Alchohol and you

[Sightless Wisdom]

Well, I started drinking when I was about 12. So I've had a fair bit of experience with it, and technically speaking I'm still one year off of the legal age where I live. I used to drink beer, a lot of beer. Now, the strange thing is that I really did not enjoy beer, it was just the cheapest thing to get completely wrecked on. As I got older I drank more and more hard liquors and less beer, simply because I had more money. Luckily for me I got most of my desire to get completely smashed out of my system before I had the money to buy all of the alcohol I wanted. I still drink these days, though it's usually a few beers after work with friends, or maybe a bottle of wine on a weekend. And very rarely I'll still go to a party and really get drunk, only if there's a decent occasion for it though.

 

[teqrevisited]

I only tend to drink occasionally. 4 - 6 pints for a leisurely session and a chat with friends, usually on weekends, and at parties I lead the charge, which more often than not ends up with someone sticking twiglets up my nose or drawing on my face and glueing my hands to my arse. Totally worth it. Haven't done that in a long while now, though.

I'll only usually drink bitter, vodka or cider but I'll try anything under those categories. I had a pint at the beerfest a few years ago that was so dark and thick that it visibly stuck to the glass. It tasted like what I'd imagine a coffee, cigarette and cardboard sandwich would taste like. That same year I had a cider so sharp and strong that it made my eyes stream for half an hour afterwards, but I'd probably have another one of those. The ale not so much.

There's always rum, too, but it's the only drink to make me ill so I'm not in a rush to have any.

 

[snowbear]

I DUCKING LOVE ALCOHOL. Not only does it make the world seem a better place... it tastes great too

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I'm 'anti-alcohol' due to circumstance. I have a loved one who has been trying to quit drinking for years now. I've offered my support and assistance in his recovery, so I have to be anti-alcohol.

Assuming circumstances were different? I'd be fairly ambivalent toward it. I don't drink, and I have no desire to drink.

1. It's expensive. If I'm at a restaurant, I'd rather have a $1 glass of Coke than a $5 beer.
2. I'm not particularly fond of the taste.
3. I'm commonly told that there's a ton of variety so there's likely types out there that I would like. Meh. I don't feel like wasting the money that it would take to do so. Beyond that I tend to be overwhelmed by variety, so that's kind of unappealing to me from the get-go.
4. I've known multiple alcoholics, and I've seen what it does to their health, personalities, social lives, and professional lives.

That said, I'm not going to belittle those who do drink, as long as they do so safely. It's their body and they can do whatever the hell they want with it. I just have no tolerance whatsoever for assholes who endanger others by driving or operating any dangerous device really after drinking.

 

[Commissar Sae]

I have what basically amounts to an allergy to alchohol, too much and my body can go into fuk=ll paralysis for several hours time. That said, I do enjoy the occassional mixed drink with friends or after a long day. I live in a small apartment with 2 roomates so I never really drink alone, someone is always in for joining me. Even then I only ever drink a glass or two before calling it quits.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I've been curious about alcohol since I was a kid but from my first sip I was disillusioned. I've tried a few brands of beer and they all taste the same to me (ie: rotting vegetable matter). There are a few drinks that I would drink though, like dessert coffee etc and foods cooked with wine but the later doesn't count. Then I had a chance to drink to drunkenness...I never liked the tilt-a-whirl or any rides that cause dizziness as a child so the idea of a drink causing that same kind of dizziness but for a prolonged period of time doesn't really appeal to me. Finally the social aspect...I don't really have friends who drink to excess and those who do drink don't bother me to join and I don't both them to not drink. It works out and I haven't had a drink since about 2007 with no plans to ever drink in the foreseeable future.

 

[Soxafloppin]

I love a night out, I don't like getting legless though. I enjoy getting to that "confident" zone.

I generally drink Guinness, Jacks Daniels and Captain Morgans.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

My main uses for alcohol are in cooking, where most of the alcohol evaporates and it's all about the taste, and I use plenty of alcohol for cleaning computer stuff - or wounds.

Then there's the actually enjoying alcohol bit, and I must admit that I don't give a damn about the social component of it. If people feel like they have to drink because of peer pressure, they're either hanging out with a bunch of twats anyway or they're probably not even of legal age to drink.

I enjoy champagne, wine and beer when socializing, but I'm also very happy to just pour myself a Gin & Tonic, a Kir or a good measure of a well-made Whiskey when time and mood and life allow.

Oh, and - obviously - there's nothing wrong with that. There's also little wrong with cider, apart from it being a waste of perfectly fine apples.

