That's the whole thing, every needs to respect each other's positions, even if they don't agree with them. I have been around many people who drink alcohol and it doesn't bother me at all. I just don't partake myself. I make a heck of a designated driver and I get all of the free soft drinks I want.

Next time I need a DD, I'll give you a holler.

Once in a blue moon I check the "Break Room" to see what everyone is talking about. This topic peaked my interest and tons of thoughts started fluttering around my head. I first wondered why anyone would want my two cents, then I figured "what the heck", these discussion sites are all about everyone's two cents. I'm pretty challenged at being brief, and I don't expect anything different from me this time around. So at the risk of boring everyone... here goes.

 

I have always seemed to take a particular interest in human behavior which has made me quite the watcher and thinker. I'm not suggesting that I've never been a doer, as I do have varied interests. Have had my share of doing, have had my share of watching. As I've aged I've become more content with my own company which has made me less of a doer, or a watcher. Some call it reclusiveness, I like to call it peace of mind.

 

Alcohol: For someone who has addictive tendencies, thankfully alcohol is not one of them. Food tends to be my biggest issue.

 

I'm the youngest of 6 kids. At a very young age, because of having so many elders, I became quite curious about what it was like to be drunk. Alcoholism does not run rampant in my family, but growing up, I've sure had my share of seeing quite a few alcoholics in my neighborhood. Some were of a lower class, some were so called responsible adults or well known people of the community.

 

At the age of 8 I was well aware that it would be frowned upon if I were to try to answer for myself what it felt like to be drunk. I tried anyway. At my oldest sister's wedding when no one was watching, I kept sneaking sips of beer from my older siblings' glasses. Since they were all gabbing, they barely noticed, and if they did, they thought that my sip from their glass was an isolated incident. I was pretty sneaky and clever and no one really noticed until I was the life of the party all wasted out on the dance floor. Ooooppsss... this little 8 year old sorta ruined the fun and my folks had to get me home, try to sober me up, and get me to go to bed. I woke the next morning with my very first hangover, and how awful it was. No one in the family, my folks included, ever expected this from me and it was a complete shock to my parents who were deeply involved with having to meet and greet at the wedding reception with relatives and the groom's family. No one dropped the ball. I was just a little clever fox being a bad little boy that's all.

 

At about 12-14 a friend of mine and I would sneak booze from his pretty non-observant parent's liquor cabinet. At this age we had far too many occurrences of getting pretty buzzed, which at first was fun and made us feel silly, but typically ended with us both puking our guts out and having terrible hangovers.

 

At this point I can say that I never cared for the taste of the various things that I was drinking. It was all merely for the experience of feeling the effects.

 

Age 15-18: ... pretty sure my drinking had nothing to do with liking the taste, and at this point it really no longer was much even about the buzz. Here I was doing it to be viewed by my peers as cool and daring. I grew up in a pretty decent family within a pretty rough neighborhood full of fighting type punks. Sometimes I would do bad things as a form of a defense mechanism to appear to be down with the bad kids so they'd think that I was cool and not beat me up or bully me. If I had acted as a total goody-goody there's no doubt that in my neighborhood that I'd have the scars to prove it.

 

Little by little I was developing a taste for alcohol but really truly can't say that I liked the taste. Of course beer was always available and easier to stomach, but with harder stuff I totally had to mix it with something to tolerate it. Coming home far too many times buzzed, my parents started having serious worries that I was a teenaged alcoholic. At the time I really couldn't form into words to them that it was all about peer pressure, because what kid who's under the influence of peer pressure is really going to admit it, or have a real self-awareness about it? I sorta understood, but at the time I just couldn't imagine telling my parents not to worry because I was just drinking to be viewed as cool.

 

College age-Legal age: Didn't completely quit drinking, but actually started to drink more responsibly while everyone else around me was just starting to drink or already was an alcoholic from starting out as teens. This is sorta where my watching tendencies started to pretty much overrule my doing tendencies. I felt like a pro watching the amateurs holding their social props. It was apparent to me that for the most part the young adults around me were doing it for the buzz, the party, the image. No where in there did I detect that it had anything to do with people "loving the taste". It mostly had everything to do with the social aspect of it all.

