying over at someone’s house-- we don’t live near anyone we would share drinks with. We spent time with family for all of 2 weekends in 12 years. Thankfully, no one in the family drinks to excess, so I don’t have to hang around with drunken people.
I was probably a 6 for years but its edged down to a 3 as I got older. My partner has a drinking problem, (likes to drink to excess several times a week but maybe only stupid drunk twice a month) and my ex husband is also an alcoholic. Most of my mom’s family are either alcoholics or married them so there is a pattern I’m repeating here. (My dad was an extremely light social driner but medication means he doesn’t drink more than maybe twice a year. My mother stopped having an occasional glass of wine in the late 80s after picking her nearly-dead sister off the floor.)
Mid December I got pissed off at some stupidity surrounding drinking and I have basically quit. More specifically I quit buying or paying for alcohol. I had a glass of wine on Christmas Eve and a glass of Prosecco on new years.
I don’t care if I ever drink again. I like the taste of some drinks but there are a lot of things I like. Also when I do buy things for my self like a higher end vodka, or Grand Marnier to go in tea it will eventually be consumed by my partner when he runs put of beer money.
Sorry, that took a dark turn. Mark me down as a 3 who is currently abstaining.
I used to be a #3, but now I’m closer to #2, because one of my medications could possibly hurt my liver. I’ve never had any indication of liver problems with the medication, but just to be on the safe side, I haven’t touched a drink in a couple of years. I’m a bit sad about that; I used to enjoy discovering new wines.
