This past Saturday I was at a birthday party and fully expected to be drinking all night. Around 11pm I decided to call it quits. Didn’t need a hangover the next day (for once) and I was getting a bit sleepy, unusually so. So I just said my goodbyes and headed home (about 60 feet, next door).
It just occured to me that when I go out drinking I usually end up making it to bar-time and then call 'er quits. Don’t ever start too early though, maybe 8-10pm and then carry on for 4-6 hours or so. Even if I started ealier in the eve, it seems I can still take it right up to bar time.
Evidenced three weeks ago.
I started uncharacteristically early in the day at a friends house who wanted me to try this ‘new’ drink he made up. Vodka (Grey Goose), splash of Sprite and some orange juice. That was around 2 in the afternoon. Had a couple of them and then headed to the next stop to visit some more friends, had a bloody mary (strong). Then went to a third person’s home and (this is where I stopped driving) and had a few beers, then off to the bar. Met up with everyone and had more beer, then towards the end of the night it was Jeager bombs and shots of Tequila (great! :dubious: ). Enough already, time for nighty-night, but I had lasted 'till bar closing time.
I know guys who will drink at the same pace no matter when they start and be puking by 10 pm. Or the other extreme, guys who will just have 3 or 4 beers all night and that’s all they will drink.
I know of a couple of guys who will hit the wall like RIGHT NOW. They were fine one beer ago and all of a sudden they’re shit-faced.
I don’t have a built in limiter as some do.
I just carry on till the party’s over. Usually keeping an even pace and an even keel the whole time. I can’t remember the last time I had to quit early cause I was too drunk already (it has happened, just not recently), or started puking (that’s saved for the bed spins or the following morning, both on rare occasions).
I’m, from what they tell me, not an obvious drunk either. I don’t get stumbly, or slur speech either, I will puke before that happens.
So drinkers, what’s your average night out like?
Or for the SO’s of drinkers what’s your partner’s night out like?
Ah, youth. With age sometimes comes wisdom. When we are out on the town, I will have a maximum of 3 beers a night. Several reasons for that: I’m the one driving, I really don’t like being drunk, and I don’t trust strangers around me if I’m not in control. So I pace things out. With my body mass, 3 pints of Sierra Nevada barely registers on the blood alcohol (I’ve checked.) Spaced over 3-4 hours, I don’t get more than a mild buzz. Then I stop drinking an hour before we are planning to leave, to let the rest of the beer metabolize.
“Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” --Dean Wormer
Lady Mung and I go to our favorite watering hole on Friday night and, occasionally, Saturday if there’s a Predators game on tv. We usually get there around 8 and leave between 10 and 11. In that time I’ve had three or four beers and she’s had two or three mixed drinks. That’s usually enough to keep us happy and sociable while we’re there. We also usually have a snack while we sit to weigh the alcohol down, so to speak.
It’s easier to pace ourselves now since our last bartender threw a fit and left a few weeks ago. He rarely let us go without sneaking us some shots.
We’ve learned from experience that if we go too far at the bar, we won’t get anywhere in the bedroom later.
My m.o. is to drink until I am getting annoyed with the folks around me, at which time I switch to water, guzzle it, go to the bathroom 3 or 4 times and then drive myself and whoever else home. If I never get annoyed I keep going until it sleepy time and crash wherever I land.
So, the timeframe differs with the time/annoyance ratio.
I’m with silenus - after a while (too long, typically) you come to realize that past a certain point, drinking reduces your enjoyment (not to mention how it threatens to shorten your life, and possible others’). I can now pretty reliably reach a state that’s pleasant and not go past it. I don’t believe I’ve had a hangover in this millenium.
IIRC, the latin expression is usque ad hilaritem - “to the point of cheerfulness.” That seems about right.
In Colorado, I don’t go out very frequently, though I do more now that the smoking ban went into effect. Here I’m likely to have 2 hard ciders over the course of 3-4 hours, with some water, or 2-3 mixed drinks spread out over 3-4 hours, if I’m out in a bar-type situation. If I’m in a place to dance, I’m only drinking water. If I’m at home with friends or at a friend’s house where I’ll be spending the night, I’ll have 3-4 drinks of whatever type spread out over the course of the evening, maybe even over 6 hours, and have plenty of water and probably food as well.
In California, where I visit friends and family several times a year, my tolerance for alcohol is much higher because I live at altitude. I’m more likely to have one more drink in an evening in California than I am in Colorado. I have to be mindful about how much I’m drinking when I’m there, because I can drink more without feeling anything from it.
I don’t like to drink to excess. I’ve only ever been sick from drinking twice, both times in college, and both times I had one drink but hadn’t eaten anything in hours, so I had an empty stomach.
In college, I would usually drink all I could stand before I started to feel sick (generally 9-10 beers). This continued into my 30s.
