Can you stop drinking?

[Jorghnassen]

No offense to the alcoholics, but here's a classic Baudelaire quote:

Les gens qui ne boivent jamais de vin sont des imbéciles ou des hypocrites. Un homme qui ne boit que de l'eau a un secret à cacher à ses semblables.

Which freely translates to:

Those who never drink wine are either imbeciles or hypocrites. The man who only drinks water is hiding a secret from his peers.

/just a random bit of culture...

 

[Euromutt]

People have been drinking, and getting drunk, for ages. [...] While it could be that some cultures have a stronger presence of alcohol than others, I don't think it has anything to do with the media exposure.

If you look at historical factors, consider the quality of the local water supply. For much of European history, especially in urban areas, drinking water was a swift route to an early grave from diseases like cholera, and prior to the invention of pasteurization, it was best to be wary around milk as well. So what could you drink that wasn't likely to kill you? Alcoholic beverages, that's what. In northern Europe, even small children drank beer by default (though in their case, they had "small beer," which was only around 2% ABV). As a result, for a very long time, when people talk of "drink" in a pre-20th century context, more often than not, they specifically mean hard liquor. When we say that the Puritans (and other Calvinists) "disapproved of drink," that means brandy, gin and whisk(e)y, and does not include beer and wine. My great-grandmother married my great-grandfather because he was the only man in the village who didn't drink, but by that, she meant "the only man in the village who didn't drink gin"; that was the northern Netherlands in 1910. To this day, in many Slavic countries (which have tended to lag behind western Europe technologically, and thus have more cause to worry whether the water is potable), drinking beer and wine isn't considered "real" drinking; it is illegal to drink in public in Russia, for example, but that means hard liquor (primarily vodka, natch), not beer or wine.

Centuries of bad water would certainly provide a better explanation why drinking, at least beer and wine, is ingrained in western culture than attributing it to "the media."

 

[Rasmus]

I have been drinking since I was about three. My parents figured if they'd let me have a sip of beer I should be thoroughly disgusted and not touch it again for a while.

They were utterly wrong, of course. I've had an occasional sip of beer ever since, and as I grew older (some time into into my teens, if i remember corrctly) I would even go as far as sharing an entire bottle with my dad or other relatives.

I remeber (yes, I am still capable to remember things sometimes) how I once asked if anyone wanted some of my beer. An uncle laughed and told me that if someone would open himself a beer they had better be able to finish it. I did finish the beer whilst my mom informed him that I was just being nice and wanted to share the last beer.

I'll get tipsy from as little as a sip of champaign, and even beer tends to go to my head pretty quickly. I was 20 when I first got drunk on the day I graduated from highschool.

I got drunk a few times at university, too. Wasted, even. I also graduated. I still get drunk sometimes - maybe twice or four times a year. Can I not drink for a month? sure. I need a car to get around, after all, so I barely drink. It has been less than a month now, I think I had a beer three weeks or so ago, and I've been eating chicken that was marinaded with sauces containing alcohol.

I drink. I am not an alcoholic. I agree that I am not doing myself or anyone else a favour if i stop drinking for a month, or two, or three. I *am* doing everyone a favour by not getting drunk when driving, I am doing me a favour by not getting drunk a lot since that would be unhealthy. I am not even doing anyone else a favour by not getting drunk, though. I am nice and friendly either way.

I haven't even been raised to drink responsibly as such. I have been raised to act responsible and without alcohol being condemned for some silly reason. Maybe I was just lucky where alcohol is concerned.

Just my 2‰

 

[luchog]

I haven't even been raised to drink responsibly as such. I have been raised to act responsible and without alcohol being condemned for some silly reason. Maybe I was just lucky where alcohol is concerned.

Being raised as a generally responsible person makes it far more likely that one will be a more responsible drinker.

But not universally. To amend my previous comments on the subject, some people are genetically prone to alcoholism. They have an abnormal physical reaction to alcohol that causes it to affect them more like harder drugs; and makes it far more likely they'll develop a physical dependence as well as a psychological addiction. Likewise, there are some who are the opposite, who are highly unlikely to become alcoholics because they have an abnormally low reaction.

Interesting example of the latter, I have a friend who seems incapable of getting drunk. I've seen him drink enough to put me in the hospital with severe alcohol poisoning and still remain nearly dead sober; and he's only about half-again my body mass. I've never seen him even approaching drunk. And he's never been a habitual, let alone consistently heavy, drinker. His reactions to other drugs seems to be normal, even the ones he's used heavily (namely LSD). It's weird.

 

[hammegk]

I'm working on it, I joined AAA.

Er, don't they just drive you to drink?

 

[Number Six]

I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with drinking but that I think many people drink for the wrong reasons. Many, many drink just to go along. It is such a herd mentality and so mindless. When I think back to what it was like in college, and also what it is like in the college town I live in now, it is just so...mindless is the word that keeps coming back to me. People do it just because it's what people do, which admittedly is true for a lot of things.

And another reason some people drink is to avoid facing their life or their problems, which is another bad reason to do it.

