I had an Uncle who didn’t drink often, but whenever there’s a party, he’s drink so much beer that he’s be violently ill on the way home. Party next week, same thing. And it’s not like everyone at the party was drinking, only a handful would and no one else but my Uncle would drink until his inevitable vomiting.
What really baffles me is that his only son would join him in drinking. His excuse was that it allowed him to moderate my Uncle by calling it quits at a certain point. However, 9 out of 10 times, it ended with both of them being sick on the way home. If I saw my Dad suffering after excessive drinking, I certainly wouldn’t follow in his footsteps. I suspect some kind of macho posturing going on.
Drinking impairs judgement. It’s really as simple as that.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told myself I’m only going to have a couple only to have it turn into six or more. That said, I typically don’t drink until I get sick though.
I’ve seen my Uncle and cousin, go outside, vomit, then come back in and continue drinking! It never seemed to be enough to just drink for fun, it always had to be to excess.
Sometimes you’re hanging out with friends and get a little drunk and then it is easy to get a lot more drunk. Especially when you start with beer and then get stupid and break out a bottle of hard liquor. Happened to me a few times in the past.
Sometimes you’re just young and stupid. I miss being young and stupid, now I have to settle for just stupid occasionally.
Sometime the person in question might actually be an alcoholic and really can’t help themselves. Thankfully not an issue I have but I do or did have friends with such issues.
There’s a brilliant line in the song “Hurricane Party” by James McMurtry that goes, “I don’t want another drink; I only want that last one again.” The first drink of the night is delicious and makes the tension melt away. The second drink is also very good and makes jokes seem funnier. After a while you hit a point of diminishing returns, at which point you might stop, if you’re sensible. If you’re not sensible, you instead speed up, chasing that elusive wonderfulness the first few drinks hinted was at the bottom of that cooler.
I hope this isn’t a hijack - but, as someone who can’t handle alcohol (I think I am missing the enzyme for metabolizing it), who has never gotten a buzz, only misery, from alcohol - what does the pleasure feel like for those who do handle it physically, no problem? Like Esprise Me said, is it some well-being high that makes everything feel good and relaxed?
Sounds an awful lot like alcoholism to me. Drinking impairs judgment, but after a while, non-alcoholics learn their limits, and learn to set limits for themselves either by not drinking or by limiting themselves to a number of drinks that won’t lead to alcohol poisoning/hangovers.
I’ve always been baffled by those who frequently drink to the point of getting sick, but as someone who is capable of enjoying a drink or two…
Yes, it makes you feel good and relaxed. For me, at least, it’s not so much “high” as mellow. If you have tight muscles from tension/anxiety they’ll loosen up (I suspect this is one reason booze has always been popular for those doing physical work). Things don’t bother you quite as much. Jokes are a little bit funnier. Food tastes better. The world - men, women, your singing, the other guy’s singing, sunrises, sunsets, puppies, kittens, etc. - seems better. It’s easier to talk to people, nothing is quite as scary as it is when you’re sober. It’s easier to fall asleep even if you’re worried or grieving. It all just seems better.
For me, just “taking the edge off” is plenty enough to make me happy. I guess some people pursue more and more of that sort of wonderful, leading them down the rabbit hole that ends with vomiting nearly every time.
Unfortunately, it’s not always a “high”, sometimes it goes the other way because alcohol doesn’t bring a particular mood, it just lowers inhibitions. You can became more fearful, more scared, more angry, and you’ll be less inhibited at showing/acting out all of that.
For me, I hit diminishing returns pretty quick - one, maybe two drinks in an entire evening are fine but past that I get clumsy (which I hate), my speech starts to deteriorate (which I hate) and my thinking gets fuzzy (which I hate) all long before I start feeling sick to my stomach. It stops being fun pretty quick for me, so maybe I just don’t have the impulse to keep drinking as long as there is alcohol.
Certainly, I overdid it a couple times in my youth to the extent of going past that one or two drinks until I figured out my own limits. The first time I drank until puking was the night my sister died when I was in a very bad mental state and not paying attention to how many I had - and neither was anyone else because they were so used to me being a moderate to light drinker. The only other time was, again, when I was in a bad mental state, and also not having anything to eat for hours before or during the drinking might have resulted in more irritation to my stomach. Since then, I have simply not started drinking when I’m in that sort of head state or grief.
I still don’t understand why some people drink themselves sick on a regular basis. I find that circumstance so averse I really, really avoid it. I seem people do it, I just can’t grasp on a gut level why they do it.
Ditto for me. Three drinks on a long night is the absolute maximum and I have no problem at all switching to a non-alcoholic option. I just stop enjoying the feeling. More often that not it is just a single drink with food and I thoroughly enjoy that “relaxation” feeling without any desire to have more.
Just the way I’m wired I guess, I know however that I cannot do the same with smoking which I why I cut that out completely many years ago.
There is some kind of (blurry) dividing line between people who drink a little socially and people who crave alcohol so much and in such a different way that it mystifies the first ones.
I get a significant sensation on a half glass of wine, probably as much as most people do with three times that. More than that, my body starts feeling too weird. One cocktail or the equivalent and I get dizzy, time alters, my mouth feels rubbery and numb, and I no longer have much conviction that anything I do or say is appropriate. It’s not enjoyable.
I too have often wondered what it is that some people can’t get enough of about alcohol. Or any other drug for that matter.
There’s a lot of personal variation and size-based variation involved. I’m a bit over 6 feet tall and weigh just under 300 lbs- I get a noticeable effect after 2, and my general limit is about 5 over the course of an evening before it starts to become unpleasant. But other friends of mine who are smaller dial that back by 1 or 2, and a few who are regular drinkers dial it forward by 1 or 2.
But you’re right in that there’s a point somewhere between pleasant buzz and mildly drunk where the vast majority of people stop. Some though just power through into fucked up on a regular basis. I kind of think that it’s not necessarily alcoholism; from what I’ve read, actual alcoholics tend to be more stealthy- they’re more constantly drunk than having insane binges like the OP describes.
The OP’s Uncle and cousin sound more like people who can’t control themselves at all when alcohol is around. Like they never learned how to slow down when they were younger and identify that pleasant buzz stage, and just blow right past into staggering and then puking.
“The OP’s Uncle and cousin sound more like people who can’t control themselves at all when alcohol is around. Like they never learned how to slow down when they were younger and identify that pleasant buzz stage, and just blow right past into staggering and then puking.”
This is very likely, but I still don’t understand it. Especially my cousin who saw my Uncle go overboard numerous times growing up. I’d see them drink one or two beers at home once in great while, then stop. It’s only at parties they drink to excess, so there must be some kind of mental, physical correlation that I’ll never understand.
That’s alcoholism. It isn’t just people who are constantly sneaking alcohol. It’s also someone who can not drink all week, but once they decide it’s time to party, they can’t stop at a reasonable number of drinks. Having one drink means having 20.