Let's talk about booze

[Klaustasya]

I don't have this problem with alcohool because:

• i'm taking medicines so alcohool is forbidden
• found out i'm allergic anyway so rip my life i can't evem drink a beer for heck sake XD

[baasinsimple]

I got drunk once with a couple friends and it took me 5 days to get the house completely cleaned. We had to clean up almost everything you can think of. It was heinous.

[LordVincent]

Low quality alcohol will give you worse hangovers because higher quality alcohol processes usually remove a lot of unwanted stuff that contributes to extra headaches. Still, the primary cause of hangovers is excessive drinking. If you ever start drinking at parties and such, just start out slow and you will figure out where your line goes.

I usually don't drink much, even when I am out. I have only gotten too drunk once. I was out with a couple friends, of which one is a big drinker. Important advice here I guess: avoid social overdrinking. Your friend may order two beers in one go to start the night off, that doesn't mean you "may as well" do that too. Especially not if you have a very small build.

Things tipped over pretty fast and I ended up vomiting at the bus stop and in a trash can on the bus.

OH WAIT NO NVM I OVERDRANK THIS NEW YEAR TOO HAHA AND THAT ONE WAS SOCIAL OVERDRINKING TOO. Oh well, at least it's a rare occurance xD I usually have a pretty strict "so and so many drinks max" approach. The problem I guess is when I feel like life has been too serious and I need to let loose. Soooo the solution is basically I need to party more often >8)

[ISNEKO]

I drink every other day or so. Rum mostly. I've never had a hangover before, somehow.

Being buzzed or drunk helps me focus on one thing and not get distracted.

[simplykit]

booze is one of mans greatest inventions!

may it be beer , wine , hard liquor

nothin beats getting drunk and actin like fools with your buds

[DokiDokiTsuna]

if you're from some conservative country or circle to speak like that xD Alcohol (beer, wine, etc) is food, just treat it like what it is.

I'm from the U.S., if that helps. But I don't agree that alcohol is just 'food'. No amount of water or broccoli would cause you to dance topless on a table or crash a car into a tree when you otherwise would not. It's literally a mind-altering substance.

Anyway, I'm not sure what's the purpose of your post. Do you have any specific questions or just want to state ideas and facts?

also, i kind of dont see a real point to this thread, if people really wanted to research, they'll actually research this stuff

This again...guys, don't overthink this. I titled the topic 'let's talk about booze' because the point of the topic is just that: to talk about alcohol and how people use it. You can say anything you want to that end.

Besides, if you wanted to research how alcohol affects people (in a way that you could actually use for writing novels), you'd be going around the internet looking for people talking about their experiences with it. So what's wrong with streamlining the process and bringing those stories directly to you?

And since I'm getting tired of defending every topic I start that's even slightly unique, I'd like to post the Merriam-Webster definition of 'forum' here for posterity:

Definition of FORUM

The next person who asks me 'what's the point' of my topic is just gonna get ^this as a reply.

[SleepingPoppy]

Weirdly I start to get headaches within a few sips of an alcoholic drink? I don't know if it's just in my head, but it happens, even in drinks where the level of alcohol is really low like schmirnoff or Mike's Hard Lemonade. So 99% of the time I don't drink at all.

However I really enjoy mixing Mike's Hard Lemonade and regular pink lemonade. It's delicious!

My friend group are all nondrinkers more or less, too, so it's never an issue.

[punkarsenic]

i have a beer now and then, only because i like the taste. it always strikes me as odd when a (male) friend would tell me 'men dont actually like beer, they all just pretend to' - its the only alcohol i can stand the taste of??? its like liquid bread

i also cant get into the logic of having more than one in a sitting - unless im trying a few different beers, im very happy at one. like i wouldnt have two coca colas in one sitting, or any other drink (besides, like, tea.)

also, baileys is awful

[Azifri]

You're from the US? Then I was right, you're from a conservative place and makes sense that you think that alcohol makes you "dance topless" as you say, but fail to see that it's the cultural inhibitions that you guys have, what get unleashed when you drink.

