Who drinks? And is it a problem?

[Joe Wordsworth]

My company has me at bars pretty frequently, so a regular day is an eight bar hop in the early evening for a drink. I am probably in the habit of a drink or two a day.

 

[SnoopDog]

I don't do drugs at all.
So I'm an anti-alcoholic.

I don't have problems with people drinking, I just chose for me that it's better not to consume alcohol.

And believe me, it's quite putting you on the edge of society.
But so what ?

Snoopy

 

[DirtyJJ]

I didn't really develop a taste for alcohol till late in college, and rarely have gotten all-out drunk. I enjoy drinking now, occasionally in the evening, or socially. But usually 2 is my limit. I don't know why, it just seems like that's enough for me in one sitting.
JJ

 

[oggbashan]

I used to drink a lot on either Friday or Saturday evenings.

I rarely became drunk because of my size, build and inherited capacity.

There were only two occasions in ten years of drinking when I was really drunk. The worst one was at a beach party that grew out of hand. We didn't have enough women so we invited the Nurses' Home. We had too many women so we invited the Firemen. We had too many men so we invited the typing pool. We had too many women so we invited the Marines. We had too many men so we invited the WRNS...

400 of us took over a beach after the public houses had closed. The marines and firemen had been competing to collect wood for the bonfire. They had made it 30 feet high and about 50 feet in diameter.

I'd been celebrating a pay rise. Before I left for the party I had drunk 8 pints of brown ale, a bottle of red wine and washed that down with 6 pints of rough cider (scrumpy).

I took a litre of Vodka, a bottle of Scotch, six bottles of wine, a 7 pint carafe of rough cider and a crate (12 pints) of brown ale as my contribution to the party.

About 3 am (in October!) many of us went skinny-dipping in the sea. We dried out and warmed up by the fire. The firemen had had to call their HQ to tell them that the fire was under control. It had been reported to the Fire Brigade and the Coastguard.

At 6 am one of the nurses told me that the nurse I had been with all night was due on duty at 7 am. My nurse was sleeping the alcohol off. I woke her. She couldn't walk even with my help. The route from the beach to the cliff top was blocked by the remains of the fire. I picked her up in a fireman's lift and climbed the 60 foot cliff, watched by all those who were awake. At the top I rang for a taxi and poured her into it. She arrived at the hospital in time but was declared (by another of her friends) to be too 'sick' for duty. Her friend covered the shift.

I climbed back down the cliff and found another nurse for the rest of the party.

The firemen told me they hadn't believed I could climb the cliff even on my own. It is made of shale and very friable. I had carried a six-foot tall, 135 pound nurse up it and then climbed down again.

I don't KNOW about the party after the skinny-dipping. I had to be told what I had done. I have been back to the cliff many years later. I wouldn't climb it with safety harness and a rope secured at the top. Since I climbed that cliff, three people have died falling from it while trying to climb it in daylight.

My memories start again from about 2 pm the next day. I came to in a coffee bar with eight empty cups, all mine, in front of me.

I didn't have a hangover.

Og

 

[Tome Reader]

Re: Oggbashan

Amazing story. Wow!

I had to snicker at this line, however:


"I climbed back down the cliff and found another nurse for the rest of the party."


I guess a nurse is a nurse is a nurse....

 

[oggbashan]

Re: Re: Oggbashan

Amazing story. Wow!

I had to snicker at this line, however:


"I climbed back down the cliff and found another nurse for the rest of the party."


I guess a nurse is a nurse is a nurse....

When you are that drunk any warm female body would do (and vice versa). The second nurse's original partner was unconscious. What could a gentleman do when she was cold and lonely...

Og

PS. I left names and places out on purpose. I know both young ladies' names but I'm not telling. Easier to say 'a nurse'.

 

[curious2c]

In my younger days I used to drink quite a bit. Matter of fact, the reason I backed way off is one time I went in to the bar to pay my bill and it took my whole check...with only thirteen cents change left. In one week I had managed to spend over four hundred bucks drinking.

At that point I decided that I was drinking too much and quit for a long time. Now, a drink when home, once in a while. Usually wine, mead, beer or perhaps a nice shot of Crown Royal or Dewars Scotch.

 

[wolf_hunting_vixen]

Thank you for everyone that replied!

I think the clue was in the question, so thank you for those who tip-toed around it!

