Well, what’s RIGHT about being an alcoholic?
Just askin’.
I don’t think that’s the case. My life experiences don’t really encompass what the world that doesn’t drink does on a Saturday night. And I am old enough where I’m simply getting bored just hanging out in a bar all night getting smashed. But it’s my observation that’s what 90% of the world under the age of 35 does. That view might be skewed since there are 100 bars in my neighborhood and every weekend the streets are busy with people attending them. And as someone already mentioned, people who don’t drink tend to get annoyed around drunk people.
Yup, your view is way skewed. :eek:
90% of the world’s population hangs out and gets smashed in bars every night? A goodly portion of the world population rarely if ever drinks. Perhaps your 90% estimate is true if confined to younger college types, living in a younger US college town. Maybe. On weekends. BUt even then, I doubt it.
Come to think of it, that means that only 10% of the under-35 population is someplace that isn’t a bar, on any given night… :dubious:
Heck even when I was under 35 and partying hard, it certainly wasn’t every single night, or even most nights, that we’d hang out and get smashed in bars every night. And I hung with a pretty heavy partying crowd for a long time.
The 90% isn’t a precise measurement. Think of it as “lots of people”. It may in fact only be 10%, but no one sees the 90% watching TV at home. They see the 10% that’s out and about (plus everyone elses 10% who travel in to go out).
I’m not talking about college towns. I’m talking about major cities.
I also said weekends, not every day. But there is SOMEONE out drinking every night in NYC. They probably aren’t the same people every night though (one would hope).
I think you left out an important word, duffer: “Always.” Being an alcoholic results far too often in wanton destruction and misery for all involved. Just because you’re an exception doesn’t mean that that prediction doesn’t still hold true for the majority.
And xcoolacix, just because you know lots of other kids besides yourself who are also drinking alone in their rooms doesn’t mean you and they aren’t facing a tough road in the future. Hiding drinking only works for so long. One of these days you’ll have an employer who hauls you in and says, “Listen, I’m tired of you calling in sick every Monday and Friday, everyone’s complaining about you coming in every morning reeking of booze oozing out of your pores, and if you don’t get some help for your alcohol problems, you’ll no longer have a job here.” Is that really what you want to make of your life? This might be a good time to reconsider your drinking habits, before it leads you down that miserable road I and a lot of others have gone down. Trust me, it wasn’t any fun at all making myself that miserable, and I don’t know anybody who drank secretly who wasn’t totally miserable in the end, even if not at the beginning.
That was my point, David Simmons, about my friend who visits the drunks at the county hospital – alcoholics deny alcohol is causing problems even to the point where they’re within a few hours of death from alcohol-related causes. It’s a crazy problem, when people who have it the worst deny it the hardest.
Exactly! An alcoholic simply doesn’t have a choice in the matter. Those of you who do? More power to you. Party away! But the point where you can’t put it down, or you say you will and then find yourself drinking again without even realizing it happened, is the point where it turns from fun to a real problem.
Well, I’m 32, and every weekend I go out and see a bunch of other people my age going out–without hanging out in a bar. May I suggest that your experience is somewhat limited? Why not try something new for a change, see what else is going on? You seem to live in New York or something, so there’s got to be quite a bit going on. I live in a small town with a lot of bars, and I can still find stuff to do; you’ve got plenty of scope.
The other 90% aren’t all staying at home watching TV. Plenty of them are out, doing something other than going to bars. Some of them are in bars, or places with bars, but either not drinking at all or not getting smashed.
Yuo’ve got to remember that not only is NYC different from the rest of the country, Manhattan is different from the rest of the city. I’m going to take a guess (and I could very well be wrong ) that your social circle consists mostly of well-paid, single, childless , people who were raised elsewhere and now live in apartments in Manhattan.Their behavior is naturally going to be different from my friends, most of whom are middle class, native New Yorkers, nearly all of whom were either married or in a long-term relationship or had children by the time they were 30 and most of whom are homeowners. ( and I’ve known most of them since before any of us were married or had kids) Do most people I know drink? Of course. Plenty of them drink frequently and heavily. But they don’t go out to bars every weekend just to get smashed . What do I do with my drinking friends? We go to restaurants, baseball games, some of us bowl together , and once in while we go to a bar. All places where alcohol is available. Do they throw me out of the restaurant or bar or off the bowling team because I’m drinking soda while they’re drinking alcohol? Nope, they couldn’t care less that I don’t drink, just like I don’t care that they do drink.
You would think there would be but a friend of mine from work who doesn’t drink at all asked me what there is to do in NYC other than bars or retaurants. My GF and I couldn’t really think of anything. I mean there’s museums and shopping and stuff like that but that’s stuff one does during the day. And there’s nothing wrong with going out to the bars and lounges. You don’t have to stay at them until closing time and drink yourself stupid.
