Alcohol

marisco_2

When I was growing up alcohol wasn't drunk heavily by my parents. It was in the house and bought out on social occassions and consumed sensibly (mostly!). As I hit my teen years I was allowed to have a little wine with dinner at xmas and on birthdays, watered down some with soda. My parents logic was that by making it accessible on a carefully controlled basis, I wouldn't suddenly go wild and off the rails as a young adult and have an unhealthy relationship with it. I agree with their approaches and will be doing the same with my sons when they are older.

Where I use to live there was a supermarket a few roads down. Young teens use to hang around outside and ask those who looked old enough to buy alcohol for them. Shockingly some adults went along with this and helped them. It caused no end of trouble with teens tanked up being verbally abusive, vomitting and causing noisy chaos as they staggered home. Dangerous as well considering they crossed a number of roads.

I spent some time living in Russia, a country that has huge drink related issues. Over there though the sensible parents are very careful to instill the dangers of drink into their kids. A friend of mine lost her brother when he was 19, he had been out partying and got completely drunk then tried to head home. Collapsed outside in freezing cold conditions down an alley and died. My ex fil found someone dead in his greenhouse. It gets to minus 40 where he lives so anyone drinking and then going out in those conditions has got to have rocks in their head.

System

Funniest thing i ever saw was when we were having a nice quiet drink on a campsite by the river when the kids were little.

We were sitting on the benches by the riverside watching the kids and having a drink or two. This man comes staggering out of the pub wanders over to his boat that was moored up alongside the river and as he stepped onto his boat his lost his footing. In the river he went. Loads of people went to his aid but fortunately he managed to sober himself up pretty quickly and climb out.

marisco_2

We were on a barge holiday down the Thames when I was about 14 years old. The amount of people in charge of boats, navigating their way through the locks merry and bright, was quite worrying! Made for some fun sights though for me, sat on deck sipping my can of coke. There were a good few who went for an unplanned dip

miss_independent

I grew up with several family members who had alcoholism. Including my father, who only seemed to want to talk to me after he'd drunk a bottle of whisky - several times he nearly crashed his car after drink driving. Its not fun being nine and feeling like the only person who is in control.

I swore I'd never touch alcohol, fearing I had inherited the addiction gene. However, one day when I was feeling down as a teenager, I sneakily opened a bottle of Martini that was hiding at the back of a cupboard. I remember fearing it would change me forever - just that one little taste of booze but it did nothing for me.

As I got older, I'd drink when I was out with friends but no matter how much I drank - it did nothing for me. I'd never get drunk, just depressed, it never made me merry - no matter what I tried, I still preferred the taste of soft drinks. I'd get hangovers and feel like my day was wasted. Eventually, I'd just have one to "pass myself" but friends would always want me to have more.

It came to the point where I realised I was only drinking to make others feel better about the fact they were getting drunk so around 3 years ago I just stopped. I don't need booze to have a good time and, in fact, I have a better time without. People do treat me like a freak though - as if I can't let my hair down or as though I'm making them feel bad because they are drinking and I'm not. I've solved it by quietly ordering by myself - ginger ale and lemonade or a small glass of lemonade or water can easily pass for something vaguely alcoholic looking and it gets people off my case, no questions asked.

Hanging_by_a_thread

miss_independent wrote: »

I've solved it by quietly ordering by myself - ginger ale and lemonade or a small glass of lemonade or water can easily pass for something vaguely alcoholic looking and it gets people off my case, no questions asked.

That is what I do too. Why people cant just accept that some dont need to drink to have a good time is beyond me.

gingin_2

bitemebankers wrote: »

Indeed. The former group are most frequently in denial about their drug addiction.

I'd be interested to read where you got that from. Do you have a link?

Person_one

As long as enough adults stay off the alcohol to supervise the kids, and the adults who are drinking aren't falling down drunk, I don't really see the problem.

I don't drink a great deal, but I do enjoy getting merry with my friends every now and then to the point where I feel it the next morning. There's nothing wrong with that IMO. Its entirely possible to drink alcohol occasionally without being addicted and without hurting yourself.

We used to go camping in france most years and it was pretty standard for the adults to be sat round a barbeque or picnic table of an evening enjoying a few beers while the kids played. I was at a kids birthday party the other day where beer and wine were served to adult guests, nobody got bladdered and all the children survived!

I've seen firsthand the problems that real alcoholism can cause, but I do hope we don't start to fall in with the American puritan all or nothing attitude towards it here.

WolfSong2000

I've never been big on alcohol - very rarely in the mood to drink at all. I have suffered verbal abuse for that, but hey ho. My grandmother was a very violent alcoholic (apparently - she died before I was born) and growing up my mother had a very bizarre attitude to me and alcohol - either "insisting" I drink (e.g. at my 16th birthday meal she insisted I have an alcoholic beverage with my meal - I declined) or absolutely losing it (as she did when my father, for reasons known only to himself bought me a bottle of genuine absinthe for my 18th birthday. I'm 27 this year and the bottle remains unopened).

I have nothing against people getting merry, but when I was at uni I was disgusted by the amount of people who got themselves so drunk ambulances were having to attend to them - they were throwing up in the street, falling about in the road...to me *that* is unacceptable and personally I think they should have been arrested for being drunk and disorderly.

Hanging_by_a_thread

WolfSong2000 wrote: »

I have nothing against people getting merry, but when I was at uni I was disgusted by the amount of people who got themselves so drunk ambulances were having to attend to them - they were throwing up in the street, falling about in the road...to me *that* is unacceptable and personally I think they should have been arrested for being drunk and disorderly.

I saw the same during my uni days. The amount of abuse paramedics get from these incidents is awful too. They are there trying to aid and assist, dealing with drunk foul mouthed morons.

pukkamum

All this is one of the many reasons I truly believe that cannabis should be legalised, how many young adults would be so much better off having a couple of joints in a coffee shop, if kids were a bit stoned as opposed to being falling down drunk how much less trouble would we see on the streets? How many less young people would have to be scooped up off the street after a friday night? How many less youngsters would be suffering liver problems? To me it seems an absolute no brainer.
A friend of ours with a young adult son was staunchly anti cannabis and was horrified when his son admitted to smoking it, that is until instead of coming home on a friday mindlessly drunk, spewing in the bathroom, being agressive and laying in bed recovering all the next day, he was coming home stoned, giggling, chatting with his parents and with the munchies and also fine the next day.
I know which state I would want my son in.