 

Late 20's-Late 40's: Personally, outside of being offered a drink, a bottle of beer, a glass of wine (all of which I can enjoy in moderation), I really dropped out of drinking significantly. Never drank alone and am not uptight about a drink with a friend for relaxation or to lighten the mood. The taste is just... ok, and still straight hard stuff just isn't tolerable unless it's mixed with something. I never walk into a bar because I have to have, or desire a drink. If for some reason I'm supposed to meet friends in a bar, I'm not opposed to having a beer or something, but if it were totally up to me, I most likely wouldn't at all.

 

I did notice however at this age whether people are willing to admit it or not, the social drinking image thing was still quite the driving force (unless of course they are sadly full on alcoholics), but at this age it was sorta people trying to move away from the "party animal college" stage to the "Look at me, I'm so sophisticated" stage of I'm a man or a woman that has a certain 'drink' or that's "my drink", or I've moved on to the more sophisticated expensive beers because I'm such the beer connoisseur, as if what you drink defines you or validates you as an adult. The more sophisticated the drink, the more sophisticated the person, if you will. Apparently, (joking of course), the more of a connoisseur and authority you become on all the so called sophisticated alcoholic beverages, the more sophisticated you appear to be by your adult peers. Image is still in full effect. Some at this age start to know who they are and march to the beat of their own drum, and some are still reaching so much that they don't even see it. Some settle into the idea of what it means to be sophisticated, that they are blind to the fact that drinking makes them no more sophisticated than the man on the moon. It has just been part of their routine for so long that they can't imagine themselves under a non-drinking persona.

 

I'll admit that either with more drinking experience or perhaps something to do with age, the taste becomes more tolerable. I really don't have a problem with people drinking as long as they are responsible about it, and I'm not opposed to doing it myself on occasion. Sometimes I can get in the mood for a glass of wine, sometimes a beer, sometimes a mixed drink. Thankfully the mood probably only hits me about once every 6 months, if that much. The lesser I drink, the lesser I think about drinking and the lesser I get in the mood to drink.

 

At the end of the day I think that alcohol is an acquired taste that people force themselves to tolerate for the social image of it, or the buzz, especially when they are younger. I'm not buying that anyone on first swig or gulp in their life is saying ....mmmmmm

 

I guess that I can believe that people are drawn to the mellow effect that one can get from a brandy, glass of wine, stiff drink, or a beer, but I think that it's more the effect than the taste, and as a behavioral side product they've learned to like the taste as they've paired it with the effect.

 

I do however think that society has a twisted contradictory perspective on the such freely drinking of alcohol at social gatherings. A bar or nightclub, for example, with a parking lot. Who here truly believes that the cars leaving these establishments are being driven by a high percentage of sober designated drivers? I sure don't. Bars stimulate the economy bringing tax money into a city. Cops busting folks driving away from bars also brings money to a city. I tend to get the idea that the police are told to hang around clubs for this very reason, but don't bust everyone (even though they certainly could) because the city really doesn't want to discourage people from spending their money at the bars either.

 

I remember a few years back when the Bengals were in town on the same day as the Cincinnati Octoberfest. The local news was celebrating the tailgate parties!!!, the Bengals game!!!, and made special note in excited fashion, that the Octoberfest would sell millions of gallons of beer over the weekend. I attended the Octoberfest around the time all the Bengal fans showed up. WOW ... drunk is not the word for it. OK... so how many of these people drove home this particular evening after a full day of drowning in an endless sea of beer? And the local news promoted it in a way of saying look how fun our city is. After seeing the news item I chuckled inside thinking how funny (or not so funny depending on how you look at it) if the news lady quickly changes her elation to sadness and says "Now to an unrelated story: Today a drunken driver is to blame for a deadly crash on I-75 North. Seeing this shift in the news wouldn't really be too hard to imagine, is it?

 

I frequently see dads walking from the corner store along side of their pre-school sons, with 12 pack in hand just before a big football game on TV. I can just imagine the kid thinking that he can't wait until he can be just like daddy, and that this is what it means to be "all grown up". They get home to watch the game and what is advertised at almost ever commercial break?

 

... And all the while alcohol is legal and pretty darn well embraced by our society... and on the other hand marijuana is frowned upon and considered some hippy gateway drug to harder stuff. ... Don't even get me started on that mindless backward double-standard in our culture. I'm not ashamed to say that I've done both, and for personal reasons I now really do neither because I'm not interested, but having done both I can say that alcohol is far more dangerous than marijuana without a doubt.

