Moving on from drinking alcohol

[roadman]

Re: Moving on from drinking alcohol

I started drinking in junior high school(middle school by today's standards) and continued as mostly a social drinker all the way through college and marriage.

After marriage, you start hanging around married couples and the desire to drink fell off for me because of driving. Once we started having children, the desire to drink fell big time because it wasn't good to have a hangover at 5:00 am when they wake up as a baby.

Now, that the kids are older, my preference has changed to wine over beer or liquor, but it's still the drinking isn't anywhere near where it was in my younger carefree days.

I don't call up buddies and they don't call me on Saturday mornings and hang out and drink till the game is over.

[ODogg]

Re: Moving on from drinking alcohol

No, because I've never really been around it. I never went to bars, mostly because up till a few years ago you could smoke in them, and I have severe asthma that the smoking would have basically killed me. LOL But I don't see where drinking to excess is glorified anywhere.

TV for starters....movies, music, well just about everywhere but perhaps you simply don't notice it since you've chosen not to ever partake..

[ExtremeGamer]

Re: Moving on from drinking alcohol

TV for starters....movies, music, well just about everywhere but perhaps you simply don't notice it since you've chosen not to ever partake..

Yeah. Can't say I've ever noticed it.


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[ODogg]

Re: Moving on from drinking alcohol

I started drinking in junior high school(middle school by today's standards) and continued as mostly a social drinker all the way through college and marriage.

After marriage, you start hanging around married couples and the desire to drink fell off for me because of driving. Once we started having children, the desire to drink fell big time because it wasn't good to have a hangover at 5:00 am when they wake up as a baby.

Now, that the kids are older, my preference has changed to wine over beer or liquor, but it's still the drinking isn't anywhere near where it was in my younger carefree days.

I don't call up buddies and they don't call me on Saturday mornings and hang out and drink till the game is over.

With a name like roadman I'd be very disappointed if you didn't have a story or three about times you had too much to drink, LOL.

And yeah, I can't imagine having a huge assed hangover and having to wake up to take care of a baby, that would be a freakin' nightmare..

[ODogg]

Re: Moving on from drinking alcohol

Yeah. Can't say I've ever noticed it.


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It's probably something only people like myself who really like drinking notice more than anyone else does.

[VDusen04]

Re: Moving on from drinking alcohol

I also abstain from drugs and alcohol. I do have friends who really want to see what I would be like high, so they try to convince me, but once I say no they tend to leave it alone.

I have to ask the others who do not drink or smoke: How do you deal with it if your significant other does? I would not say I am some hard-line straight edge type, but I generally do not have much fun around people when they are inebriated. I am having issues with my girlfriend because she quit shorty after we got together, but now she wants to start doing it again in moderation (she says.) I am not trying to hijack this thread, sorry. I just really need help getting past my dislike of it. I love her and every other aspect of our relationship seems so perfect. I do not want to lose her because of my "hate" of substances. Any help would be appreciated.

Hey man, I can relate to your feelings here. I'm also not a drinker or smoker and no matter how hard I've tried to reason with myself, I've struggled with the same issues. I've never dated a smoker but I've dated a share of drinkers, and I've never been able to convince myself to be 100 percent comfortable with it, no matter how logical I try to be with myself about it.

If you've been able to find a system that works, I'm glad for you. I've been able to be cool with casual drinking girlfriends, though I still find myself preferring they didn't. The types who held drinking as a much larger portion of their life, however, usually just led to issues down the line.

I haven't quite been able to figure myself out on that front. I've always thought it'd be a lot easier if I could just be cool with anything like that my girlfriend may choose to do. But something about inebriation, drunkedness, and even the desire to drink seems to be such a turnoff for me in most cases. Don't know why, have just kind of accepted it for what it is.

Have you ever found it somewhat alienating to live in a culture that so glorifies drinking to an excess?

I've felt alienated in the past but nothing major or life changing. In high school it look me a while to realize that all my other classmates weren't actually drinking all the time. A good number of them were, but there were also a lot of people like me out there, they just tended to be more low key.

Otherwise, I haven't had many issues on that front. Sometimes I've had people become interested in how I'm able to have fun without drinking or going to bars, in a "Then what do you even do for fun?" type of way, but that's tapered as I've gotten older.

I may have had a different take on peer pressure growing up too though, so that may have helped. I always kind of had a feel for who I was and what I wanted, so I wasn't going to do something I didn't want to just because there was some kind of latent pressure for acceptance. And besides, as others have said, people are typically undeniably cool and respectful of my choice to not drink.

[ODogg]

Re: Moving on from drinking alcohol

Just an update, haven't drank any alcohol save for Thanksgiving morning when I drank some of my sisters special orange juice which I didn't realize had vodka in it until halfway through my glass and I was like "this tastes watered down..." LOL.