I remember during the time I lived over there, seeing kids thrashed drunk because drinking was prohibited for them until 21! And they were even proud to be drunk. What the heck! You can go to war and marry at 18 but can't have champagne at you wedding. Pathetic.

And yes, alcohol is food. Not gonna give you a history lesson that you can Google by yourself, just know that it was developed to preserve liquids and carbs. Conservative places tend to make certain things negative, and so people will obviously abuse them because that's what humans like to do. In reality, any food or activity that gives you pleasure can give you an adicction. Think of fats for example.

[vothnthorvaldson]

It's a bit tough, but pretty much what I think.

To be complete, I'll add that there are some valid biological reasons to delay alcohol consumption, however, that's only theory. Indeed, practically, there are plenty of proof this delay (as a law) does not work or is even counterproductive. That is the kind of things that are more efficiently managed by prevention than repression.

As a European Canadian, I think people may be more aware of that in Europe than in NA because Europe has a variety of alcohol legislations in a very small geographical region, and it's easy to see that alcohol problems have nothing to do with alcohol legislation (even a very shallow comparison of UK, France and Germany can give a good idea of that).

[Darkstrong]

I drink quite rarely, a couple of cocktails (mostly Cuba Libre) once a week, maybe. Sometime less. And I never get really drunk, even when I tried, alcohol just never gets my past that point where I lose control... the most drunk I managed to get is something like 10% loss in motor functions, 15% loss in cognitive. Hangover is a different story though...

[Lady_DarkStar]

Some basic things about alcohol:
1. It is a depressant.That's why drinking when your down is a bad idea.
2. It suspends your judgement. Hence people doing crazy stuff they wouldn't do sober. It's called liquid courage, but it should be called liquid dumb ass.
3. It's a pain killer. Vicodin doesn't actually kill pain, it just makes you not care that you are in pain. Alcohol on the other hand actually does kill pain. It's used in cough syrups because it numbs the throat on contact.
4. It's a preservative. Lab specimens used to be preserved with it. Ever hear the term pickled liver? It's a rather accurate common term for what happens to an alcoholics liver.
5. It's an antiseptic. Great for cleaning wounds.
6. It is poison. You blackout when you drink too much because you have poisoned yourself. I'm sure everyone can tell a story about someone at their high school, who was at a party, in a drinking contest that passed out and got left on their parents doorstep; only to be found dead by their parents the next morning. Cause of death: alcohol poisoning.You can build up a tolerance to it. Same as the practice of ingesting tiny amounts of poison over time and working up to larger does to gain an immunity to that particular poison. I don't remember the technical name for this practice.

Given all that, I'm a whiskey drinker. I can't stand the taste of beer. In moderation, or when used medically, there is nothing wrong with alcohol.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

but fail to see that it's the cultural inhibitions that you guys have, what get unleashed when you drink.

As perfect as it might sound to assume that my cultural background is forcing me to see alcohol in a way that I shouldn't, the truth is that I'm not biased. I'm just being realistic. From a biochemist's standpoint, alcohol really just isn't the same as any other food. It does things to your perception and analytical skills that other substances don't; that's what makes it special. By pretending that there's nothing unusual about it, you're ignoring what makes humanity attracted to it in the first place.

Can you get addicted to other things? Sure. Caffeine addiction, for instance, is seen as completely normal in this 'conservative' society, even for children and teens. And no one cares at all about sugar addiction, despite how powerful it is.
The reason we don't dramatize them, however, is because there's not much dramatic about them. Caffeine may make you hyper or jittery, but it can't form a completely different persona for you the way alcohol can. And unless you're diabetic, you aren't likely to see the detrimental effects of excessive sugar intake until years after the fact.

My point is that there are lots of psychoactive substances, and if you want to be technical, sure, in the end it's all just food. But each one of them has its own properties, and for some those properties are more powerful than for others. That's not a 'negative' outlook, it's reality.

