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This makes sense. My entire life, I have been badgered about my non-drinking. Apparently only religious zealots, severe former alcoholics, and terminally ill pe
by jl2718 5y ago
This makes sense. My entire life, I have been badgered about my non-drinking. Apparently only religious zealots, severe former alcoholics, and terminally ill people, abstain from alcohol. No other response will satisfy a person with a drink in their hand. So the problem quitters must be a large category, whether it gets recorded that way or not. And frankly, if we’re talking about former alcoholics, we’re also talking about a lot of compulsive liars; there may be reason to distrust their survey results.
- maga 5y agoUse sports. I tell them that I'm a competing athlete and cannot break my sports regimen, which is technically true, but not really the reason--I grew up in the post-communist Europe of 90s witnessing rampant alcoholism and came to look at alcohol as something for people who are too weak to face the life, but too afraid to die. Never had an inkling to try the stuff.
- brightball 5y agoI realized this early on. The simple way around it for me in college was to get a drink, pour out 2/3 of it and carry it around with me. As long as you have it with you, nobody tries to give you one. If it’s a beer, you can easily turn down offers of other drinks just by saying you don’t want to mix alcohol. Overall, a pretty simple solution to the social problem.
- lordnacho 5y agoI think of it as a drug that addresses some mild social anxiety and has some social history behind it. Drugs are similar in certain social circles. But basically when someone wants you to drink it's their social anxiety that is manifesting, not yours. They need other people to participate in the bonding ritual, part of which requires people letting their guard down, which alcohol helps with. But I'm not sure it's the chemical pathway that does it. I mean yes, drink enough and you will feel different. But you open up socially over a beer before the beer has any effect, eg. while you're waiting in line at the bar chatting to someone, or while you have just a tiny dose in your blood. Likewise with drugs, I never thought I was getting especially high or changed somehow. So perhaps it's more like a Schelling point, people accept that alcohol/drugs at a social event means that you can relax. I've also never felt that I became someone else when drinking. Even when so drunk I couldn't walk straight, I could still understand social cues and conventions, and I still knew what I desired. It's like the beer is an excuse for bad behavior rather than the cause. Luckily as an adult with kids I don't get badgered into getting hammered anymore. But I did think of a good excuse after talking to a cardiologist: you can always say you have some sort of condition that makes it a bad idea for you to drink or do drugs.
- zionic 5y agoAlcohol doesn't change who you are, but it certainly removes your filter. The problem with that is a lot of polite society depends on said filters, the overwhelming majority of people quite simply can't handle the truth.
- slumdev 5y agoIt certainly does change who a person is. It damages virtually every part of the brain and directly causes anxiety disorder, mood swings, and a whole host of other unpleasant psychiatric disorders (to say nothing of the physiological disorders); and it causes this damage at doses that most people would consider "moderate", if the doses are administered consistently over a long enough period.
- bserge 5y agoI am noticeably dumber when drinking even a single beer. A small amount does help me relax, but also upsets my stomach.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]