Trollheart

Never gonna happen. I'm no fun drunk or sober.
See this is what I mean. The subtext here is "what the hell is wrong with you?" instead of you all saying "you know, if someone can survive and make a good life for themselves without these crutches and props, maybe we should be looking at ourselves." Yeah, like that'll happen. Perhaps Rostasi and I should wear a bell around our necks? UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

rubber soul

I'll tell you what. I'm scared of drugs. And I'm one of those who don't drink alcohol because I don't like to feel out of it. same reason I won't do drugs.

I have a dear friend who did alcohol on a regular basis because she was trying to cover her pain. It could have killed her. Now she tries to cover the pain by doing yoga. It drives me crazy sometimes, but at least it's a lot healthier and I don't have to worry about her abusing her body anymore. Anyway, for those who are doing alcohol or drugs to ease your pain, there has to be better ways. For those that just want to party, well, carry on, I guess.

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FETCHER.

Just to follow on from your last few posts about drinking, I’ve never been to ROI before so I can only assume what it is like. I do think our countries have a very similar drinking culture and I genuinely applaud you for sticking to your guns about it. It’s not easy to do. I almost feel like people sneer at me if I have decided not to drink and a lot of the time they just simply won’t take no for an answer. Its actually a huge grievance of mine. So well done for not giving in to it over the years.

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SGR

Props to those who don't see the need for alcohol or drugs. Your health is certainly better off without them.

To each their own, but nothing helps me unwind more on the weekend than booze and a smoke. For a few brief moments, the majority of my worries get put on the backburner. There are some people who become more fun when they've been drinking because they lose their inhibitions - for introverted people, they usually become more talkative and extroverted - a person who normally will be brief with you in conversation may spring you with a question about Plato's description of Atlantis after a few drinks - but of course, there's always the people with repressed rage that will become violent and unwieldy after a few drinks. You don't want to invite those ones to parties. There's also the people who are holding their emotional state together with gum and shoestrings who will be bawling to you about god knows what after a few drinks (I've met a fair few women like this - but also a couple dudes) - these people are no fun either. It's certainly not a universal that people become "more fun" after drinking. I'm not exactly proud of it, but I can hold my liquor extremely well - and the last thing I want to deal with when I'm drinking and having fun is someone's emotional breakdown or violent outbursts. **** that noise.

Plankton

I've been battling those demons for most of my life. The most important thing in winning that battle is figuring out why you feel the need to medicate.

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SGR

Very true. Alcohol, like many things, is just escapism. Escapism in moderation isn't necessarily that bad of a thing - it provides no long term solution, though alcoholics may feel otherwise - but like most things taken to their extreme, you have to pay the piper eventually.

Trollheart

Thanks Fetcher. Yes, as I said, and as you correctly point out, being a non-drinker in Ireland is - or was, before we got a bit more cosmopolitan and attitudes began to change a little - frowned up as if somehow you're the one out of step. People would regularly look at me with wide eyes and say "Really? Never?" when I told them I didn't drink, as if they either pitied me or reviled me, as if this was something they had never come across before. As if they wanted to go and get their friends and point me out excitedly and whisper "Yeah, I know! Never took a drink! Ever!" like you were some sort of sideshow attraction.

And you would feel compelled to try it, if only to shut them up. The amount of times you'd be given a Coke or an orange and the smart comments like "don't go dancing on any tables now" and suchlike got very wearing, which was why I eventually gave in, temporarily, both to experience the "other side" of the drunken conversations (which never happened, as I only got drunk twice in my life and both times it was unpleasant enough for me to know I did not want to do it again) and to fit in. It didn't really work. Even then you'd get the "hardened drinkers" looking at your pint of Smithwick's and saying "ah sure that's not a real drink!" as if there was some weird standard you had to live up to.

I never needed drink. To be honest, and to contradict what I said in jest to Batty earlier, I'm actually quite personable and don't need to be drunk to have a good time. People think I'm funny (as in, humorous, not strange), interesting, kind and really quite ordinary. I don't look down on people when they tell me how drunk they got, though I never have and never will understand the attraction. Like I said, having an alcoholic sister sort of tips the scales a little too.

For those of you - most of you - so proud of your drinking though, let me ask you this question: how many lives has rampant non-alcoholism ruined? How much violence has been perpetrated by sober people? A lot, surely; I'm not denying that or making out that those who don't drink are saints. But in comparison to those who have committed these acts while drunk or under the influence of drink, not that many. And how many people today incarcerated have said at their trial that they wouldn't have done what they did if they hadn't been drunk at the time? Ever hear anyone say "Your honour, in my defence, I was totally sober"?

Once again, before anyone says it, I'm not painting all those who drink, even those who do so to excess, with one brush. There are those who can hold their drink, I'm sure, and never get into trouble. But the undeniable fact is that a very large proportion of violence, especially domestic, hate crime and other crimes take place while the perpetrator(s) is or are under the influence.

Here's a hypothetical. An alien race visits us. They watch us, study us and see how violent we are. After extensive research, they identify our consumption of and obsession with alcohol to the main reason for our violent disposition. They use some sort of mind ray to erase the very idea of alcohol from humanity's minds, while simultaneously destroying all stocks of alcohol. Earth wakes up, having forgotten there ever was such a thing as alcohol. It's not Prohibition, it's just gone and nobody even remembers what it was. Nobody will want or miss it, nobody will be "gasping for a pint" as we no longer even know what that means.

How do you think our society would then progress without drink?

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SGR

Well....there was that whole Hitler thing...

But I get your point.

For the subset of drinkers you're talking about - those who drink to excess to the point that they're committing violence - my guess is that unless you fixed the problem(s) that caused these people to drink like that in the first place, they'd just escape their sobriety in different ways than alcohol - if they all simply replaced it with weed, there would surely be less violence - but alcoholism is basically just a symptom of deeper issues - whether that be child abuse/neglect, social atomization (social neglect), psychological issues or even biological factors - I don't think these people would suddenly deal with their issues in a healthy way when alcohol is taken away, they'd simply seek a different kind of escape. We've been beating each other over the heads with clubs and rocks for a long time, without the help of alcohol.

FETCHER.

I’m one of the people who drink and take drugs to enjoy myself but I am definitely guilty of drinking when I’m at parties etc just because I feel a little bit awkward.

TH I am almost jealous that you have only been drunk twice - waking up with “the fear” is one of the worst feelings in the world and it is one reason I would truly love to give up drinking alcohol. I have definitely felt depressed for days after drinking, it’s a horrible feeling and I wish I had your willpower to just not drink. I sound like an alcoholic here lol but it’s just too hard. It’s too ingrained in culture and I do enjoy it at the time, it’s the aftermath that kills me.

SGR - your points on alcohol being taken away or more unattainable are 100% correct. We have “alcohol” tax here which makes booze more expensive and I think it is charged by the unit or some other ridiculous rule but since the government implemented this rule the drug deaths and crime rates in Scotland have sky rocketed. Our government instead of tackling the issue on WHY people drink just decided to make it harder for poor people to get access to it. This country is literally ****ed.

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jwb

dayyyyyyum

I think I'm gonna need an Adderall just to read this ****in novel you wrote for the MB temperance movement...