What I’ve noticed with people who like to party a lot is that a significant amount of their lives is dedicated to partying. All your friends like to drink late into the evening. During the summers you get shore houses where you spend each weekend partying hard. It’s big fun and a lot of laughs. Provided no one ever gets seriously injured most negative consequences are simply characterized as “crazy drinking stories”. If you cut out drinking from your life, there’s now a big hole there that needs to be filled with something else. People who are unable to fill that hole often go back to drinking.
Take time to check out Dry - A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs. He was able to succeed in his job during his alcoholic days by the help and patience of his co-workers. He’s a very funny and smart guy, still. He also lied, cheated, acted like a 3 year old, and drove himself to the brink of madness. Take away the alcohol and the words still flow out of him. It is a scary book. Literature can be scary and entertaining at the same time. I’m not sure life will sustain those same categories simultaneously without something bad happening after a short while.
I read Dry, marvellous book.
He also drove himself to the brink of financial ruin, as I recall.
And its things like this that suggest that AA teaches people to preach self-sealing dogmas, rather than informing people about medical facts.
And if you disagree with me, well then you must be in denial about your fanaticism. 
i can completly agree that being an alcoholic (exspecially at 16) is dangerous, but its hard to stop or even reconize that you have a problem when society doesnt view it as bad anymore… yes im sure when im 30 and walking into work buzzing every morning it will be a problem, but for now when im a teen who has minimal responsibilities its hard to find a reason to stop.
~kaci
Yeah, but you couldn’t think of anything because you haven’t done much else, right? I’m not saying there’s something wrong with bars, but you keep wondering what the rest of us do, so I’m saying go and find out. Your life experience will be the richer for it, no? Adventure and really wild things, right?
At the very least, there must be bookstores and cafes to hang out in. Then they’ll have readings and bands and whatnot. Or there’s the Manhattan Chess Club. Or you can go to a movie; Manhattan must be full of interesting movie houses. Then there’s the theater, concerts of various kinds, all kinds of performances, right? It’s New York City for goodness sake, at the very least it will have the same stuff I have access to.
OK, I have to ask - don’t your parents know you’re drinking alone in your room? I’m assuming you’re living at home.
While drinking socially is pretty widely accepted behaviour for adults, I’d argue that most people (your cohorts excluded) take a pretty dim view of 16 year olds getting bombed on a regular basis. Those responsible for you - parents, school, most of grown-up society - wouldn’t approve. By “society” do you mean, your friends and people in your age range?
Not to mention, it’s illegal.
As somewhat of a tangent, I’ve known a good few people who have used the effects of alcohol to ‘excuse’ themselves from behavior that they planned on commiting anyways. It works out rather well that way, someone can let go of all their inhibitions and restraint and then afterwards attempt to totally distance themselves from their own actions. “I’d never do that, I was drunk.”
Past a certain point it becomes nothing more than evasion. I’ve known people who routinely do stupid shit while they’re drunk, such that you could predict what effect getting drunk would have on them, as yet they still refuse to take responsibility.
“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you” - Nietzsche
I guess that answers the question in the title of the OP.
Actually it doesn’t, smartass. All it means is that NY has a shitload of bars and restaurants and its a popular activity for people who live in and around the city.
Book stores and coffee shops are more of a sat or sunday afternoon thing anyway so it’s not like they are mutually exclusive to bar hopping.
If you want to stop, you will stop. If you don’t, it’s pretty easy to find justification not to. As someone who went to a big party college, I can tell you that a lot of people ended up not graduating because of alchohol and drugs. It may become a problem long before you hit 30.
Hon, the fact that you’re a TEENAGER is reason enough. You’re too fucking young to be fucking up your life so badly. Do you want to end up getting a liver transplant before you’re thirty?
msmith537, I think you have a good point that in our society, those who don’t drink are often looked at as weird or boring more so than those who do.
Reactions I’ve gotten when I said I don’t drink, “WHY? How can you NOT drink? What do you DO?” Hell, the first time, this was in 10th grade.
I don’t like the way I feel when I drink-sleepy, overheated and disoriented. I can’t imagine it being fun for someone.
the point that i am making here in sharing my amazing drinking life with you is that; yes it is illegal, yes it is dangerous, but also yes society (and by society i dont mean my parents or teachers, but my peers and even thoose older than me aka in the real world) are painting a picture that drinking is okay and that you can be seen as normal if you have a drinking problem! which i think is enough to prevent people not as amazingly smart as me, from seeing that it is truly a bad thing!
Well, you certainly have a point there - drinking is certainly glamorized (smoking used to be.) I think it’s a shame that it’s regarded as cool and OK by so many people who are really too young to handle it, and the consequences. Hell lots of adults don’t handle their liquor well…
I probably sound old and preachy. I’m not, I’m old and a hell of a lot smarter than I used to be. Spending over two decades getting drunk and high certainly had its fun times, but in retrospect a little more mderation on my part would have been a good idea. :rolleyes:
Stay amazingly smart, kid and don’t get sucked into thinking you can’t have a good time without being buzzed. That’s not cool, it’s stupid.