Why do you drink alcohol?

I drank mostly vodka, up to a fifth a day toward the end of my drinking days. I hated pretty much all alcohol. I think I drank to chase away demons, but I didn’t know it at the time. I thought I just wanted to party hearty! Wasted 30 years with alcohol. Blech!!

Good question. Seems crazy to me that people drink such poison. I don’t get it.

My childhood was scared by 4 alcoholic step dads. None of them lived to be 50 years old. I told myself at a young age that I’ll never touch that shit.

I avoid drinks I don’t like, and almost never want to drink alcohol for the alcohol.

I also don’t often drink alcohol that I like, because I often don’t feel like drinking alcohol, even if/when it’s free.

On some rare occasions/situations, I drink something alcoholic for the mood/mindset adjustment, or if someone (who I like enough to do that) is essentially inviting me to do that with them.

Good wine can be really good with some food.

A sangria or good cold beer can be really good in hot weather. But I only have only every really liked some good dark German and Belgian beers, though (and a very few American craft ones made in a similar style).

Some spirits, liqueurs, and cocktails can be really nice. Others not so much. And they tend to be more expensive than I’m willing to pay for, especially just to find out if I like something.

@Zaku, good point. I don’t like to drink with just anyone as well. I won’t drink with people who drink too much. But when playing table games in my home I may open my favorite wine for people I know won’t get stupid. Sometimes it makes the game more interesting and amusing. But most of the people close to me don’t drink much and are amusing with or without drinks.

To relax, and I guess socialize.
I can go days and sometimes weeks between drinks, I can nurse one drink most of the night I like a light buzz,the last time I got bombed was after the brother in laws funeral.

I drink alcohol maybe a handful of times per year. I never drink at home. Usually the occasions will be at a holiday party and at dinner with family. The last time I drank was about a month ago, at a party for friends’ granddaghter’s baptism. I had a drink and a half, mixed drink. When I’m with my family, they drink wine and I really don’t like wine, so if I drink at all those times, it would be white wine, maybe a glass. Sangria is really good but I can’t remember the last time I drank it. I agree with @Zaku, I don’t like to pay for alcohol, usually.

Why do I drink it on the occasions when I do? It loosens me up a little.

Another reason I won’t drink more than a glass is that I usually have to drive and I’m very careful about that.

In my late teens and twenties, I used to drink to socialise now I neither socialise or drink.

I’ve never been a big drinker but lately I drink liquor hardly at all.

I enjoy a few different flavors and types of wine, sometimes socially, sometimes to relax of a quiet evening. I don’t think I’ve had hard liquor in over a decade, but I use it sometimes in cooking, and I use vodka in some of my homemade remedies.

I like some alcohol, but don’t drink just to drink. If all that is available is whiskey, I’ll pass. Some mixed drinks are okay, some beers are good, some wines are fine. But if I’m not in the mood, I move on to seltzer water (non-alcoholic), Powerade, or water.

I should have added that my preferred drink of choice is Diet Coke.

I enjoy the taste of certain alcohol drinks. It’s never about the buzz. It’s about the flavor and the situation. I like beers, bourbon, wine, liquors. I can go a months without or have a drink playing cards or relaxing. I feel blessed it never ruled my life.

When I was a teen, I drank to get drunk. When I was in college, I became more sophisticated and enjoyed whiskeys or gin or other cocktails, or well made imported beers. But I still drank to get drunk.

In my twenties, my sophistication turned to fine wines, especially Bordeaux and the best California Cabernets and Merlots. But still I mostly dark to get drunk.

In my late twenties, I mostly drank because that is what alcoholics (which I am ) do. I have not had alcohol for over 38 years.

This is where I mention cirrhosis of the liver. Suicide attempt aside, the result of heavy drinking was failure of my liver.

The period (around 2019/Covid-ish,) in which I was actively drinking myself to death, was probably about 9 months.
Then in November 2020, I was given 4–6 days to live, after having to be taken to the hospital for vomiting blood until I couldn’t move.
The 2 years of dying, prior to my transplant, were a constant living Hell. 24/7.
It of course got worse over time, and I was in/out of one ICU or another about 70% of those 2 years.
There are countless symptoms that alone, would be awful. But you have to endure the treatments as well. Some of which, are micro-catastrophes.

Towards the end, I was extremely bloated with fluid, and yellow. All my muscle had deteriorated to hanging skin and a swollen abdomen.
Due to the disease, I developed ascites (fluid in my abdomen.)
At a point, relatively midway through dying, I got my first of countless horrific procedures called a paracentesis.
In these procedures, you are not sedated, or even allowed pain meds.
They cut a 1cm hole in your stomach, and slide a plastic catheter (for me 2.25 inches,) into your lower abdomen.
It is placed with the aid of ultrasound, to keep the probe from poking organs.
Then, a draining system is hooked up. You have to try to be still, as they work the long catheter around inside your belly. This was very difficult for me, as it was very painful.
Towards the end, I was getting approximately 13 litres removed almost weekly.
I would wait until I was so bloated, I would have to get the procedure. But when your abdomen is so full of fluid, your organs all hurt.

I won’t go through the many similar procedures I had to endure, other than that.
Like waking up in hospitals the last few months before my transplant, not knowing how I got there. Sometimes with feeding tubes, and really tubes everywhere.

If I survive to this October, I will have lived 2 years post-op. I have worked incredibly hard to get to this point, and even the thought of living like that for even another minute is enough to make me NEVER touch alcohol again.

So. I would like to be on record for saying “drinking, is not a sustainable thing.”
There is very little known about how much alcohol over how much time, does what damage.
The bottom line seems to be that it’s different for each person.
You never know when your next Friday night, will push you over the edge.

I don’t. Why do you?

I don’t, and the few times I did it was to go along or to try it. Not a fan. Waste of money. I think it’s bad for you. I already like to talk to people, dance, be silly, I don’t need a drink in my hand to feel comfortable, no oral fixation. I don’t need alcohol to be comfortable at a party, and never got in the habit of using it to relax.

I would imbibe almost any
kind of alcoholic drink to get a buzz and have fun with people I like doing it with. Partly because
I also find it fascinating how different cultures came up with their own many different versions of alcoholic beverages.

I would love to travel back in time and be with those ancient humans at those moments when they successfully created the first beer or the first scotch, the first wine!

I’m more “sober” when drunk. A part of my brain remains fully aware of my surroundings, how I am behaving and how my fellow
drinkers are behaving as well.
I wouldn’t drink with people who like showing off or firing their guns while drinking. Turn disrespectful and mean. I would never drink again with people who drink and drive.

^I think there is a place and time. Mainly a person’s youth, when you almost should be experimenting, and getting into social scenes.

I occasionally think, I could drink again, because I deliberately drank myself to death.
So. A beer, or glass of wine, once in a blue moon, and just don’t drink but like 1.

That’s the delusional side, of addiction.
I worry about looking weird on a date, not wanting to drink.
Not that I plan to keep my past forever secret, but it’s not a get to know someone topic.

I have no problems with a future love interest drinking occasionally.
But. There is a fine line…