artsoul

lmao I guess they edited that out of the commercial!

Danae

People's responses here are making me think that there could be a great anti-drinking ad campaign aimed at underage drinkers. You could use the images in the various fantasies of alcohol listed above...let the viewer get really into it....and then segue into the vomiting, loss of control, consequences. Upend the fantasy in a way that would make it all very unappealing/shocking.

Seems to me like we've been brainwashed by various visuals, and maybe there is a way to similarly unbrainwash? LaFemme it sounds like you've done this for yourself...thanks for the description.

loveon2legs

Oh yes, imagined it all!! when in reality...alcohol took away from me....it robbed me of moments....rather than adding to them.....funny though how sometimes those thoughts still come to mind....

SSIL75

My own little fantasy was one I conceived when we bought this house. We have a lovely deck that overlooks the garden and a corn field. I imagined sipping wine with my husband up there, watching the kids play in a sprinkler. I only had one child, an infant, at the time.

The reality of it was me sitting out there, wishing it was my son's bedtime already. Taking my glass in the kitchen for a refil from the box of wine. Refilling it to the brim, chug chug until it was down to a 'normal' level. Or worse, downing the whole thing and refilling it. Then walking back outside to sit with my husband. Wishing he'd go to bed, too. Losing track of our discussions. Drunk and lost.

AWOL

As a young journalist in my twenties, I did investigative stories in various countries in Africa. During these hot, dusty sojourns through bush and deserts and sub-tropical jungles I would always picture getting back to base: the pub across the road from the national newspaper for which I worked. In my fantasy I would picture knocking back a few pints with Brian, sharing a quart or three with Bob, exchanging the highlights of my trip over a few whiskies with John, and finally getting totally motherless with my news editor before passing out. The fantasy was always realized in that pub. Moments of bonhomie that started quietly and cheerfully and ended unpredictably badly. This fantasy started crumbling when Brian fell down and died of a heart attack next to my barstool in the same pub I had carried across Africa. Bob gagged and died on his own vomit after drinking a bottle of vodka. John... my close friend and raconteur, died alone in his flat after alcohol destroyed his marriage. And my news editor? Alcohol took him early too... slowly and insidiously without fanfare or dignity. These days, I travel light in Africa. The fantasies that weighed me down are gone.

jamdls

My fantasy was always drinking wine while sitting around with a group of friends outside, or at a restaurant, having heavy intellectual conversations; but the reality was me drinking at home alone and drunk dialing and/or drunk emailing. I drank to be social but became a hermit. And the "special occassions" where there were other people around I don't even remember them because I was a blackout drunk. Now I romanticize chocolate, it tastes and smells better too.

artsoul

WOW, AWOL........ that was a tragic story. Thanks for sharing that - I'll remember it for a long time.......

(I'm with you on the chocolate, jamdls):bounce

LosingmyMisery

My last drinking experience was so horrendous I have never romanticized drinking since. Drinking represents nothing but pain and misery to me.

Now, back in my drinking days, I would always look forward to an event that involved alcohol. I would imagine how fun it would be. I would plan the perfect outfit and spend hours getting ready. It never did turn out how I had planned it. It always ended badly in some drama or argument or embarrassing experience. And how I looked by the end of the night, not as I had imagined. Go figure...

Zebra1275

There is nothing romantic about drinking for me. I remember hearing a parody of a Miller Beer commercial a few years back that stuck with me (when the theme was, "Now, . . . it's Miller time").

It goes like this, "It's 4 a.m., . . . You've just pissed against a dumpster, . . . Now, . . . it's Miller Time"

Pretty romantic image.

tallcactus

I use to romanticize the beer often and how it would taste and around #6 or 7 couldn't stand the taste of my mouth.
Ran into friends who had been drinking beer awhile back, god, thier breath and I know I smelled just like that. Sickening.

azureseas

It always starts out that way ...a nice glass of wine with dinner, fast forward to whole bottle gone and waking up at 3am feeling like crap, so romantic.

The words and images (close up of frosted glass of beer) used in marketing alcohol don't help and I am noticing it on tv as well. The funniest is The Bachelor (yes I know its the worst show ever but I can't help myself) they pull out a glass of wine anywhere and everywhere to 'toast the occasion'

PartyOn

I was thinking the same thing about the Bachelor...LOL!

AWOL

Isn't St Patrick's Day the perfect opportunity for an Irishman to fantasize about a pint of guinness at the pub after work? I have been white-knuckling it the whole day imagining myself in a Dublin Pub, hand firmly clenched around a jar of the black gold, laughing with my mates. Fast-forward 12 hours and I'm feeling wretched lying on the floor of a dingy flat, smelling of cigarette smoke and whiskey, wondering how the hell I got here as I retch over the toilet bowl. The point of departure between me and my mates is that I'm an alcoholic and there's more chance of Molly Malone coming to my bed tonight than me having only one drink. So between you and me, we'll drop the Guinness and head for home. St Paddy, tomorrow Ireland will be green and I'll be up with the birds at dawn!

Che

This is true for me every since after my first year of drinking, when I quit for a little bit and then went back to drinking. Every drink after that 3 months of 'proving to myself I had self-control' (haha) was me trying to create some kind of perfect feeling. But nothing ever goes right after that point. Somehow in my first year of drinking, that's when everything seemed so amazing, so perfect. Perhaps it was because I didn't have the slightest clue it would be a problem. But once you start feeling guilty, there's just nothing in the world that can meet that perfect image.

So for me it became a quest to get back what I felt in my first year. Even still, it may be my nostalgia clouding my memory. Maybe there never was a perfect night. In any case I've truly given up on it. There are better things to spend my life searching for.

bevin

For me it's having a BBQ. I used to love sitting outside in the sun with a drink and cooking all kinds of fancy stuff. Unfortunately, I usually drank so much that actually consuming the food I made me feel so sick that I'd just lie in bed praying to pass out.
Fun.

MsCooterBrown

"The words and images (close up of frosted glass of beer) used in marketing alcohol don't help and I am noticing it on tv as well. The funniest is The Bachelor (yes I know its the worst show ever but I can't help myself) they pull out a glass of wine anywhere and everywhere to 'toast the occasion'"

If I were on that show I would have to drink my way thru it too!!! I have seen Survivor (used to watch it but don't any more) a few seasons back where the winner of the competition got to spend the night at a top notch resort complete with shower...REAL food and all the booze they could drink. They got to pick one other to go with them. I was still actively drinking while watching it and wondered how sick they got. They were for sure drunk..The next day they had competitions and I know I wouldn't want to have to run around in the sun with a butt ugly hangover. AND how could you even follow directions? Used to be where I couldn't even carry on a conversation until at least noon..
Anyway..they didn't make drinking look too good on that particular show.

auxilio

Thank you for these posts....I am on day three (again!) and wanted to drink today bad...romanticizing Italian food with oh just one glass of red while my skin is itching so badly from withdrawl...you watch t.v. and people drink wine in every shot as they lounge around in a two million dollar home

auxilio

Cunning, baffling and powerful....I used to hate these pat phrases but now I see where they come from...I lost my grandmother this week and didn't visit her for ten years because I was too drunk....that is the truth and I was living a lie