 

As a joke I've taken the 70's song "Reunited" by Peaches and Herb and reworded it as "Smokin' Refer" to drive the point of how marijuana is not as dangerous as alcohol and the double-standard in our society. There are a few words in it that I'm not sure can be accepted here, so if I may, I'll try to present those words in such a way that you can figure for yourself what they are. Hopefully I'm not crossing the line here.

 

While reading the words, sing it to the melody of "Reunited"

 

Smokin' Refer

 

(To the melody of 'Reunited' by Peaches and Herb)

 

You know the feeling when the buzz kicks in

Smokin' Marijuana doesn't feel like a sin

On a lazy afternoon

When you've got nothing to do

We're smokin' Marijuana and it feels so good hey hey

 

I'll have another hit mister please

It's a great day to become one with the trees

Not a care in the Worrrrrrrlllld

The clouds in the Swirrrrrlllllllllll

We're smokin' Marijuana and it feels so good hey hey

 

Smokin' refer and it feels so good

Smokin' refer cause it's understood

If there's one perfect hit

Then mister this one is it

We're smokin' Marijuana and it feels so good hey hey

 

I tried drinkin' but it just made me sick

Legal schmeegal

Didn't do the right trick

The more that you drink

The drunker you get

Big fat lie it's safer

That's just bullsh** hey hey

 

Told I'm bad boy for tokin' by buds

By the same people drowning in their suds

Double standard I say

They're on their way to AA

No habit here

I just like it

ok???

Hey hey

 

Smokin' refer and it feels so good

Smokin' refer cause it's understood

If there's one perfect hit

Then mister this one is it

We're smokin' Marijuana and it feels so good hey hey

 

Drug tested by a stinkin' staggering whor*

Survived a drunkin' binge the night before

But she's good to go

While I'm losing dough

Clear headed and qualified

But they say no

Woah Woah

 

Creative juices flow

No inhibitions

No hangovers

No huggin' porcelain

Makes writing a tune

Come sooner than soon

Makes everything interesting

Even you

Hey hey

 

Smokin' refer and it feels so good

Smokin' refer cause it's understood

If there's one perfect hit

Then mister this one is it

We're smokin' Marijuana and it feels so good hey hey

 

We both are so excited cause you're gonna light it hey hey

 

Oh well... that's about all I have to say in my assessment of alcohol. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm right, but it's how I see it. No doubt I've exceeded the socially accepted word limit here, but for those of you that took the time to read all of this ... thank you for your patience. For those of you who didn't ... I won't say anymore because you didn't read this far anyhow.

 

Peace Out

Sure some alcohol tastes good. A cold beer tastes good. Bourbon, yes. Scotch, on the other hand, is not for the taste. Scotch is for those who have given up hope.

 

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

:lol: Yeah, because you don't judge people.

You have GOT to be kidding! :ohbrother:

 

 

No you're just so off the wall I'm not even going to bother with you.

 

If there is anyone judging anyone here, it is you, because someone doesn't agree with your sophomoric ideas about drinking. Some of us dont feel the need to drink just to feel like they're cool or "grown up."

I am very sure I do not have an addictive personality. I am adopted, so I don't know my family history.

I didn't mean to suggest that. I was just using a hypothetical to point out the mistake the other poster was making in judging you.

You have GOT to be kidding! :ohbrother:

 

 

No you're just so off the wall I'm not even going to bother with you.

 

If there is anyone judging anyone here, it is you, because someone doesn't agree with your sophomoric ideas about drinking. Some of us dont feel the need to drink just to feel like they're cool or "grown up."

You saying you don't want to be cool like me? :smug:

You saying you don't want to be cool like me? :smug:

No, I don't want to "pretend to be" cool. :watching:

I didn't mean to suggest that. I was just using a hypothetical to point out the mistake the other poster was making in judging you.

 

I knew what you meant. I didn't think you were referring to me. While my being adopted and not knowing my genetics would have been a factor under other circumstances, my overriding reason for not drinking alcohol is that I am just not interested.And I don't buy the argument that at least one person has used that you can't be against something you haven't tried. That is a ludicrous position. I think it is great that people have something that they enjoy.

Vodka tonic, Captain and coke, Bombay and some sort of juice, occasional Bud or Nati light, or some sort of vodka based shot. That's about it for BM. I'll drink other things but if it's not listed above, I won't enjoy it.