[joannekwan]

I don't really like drinking tbh.
The taste is abhorrent unless mixed with enough of another drink so that the sweetness masks whatever nonsense the alcohol component tastes like.

I also don't handle the side effects well. 3 shots of vodka and I'm losing my vision and I feel like I'm going to die.
I'm a panicked, need-to-sleep-off-this-shitty-feeling kind of drunk.

[SilentHamster102]

When I was a novice to drinking I used to lose my vision too, I even wasn't able to use my phone, I saw three of them at one time. That was cool, I'm missing that effect actually.

[PaulieBlade]

That's hilarious. And also refreshing to hear someone not hating on booze experiences.

[feardeer]

A bit off topic, but this got me thinking about my own experiences. I don't drink (the only alcohol I've ever liked is kahlua mixed with chocolate milk), but I've been around a lot of drunk people. It's usually a very uncomfortable experience for me, but I was also reminded me of a friend I had who used to go out drinking with his buds, then come home and chat with me on skype. He was the most ridiculous drunk, lots of fun, the only drunk I ever enjoyed the company of. He'd crack himself up reading our messages the next morning.

Anyway, I realized I missed him a ton, so I decided to reach out on skype (since that's the only contact I have), and see if he still uses it. He does! So I'm just here to say that thanks to this thread, I've reconnected with a dear old friend.

[Kelheor]

I prefer beer, mostly stout, unfiltered beer and kriek. Also, sweet cocktails. Don't like vodka, whiskey and gin at all. Absinthe is great alcohol without any hangover after it! But the taste is not to everyone's liking.
I don't really drink much, a cocktail once in a week or two and I definitely don't like to drink a lot, but I feel nice after some alco. Relaxed, much less shy and much more talkative. Also I swear a lot, but it just comes with less shyness

[Wumbl]

I'm one of those people that loves alcohol, not for getting drunk but for the flavour and feeling.

For me spirits are the best. I love rum, whiskey and well-filtered vodka... I also have a soft spot for jagermeister, midori and Pinot Grigio. I like beer, too, as long as it's german or spanish beer. I love cocktails because I've been a bartender before and I like to come up with my own unique recipes for friends. Every party I go to, I end up being the one making all the drinks.

I am mostly a social drinker. The only times I drink by myself is if I have a particularly nice bottle in the house and feel like a nightcap.

I have the welsh side of my family to thank for my impenetrable alcohol tolerance. I can drink people twice my size under the table despite being a short and very skinny guy. My party trick is being able to drink an impressive amount while being totally fine. I can get to like..... 10-14 drinks and still be fine. I take great care of myself and give myself plenty of recovery time inbetween heavy drinking instances...... I'd say I only get drunk <10 times a year. Most people in my country get drunk 3 times a week though, because alcoholism is for some reason romanticised in our culture. I really don't get it because alcohol should be savoured and appreciated, and it can be expensive to go out every week.

I've never had a proper hangover, but that's probably bc I'm still in my early twenties and my metabolism is still good. I know that as you get older you don't metabolise as well and that's why hangovers happen.

[Jenny-Toons]

I'm one of those people that loves alcohol, not for getting drunk but for the flavour and feeling.

I really don't get it because alcohol should be savoured and appreciated, and it can be expensive to go out every week

That's it right there!

Whenever I see people (even if it's a few friends at a party) just guzzling down alcohol like it's water, I'm standing there -- still on my 1-2 drinks mind you -- going "are you even tasting it?"

It's one of the bigger reasons I prefer Champagne, meads, and other sweet tasting drinks. I just adore the taste. There's just something there that's appealing to my taste buds. Beer's kinda ok, and it's softer than any of those hard liquors. But compared to the sweet stuff I usually have, it's like drinking water (bad comparison, but that's what came to me off the top of my head XD)

And again -- it's expensive so it has to last at least 1-2 nights (2-3 if you have a wine topper to keep it fresh). I think I've only bought like...4-5 bottles since I turned 21 last October, and most of it was shared with other people. I'm still a college kid, so I can't be spending big time money.