Frustrated
My girlfriend and I have been dating for about 6 months. We have deep feelings for each other. I'd describe them as love, but I always feel that should not be thrown around lightly. Whenever both of us are sober or drinking at a reasonable rate, we are absolutely great. We have the occasional difference of opinions or annoyance, but healthy.
This leads me to the problems. I used to binge drink on the weekends and always felt this is what my friends did, so I did it as well. My girlfriend is the same way. I still have the occasion where I drink to much, but they are far less than before...maybe once every couple months. My girlfriend loves to drink Jameson, wine, and beer. She works from home and starts drinking around 6 every night. She will have a couple fingers of Jameson and possibly some beer or wine. She'll repeat this a couple times until she stops working around 10pm. When we go to bed, she brings at least some wine or another couple of fingers of Jameson to bed. I tried to bring a beer, but it just doesn't feel right to me.
We have had some really great times lately, but on recent romantic getaway, we had an issue. We drank about 3 beers a piece at the pool during the day and took a nap for 2 hours. We went to dinner at 8pm. We had to wait for 45 min. We sat at the bar and she ordered at double vodka and I had a light beer. We had another round and sat down at 8:50. I drank about a glass of white wine and she had a glass of red. At 9:40 we arrived at a comedy show and she ordered a double Jameson shot and a beer chaser, while I had a beer. The show lasted about 1.5 hours and we were waiting in the cab line. I was very tired and someone was blowing smoke on me and I fanned it back on them with my hand. My girlfriend exploded and told me I was ridiculous and went on and on. We had another fight about it the weekend after, while she was HAMMERED! I broke up with her in the heat of the moment, but am now going to talk to her two days later. I love her and don't want to lose her, but really want us to evaluate the amount of alcohol we drink. I don't need liqour. I like a little beer, but have pledged to myself, based on this recent issue and other past issues, that I will never drink hard liqour again. I'm great at following through on these things, so I'm confident I can do it.
We definitely have a problem with alcohol, but how do I broach the subject with her without getting her defensive about it?