 

[Mel Theofficegamergirl]

*sings* I loooove you more, than I did the week before, I discovered alcohol~*eh hem*

Oh alcohol and I have had an interesting life together. I started drinking at a younger age and a few years ago I used to drink a lot more. Not so much nowadays. I became a bartender and have more respect for the drinks, ingredients, and culture as a whole. I love trying new flavours, and making new things. It's an adventure. It was a step in the right direction, as I'm now studying cooking as a career choice. Drinking started it though. When I drink nowadays it's usually only on the weekends, or only as tasting new drinks. I'm not much of a social drinker...unless I'm at a convention or expo or something. The friends call it "con fuel".

 

[Bvenged]

I had a really good year and a half drinking a lot, but now I've lost the taste for it. Completely.

I hate sleep you see, but I know it's gotta be done. Alcohol ruins any and all of my attempts to get a good night sleep so there's one negative.

In fact, it irritates me so much I haven't drunk in 3 months because of it. I haven't been wasted in 9 months+, and 3 months before that.

I hate sleep so much. What a waste of time. A necessary evil. Even one drink can keep me up all night. the only cure is to get wasted, which means I end up losing the following day as well.

SO that's why I don't really drink any more.

That and because it's relatively expensive. If I save up drinking money I can buy more of better things such as sweets, chocolate, games, BISCUITS, cookies, mcdonalds, etc etc.

I also only have a taste for sweet cyders. I lost spirits to heavy drinking, and lagers and beers to a build-up of stomaching their bitterness - though few of both I still enjoy.

 

[Vault101]

I've kinda come full circle. It has stopped being fun. As for why it's sad to drink alone? Theres a certain wall you hit, after it stops being fun, where you're clicking through youtube videos at 3 am in the morning amongst your empty cans and taco bell wrappers wondering "where the fuck is my life going?"


EDIT: Have you played Max Payne 3? That's when drinking alone starts to become sad.

ehh.....I don;t see whats so sad about that

 

[Xangba]

I drink. A lot. Not because I go out to bars or parties, because I'm happier when I'm drunk, and I'm not thinking about the woman that tossed me aside like I'm nothing.

 

[Arakasi]

I don't ever want to touch alcohol. Just the idea repuses me.
Also, you spelt alcohol wrong in the OP.

 

[Ieyke]

My attitude towards alcohol has changed a lot in the last couple years.
The core of it all is basically:
*I feel a powerful need to maintain self-control.
*All alcohol tastes like flavored rubbing alcohol to me. Either I'm just hyper-sensitive to that specific flavor, or I simply can't comprehend why people would want to drink it.
*I'm pretty heavily inclined toward ceremony, ritual, and tradition (not for religious/superstitious reasons or anything, but because I like to lend appropriate gravitas to certain things), so I have a built-in exception that I will happily drink to births, weddings and deaths, and I'll pretty much taste anything to confirm that "you can't even taste the alcohol in this" is still nonsense.
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+++WARNING, BASICALLY MY WHOLE HISTORY WITH ALCOHOL IS WRITTEN BELOW THIS POINT+++
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Spoiler

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THE SELF-CONTROL THING:
I was sort of programmed by "superhero philosophies" and stuff as part of my "core programming" as I grew up.
You know, fight for the innocent, general heroics, and (most relevant to THIS discussion) "With great power comes great responsibility."

I'm a very blessed individual both physically and mentally, and I've spent a LOT of time around drinkers, alcoholics and drunks, so I've always been really keenly aware of alcohol's effects on mental ability, inhibitions, and the insane consequences people around me have had to deal with.

Soooo, yea. I basically had some major issues with numerous people I used to hang out with, where consciously and logically I'd forgiven them, but subconsciously I hadn't, and I was aware that I had repressed, powerful grudges that I was constantly willing myself to ignore.
Frankly, I was stone sober when my former best friend informed me that he had betrayed me in just about the worst way anyone could. Had he not had the good sense to be afraid of me and therefore tell me about it via Instant Messenger, I KNOW, without the slightest doubt in my mind, that I would have genuinely murdered him in a brutal rage.
Hell, if I had a car at the time, he'd be dead.
If he had lived half a mile closer, he'd be dead.

So, my rationale with alcohol was that I simply didn't DARE impair my mind or loosen my grip on my inhibitions, because I wasn't sure that that rage wouldn't take over and I wouldn't seriously mess a number of people up.
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At one point, the girl I love got invited to a party with my friends where they were doing a lot of drinking.....and I didn't trust them with her when they were drunk. They wouldn't tell me where they were going to be until I swore I'd more than match her drink for drink (she didn't really drink AT ALL at the time, so I wasn't very worried and agreed).
So, they came up with a plan to trick me and get her to drink water from a vodka bottle.
She therefore called me and informed me of this (hence part of why I trust her absolutely), and she and I formed a plan to trick them right back. I managed to perfectly swap bottles of non-alcoholic beer for bottles of its normal alcoholic form, and had it all sealed perfectly back up.
We got away with it perfectly, and, as expected, she and I ended up wrangling rowdy drunks together for most of the night.