In my 30s and early 40s, I’d generally drink between 6 and 8. If I was having a crappy time with life, I’d do it several nights a week. Otherwise, once or twice.
Starting at 45, when I got my current job, I backed off to where I’d only drink on weekends, usually only one day. I’d drink maybe 4 or 5, which would give me quite a good buzz, because my capacity had dropped.
Last July, I decided I was sick of drinking, and pretty much quit. I think I’ve drunk maybe 5 times since then, with a maximum of 2 drinks, except for New Years, when my wife and I shared a magnum of champagne. I haven’t drunk since then.
I haven’t taken the pledge or anything. It’s just that, as I aged, drinking somehow became less and less pleasant, until I reached a point where I hardly wanted to do it at all.
I usually stop somewhere in between getting the warm fuzzies and the point where my lips start feeling numb. It doesn’t take much to get me to that point, maybe a couple of beers, but when I go out these days I drink slowly, so the alcohol is spread out over several hours. When I decide I’ve had enough, I switch to water or Coke (to wake me up if I’m getting sleepy).
Back in college, I’d get completely hammered on weekends when we’d go out clubbing. Ladies’ nights with free or $1 drinks definitely helped with the bingeing. I’d stumble to a friend’s place and hang onto the bed while it spun me around for an hour or two.
I think the difference between now and then is partly due to age, and partly because I go to bars and pubs now instead of clubs. The atmosphere is more mellow, I guess.
This was SO true for me in my younger days! It was omitted though, “I can call in sick tomorrow!” after using up all your sick days.
Lost a job or two over that situation.
Well, since I have some weird alcohol metabolising gene that prevents me from getting good and drunk cheaply, I usually don’t “go out drinking.” If I plan on getting drunk, we will buy a few bottles of some type of liquor (Jack Daniels Old No. 7 being my usual preference) and stay in to drink. When I drink to get drunk, I usually will stop…well, when I am good and drunk. Which is usually at the bottom of a fifth.
When we go out for drinks with friends, I usually dtop after 2 drinks. Purely financially motivated, that. Drinking in public is expensive.
FWIW, I am 35, been drinking since around age 9, never had a hangover and have only managed to puke 3 times. Because I drank and partied so much in high school, I simply have very little desire for it now. I get in moods, for sure, but have found that the dehydration issue the next day is generally more annoying that the drinking is fun. Not always, though
My husband, OTOH, is a total lightweight. He gets a serious buzz after 1 shanty. He also doesn’t like the feeling of being drunk/stoned, so he usually will sip a single shanty for hours and leave half of it on the table.
When I quit is completely dependent on whether or not I have to drive anywhere. If I have a sober driver or I’m staying somewhere, I might get good and drunk sometimes. It’s all up to how I feel that particular night. Sometimes I’m in the drinking mood, sometimes I’m just not. If I have to drive, I’ll nurse a few beers depending on how long I’m there. I don’t like to get the room-spins anymore, the hangover the next day isn’t worth it. Slightly giddy is where I like to stop on a good partying night. Just getting a little loose and goofy is fine.
I’m 28 and I never go “out” to drink it’s just too expensive. But if I’m out with friends we’ll usually stop somewhere and get a couple beers. Most of the time it’s when we go see a movie. Our local movie-plex has a restruant reight next door. So we’ll get there early and have a shot and a beer before the movie.
If I’m at a party, which is only a couple times a year at the same friends house because they have a crapload of friends, then I’ll get good and drunk early on uausally before 8pm. Then I just ride the buzz until around midnight or 1am. And by then I am sober enough to drive.
I don’t like being “slurry-words” drunk I just like being buzzed. And on some magically beautiful Saturdays or Sundays when I have nothing to do at all and my only plan is to play Warcraft ALL day long then I’m usually buzzed all day. I’ll get up around 6am and do a couple of shots and then every couple hours I’ll do another shot. I never get drunk during this time as that makes playing Warcraft, interesting, like the next day loggin in and finding myself dead and naked out in the middle of ocean. Usually on these rare enchanting days I can make it until 8pm before I am just too tired and want to go to dreamland.
I don’t go “out” on a schoolnight (I mean a work night, but I’m in denial).
The last time I really went “out” out, about a month ago, we started drinking about 3 pm, and were all fixed to go home at 11 pm. Then we decided on “one last one” at our member’s club, since we were passing. The barmaid said “you can have one, but then we’re closing” and inwardly I thought “ah that’s good then”, but then, fatally, she said “but since you’re members, you can go upstairs to the lounge, and we’ll close when you leave”.
We had a great night, met a very interesting documentary maker who kept on buying bottles of prosecco and champagne, and got home at 5 am, hideously drunk, and I was wiped the next day. And had a bad cold for the next three weeks. I’m nearly 40. I can’t do it any more.
Usually, however, if I’m drinking drinking, rather than having a couple glasses of wine of an evening, I generally go on until I feel really really tired.