Let's get the male-fripperies out the way: Just-Legal and Wicked-n-Cute - great boobies!

Tolyk: thank you for sharing such intimate details. I hope things are well with you.

SensualMale and Seattle Zack pretty much sum-up how I feel.

 

[Clare Quilty]

...And believe me, it's quite putting you on the edge of society.
But so what ?

Over the years, I have gotten in the habit of telling people who persist in offering me drinks that I am a recovering alcoholic (dipsomaniac to you Brits). For reasons unknown, drinkers often find it inconceivable that anyone would simply not want to imbibe. This usually leads to an impromptu round of 20 questions, wherein the disbelieving drunkard attempts to unravel the enigma of your temperance. These interrogations are usually accompanied by increasingly coercive goading to have "one little drink."

In addition, there is a subtle social ostracism associated with being a volitional teetotaler. For some people, refusing to have a drink with them is an affront akin to refusing to smoke their peace pipe. This can have far-reaching negative consequences in regard work-related social functions. But... when you claim to be a friend of Bill W., not only don't you suffer any estrangement of comradery and/or loss of coolness, you're likely to be treated to a display of naked admiration as one who has won the battle within and conquered ones own demons.

 

[Guest]

Q., one of my brothers (with a drinking problem at the time; it helped wreck his marriage) lived in Tokyo for 18 years. When he first moved away I thought the only worse country for him would have been Russia. I learned a lot about Japan from him, including how utterly necessary it is there to drink, especially in male company. You simply do not reject the offer of alcohol in a business situation (and much business is conducted in the evenings).

Of course my brother could have played the 'ugly American' card if he'd really wanted to cut back on drinking. When employed at a school to teach English he refused to work Saturdays. The Japanese were agast at first, but he explained it was an American thing.

Perdita

p.s. re. the drinking culture, my brother said there are containers in the subway stations just for people who need to vomit, an accepted part of salary-men life.

 

[Guest]

 

[Clare Quilty]

Q., one of my brothers (with a drinking problem at the time; it helped wreck his marriage) lived in Tokyo for 18 years. When he first moved away I thought the only worse country for him would have been Russia...

My kid has spent several summers in Japan (its a long story). Anywho, I've only visited Japan once but I was shocked to see how much Japanese men routinely drank. Someone told me that the purpose of the alcohol was so men could say things that would ordinarily be too personal or potentially damaging without fear of a lost of face--i.e., they could chock their statements and/or behavior up to having been drunk. In Japan this is, apparently, completely forgivable. Japanese are so adverse to confrontation that without the plausible deniability provided by alcohol, they could never do business. I don't know how true this is of younger Japanese business men.

 

[Guest]

Q., what you say about the Japanes rings true from what I've learned. The thing about why the salary-men drink makes sense too. P.

 

[matriarch]

I like to drink occasionally. I allow myself one very looong brandy and coke of an evening. It lasts all evening. Tonight I haven't as I was driving. The two things do not mix, and my licence is way too important to me to even think about risking it.

I like a glass of wine with my dinner sometimes, but only with company. Wine.......a good wine.......in my humble opinion, is not meant to be drunk alone. I like to share it with good friends.

I've never really understood the belief that you need alcohol to have a good time. If its that good, I like to remember it. Coherently.

Mat

 

[Clare Quilty]

Q., what you say about the Japanes rings true from what I've learned. The thing about why the salary-men drink makes sense too. P.

The Japanese are so adverse to confrontation that they have no word for "you." The equivalent phrase "anata wa" means, unless I've been misled, as for in your direction.

 

[Guest]

I drink from time to time. I used to drink heavily and woke up with bad headaches.

Now I sit in a booth instead of on a stool. No more headaches.

 

[thebullet]

I drink almost exclusively red wine. Boringly, I mostly drink Merlot now. However, I do firmly agree with Julia Child: Champagn goes with everything! I recommend Mum's California: Blanc de Noir

I also make my own wine, which I call Mellow Merlot. Just for my private consumption. My son and I have a ball making it, swearing at each other as I drop the tube or he breaks the bottle as we try to cork it, or we forget to put the fucking chemicals in at the right time.

Yeah, we have a great time making wine.

PROBLEM: If you really, really, really like red wine, it's a major drawback if you have gout.

I have gout. 'Nuff said.