I once heard a really good line, credited to the late Paul Tsongas but I don't know if he first said it or not, and the line is "Nobody lies on their death bed and thinks to themselves 'I wish I had spent less time with my family.'" Similarly, nobody lies on their death bed and thinks to themselves "I wish I had drank more."

All that said I think alcohol can be and is used well by some people. I occassionally drink nowadays but not nearly as much as I used to. When I think back to all the time and money I've wasted drinking in my life it seems so pointless, and it was all because I was going along with the crowd instead of thinking and acting for myself. When I go out now and see all these college students drinking like crazy, for sport basically, it just seems pathetic and depressing. Maybe I'm just getting old and can no longer relate to that unbridled zest for life that young people have, but sometimes the unbridled zest seems more to me like blind conformity.

 

[Rasmus]

And my take on the OP, too, even though it comes very late.

[soapbox]Mel Gibson's case illustrates why the smartest choice is not to drink alcohol at all.

With a sample size of one? Hardly. He's an example that you shouldn't drink too much perhaps, or that you shouldn't be a bad actor in silly religious movies...

As a society, we have a drinking problem.

"Speak for yourself" is often good advice. I personally know a handful of people from your society that do not contribute to what you seem to perceive as a problem.

There's evidence that drinking alcohol is harmful to ourself and those around us.

If done in moderation? The link you gave doesn't suggest it - but I am sure I could find similar statistics for white bread. If many people drink then *of course* you will have many drinking criminals, too. No proof of causation there, though.

Alcohol does something to your brain.

Just like milk, sugar, chocolate and oxygen.

People suffer tremendously as a direct consequence of drinking alcohol or being around people who drink alcohol. Every alcoholic starts with just one drink. Every drunken-driving death starts with just one drink.

I sense a slippery slope.

Nobody sips that first drink thinking, "I'm going to ruin my life," or "I'm going to kill someone tonight." We all tend to think that just one drink is no big deal. But "just one drink" has a way of turning into another. And another.

And then you had a grand total of an entire three drinks. Whoopie. Of course, most people after 3 drinks, or even 6 or 9 or 12, will *still* not go out and kill someone, steer a car into a tree or get married in Vegas.

OK, maybe you're strong enough and responsible enough to stop at just one drink. Maybe you've never, ever had too much to drink, or done something stupid or hurtful after drinking alcohol. You think you're a responsible drinker.

Indeed. At least, I am as responsible when drinking as I am with other things. I am not perfect either way, but I don't expect myself to be. Oh: I've hurt more people when I was sober, so I guess I ought to be drinking more, yes?

But the social reality in most cases is that when you drink, you encourage others to drink.

Yes, and when I eat I encourage others to have a bite, too. I give books to other people, too. Frequently.

When you drink, you teach your children to drink.

<rant>You better believe that I would teach my children to drink. I have seen many people who didn't know how to drink, and it wasn't always pretty. Funny thing is, these people tend to be underaged Americans set on the loose in Europe where a beer is no big deal. they certainly didn't know how to drink...</rant>

When you drink, through your example you invite others to engage in an activity that, for some of them, will become harmful. Even deadly.

Cry me a river.

I do the same driving my car. Or jogging, or swimming. Sometimes people die. It's called "live". Some people even die in their sleep, so I guess children should under no circumstances be encouraged to sleep, right?

If you drink regularly in moderation, ask yourself, can you stop drinking for a month? If so, then do it, as an experiment. If you can't stop for a month, you have a problem. If you can stop for a month, why not do yourself and everyone else a favor and stop for another month? And then another?

How exactly would I be doing anyone - including me - a favour?

I *like* beer, or chicken wings in a red-wine-and-herbs-sauce, as well as the slivovic sauce.

Prohibition isn't the answer. Individual choice is. There's no such think as drinking responsibly.
[/soapbox]

How is it a choice, if there are no real options acceptable to you?

And how on earth do you explain all the people that do drink, but somehow fail to kill others, do not beat their wifes and children and end up being productive members of their society?

And what insane twist of logic should have me being responsible for the actions of others? I drink. I can handle it. If you can't then you shouldn't be drinking regardless of what I do.

 

[deadrose]

I have a sister who is exactly the same way. She became alcoholic in her teens, and has been sober for nearly 14 years. She has the attitude that because she can't drink any more, nobody can.

I've even had to publically correct her, since she made the loud assumption that I never drank (apparently on the grounds that she never saw me drunk or reeking of booze).

It makes me wonder how it is that I don't go overboard on things. When I quit smoking, I didn't run around screeching at everyone else to quit. I support any of my friends that want to quit, but I don't harangue the others. I know people that can have an occasional cig, or a pipe, whenever they feel like it. I know that if *I* were to do that, I'd run the risk of starting to smoke again, so I don't. But I don't try to rearrange the world to my tastes.

Even if I look at it in the purely biochemical sense, it doesn't work. How many diabetics preach that everyone should stop eating sugar and other carbohydrates? How many of them call for carbs to be banned?

Besides, if I had a drinking problem I'd have to give up being a beer snob, and that'll never happen. I'd much rather go without beer than drink that nasty mass-market American crap.

Heidi