Vdusen - I think part of it always was for me not only a peer pressure thing, although that was part of it because my roommates and friends all drank for the most part but it was also a way for me to relax and sort of shed my social inhibitions.

As I've gotten older I'm less socially anxious because I honestly have more confidence just from living longer and knowing I am a pretty sure of myself person. I think a large part of my drinking too was to gain confidence when speaking to women.

For a large part of my life I was single and trying to speak with women and without any alcohol I was way too nervous, self conscious and just in general made the entire conversation awkward. That's even online conversation. So I'd drink a little and relax and things went much better.

Of course I won't even mention all of the women which I really pissed off because I got too drunk and said sexual things to them or around them and they would have nothing to do with me after that so there's that.

But I think a large part of this process for me has been understanding why I drank on a regular basis and what may, or may not, still apply and that's helped a good bit to gain that insight.

With that being said I do plan to drink a few drinks with some company tomorrow during the OSU/Michigan game but I don't plan to get drunk. This is also fairly new to me, learning to drink in moderation and not getting just completely wasted but it's not been all that difficult to be honest when I'm around people because I am very aware of how much I drink (versus when I drink by myself and I can get hammered and not even realize it until I go to talk on the phone or something)...

So..Go Bucks!

[ODogg]

Re: Moving on from drinking alcohol

Just posting an update: For the OSU/Michigan game I had about 7 drinks. I did get a little drunk but not ridiculous. After company left I did quit drinking and got back to sober in a couple of hours.

That was this past weekend of course and leading up to this week I've had zero urge to drink anything. The hardest part for me used to be Thursday night and Friday daytime as I was thinking "end of week, yay! party time!" but lately all I've been looking forward to in my head is playing some Fallout 4 and that's about it, heh.

Have no plans to drink again until probably my dads Christmas party near Christmas at which point I'm going to drink a few shots of whatever he has on hand. This whole thing is saving me a lot of money too, which is a huge added benefit. Grey Goose ain't cheap!

Hope everyone is having a great holiday season and doing well with whatever their issues may be. I'll continue to post my progress but so far I think I've overcome the hardest part of getting out of that weekly habit.

[ExtremeGamer]

Re: Moving on from drinking alcohol

I'm guessing you gave up on his based on your recent gaming posts about playing R6 drunk and drinking games?


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[kehlis]

Re: Moving on from drinking alcohol

I'm guessing you gave up on his based on your recent gaming posts about playing R6 drunk and drinking games?


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Was it really necessary to bump this thread to ask this?

[ODogg]

Re: Moving on from drinking alcohol

EG sorta but I'm going to try to get back on the proverbial wagon! But yes lately I've been bad in that regards


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[ExtremeGamer]

Re: Moving on from drinking alcohol

Was it really necessary to bump this thread to ask this?

Yes it was, he asked questions and was seeking help. His recent posts stated otherwise, so wanted to remind him where he was trying to be at one point. Sometimes we all need a little reminding of what we are trying to do or be if we "fall off the wagon" per say.

[ODogg]

Re: Moving on from drinking alcohol

Yes it was, he asked questions and was seeking help. His recent posts stated otherwise, so wanted to remind him where he was trying to be at one point. Sometimes we all need a little reminding of what we are trying to do or be if we "fall off the wagon" per say.

I'm not sure why he would say that to be honest. It wasn't like you said "bump" or something, you asked a legitimate question about what was going on in the thread.

Part of my issue is my wife wants to have a child and she's driving me nuts. No, I am not making excuses or anything, but just providing a bit more of a background. I mean she seems to have gotten it in her head that she has to have a baby NOW. We've been trying for a while, due to my cancer issues my count is low so we've been paying for donors and she's tried 3 times to no avail.

I have asked her to try to talk to someone, and hell I'm willing to go along too if it helps, because I don't know how to communicate with a woman who seems to think a child is important. Yes I'd like a child as well but it's not do or die to me as I don't have that biological clock I guess. So far she's said no to that and/or Prozac either one.

At least, I will give myself a little credit, although I've drank the last couple of weeks I've known when to stop and not blacked out or drank until she gets home (she works nights and gets home about 6:30am) but I need to get back into the 0-4 drinks type zone instead of the 8 or so I've been doing.

I will keep posting in this thread on how things go.

[DocHolliday]

Re: Moving on from drinking alcohol

your putting back 8 cocktails a night?

[ODogg]

Re: Moving on from drinking alcohol

your putting back 8 cocktails a night?

I usually just drink on Fridays at the end of the week. And like last Friday I think I did probably 10 or 12 over the course of about 6 or 7 hours. I'm a big guy (about 255 #) and takes a bit for me to feel it. Still too much, I would like to really keep it under about 6 drinks.