So, still wasn't convinced this drinking thing was a good idea.
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NOWADAYS:
Finally, the second girl I ever loved basically talked me into drinking with her. We still never really have, for some reason, but I finally agreed to it.
After like 7 years, I felt I was pretty safely beyond concerns of murderous rage.

My best friend is in Army Intelligence and was stationed in Germany for several years, and he made me swear I'd drink with him if I ever managed to make it over there and visited him.
Since I'm half-German and, as a result, pretty regularly go to Germany, I DID actually make it over there this summer and stayed with him for several days (just a month or so before he got transferred to the USA ).
So I spent the first night hanging out with a bunch of Army Intelligence officers and had a couple beers when we went out to a Mexican restaurant run by people from San Antonio.
(two Texan friends meeting in Germany to eat Tex-Mex in a restaurant run by Texan XD).

The next couple days we spent the night at this one girl's house, and the last night we were there she decided that she wanted to play a drinking game with shots of vodka after her husband went to sleep.
So we did....
Eventually, we got to the point where she must have been on the verge of black out drunk, but, instead of blacking out, she started freaking out and panicking about ALL SORTS of stuff (subconscious paranoia regarding her husband cheating on her, fear that she couldn't have kids, severe depression regarding nerve damage in her arm, all of the most important people in her life(parents, uncle who adopted her, foster parents, etc) having died tragically.....), and by that point my friend was pretty damn drunk too, and wasn't doing super good about helping her out and calming her down.
I, on the other hand was just a shot or two behind them....but I was almost completely fine. I had just finally reached the point of being buzzed for the first time in my life.

Again, this experience hasn't convinced me that drinking seems like a good idea, but now I know that I apparently have an alcohol tolerance that seems to reflect my German/viking heritage and large size, so I'm really not too worried about it at all anymore.
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So, nowadays I basically just don't really care. I don't drink on my own accord, but I'm willing to play along a bit if that's what someone really wants to do.
*shrug*

 

[Gitty101]

Being a proper Brit, Friday nights are usually spent with mates down at the pub. Forget clubs - overpriced mixers and obnoxiously loud music, a proper micro-brewery with a pool table is all you need to have a good time.

So, I guess in relation to the OP's question, I love alcohol. I love how it tastes, the social aspect of it and getting mellowed out.

 

[Slitzkin]

Alcohol and I:

I love beer.
I love whisky.
I love scotch whisky.
I enjoy wine.
I enjoy gin.
I love absinthe.
I enjoy cider.
Cognac is alright.

I hate rum and it hates me.
I hate bourbon whisky.
I hate sambuca.

I'm starting a self imposed dry spell. I don't want to become to dependant on the drink.



captcha: hello, world
Strangely fitting.

 

[brookykatt]

I like to drink but it makes me silly lol, mostly i just sleep

vodka is yummeh

 

[Ieyke]

I love to go on a bender now and then. And from my experience people who don't drink have the most boring stories.
No offense, but the stories suck. Period.

Ha!
You've not met anyone like me then.

Like that night my friend, my brother, and I got swarmed and interrogated by 6 Sheriffs and 4 Constables one night because we were suspected of trying to break into the local highschool.
We were waiting on our friend to just meet him there (half-way point between our houses). He showed up while we were being interrogated....and he was wearing solid black ninja gear (sans mask) and carrying a duffle bag full of swords, knives, a kusari-gama, and a grappling hook, with his regular clothes piled on top, because he'd JUST got out of his ninjutsu class for the night.
WE didn't know what he was wearing or what he was carrying, because it was 11pm and dark, but we'd just finished explaining to the cops that we were waiting on our friend, and they weren't convinced, so we sort of gestured for him to come over and prove our point.
He hesitated (for obvious reasons), but the cops noticed us gesture at him and called him over.
So he came over and confirmed our tale...and they asked to search his bag.
SOMEHOW they just shuffled around the clothes at the top and didn't notice the arsenal below it...so they let us go.

STILL not sure how we got out of that.
That's just one of a great many narrow escapes from the cops I've experienced.
I've also got a list of escapes from almost certain death that could fill several pages.
And gods know what else I could list if I gave it any thought beyond "cops and death".