YVRguy

We don't use pints here , call 375ml a mickey. Alcoholics by one at earliest opening time and then again by noon is my experience. Normal folks buy one and it lasts days.

Boleo

[QUOTE=caboblanco;4347718
a half pint is not enough for an alkie I don't think[/QUOTE]

I needed to buy half pints to go with the 1.75L bottles.

Why? Because 1.75L bottles are unsafe to drink in a car (they hit the roof).

EndGameNYC

This is a goofy thread, and I like it.

I didn't feel complete unless I had at least a plastic pint in my backpack, coat pocket, or in the back pocket of my trousers/shorts, depending on the time of year. I'd usually buy four pints at a time, since I was drinking between three and four pints for each round of drinking. The clerk at the liquor store once mentioned that I'd save money if I simply bought vodka in quarts. I didn't say a word, but thought, "I'm an alcoholic. I need to have pints."

While I did occasionally drink at bars during my three-year relapse (mostly with my ex so that when I drank heavily when we got home, should wouldn't know the difference -- I wasn't a beer drinker, but often used a beer as a prop to allow me to smell and act like I'd been drinking), I did most of my drinking at home, while commuting back and forth to work, outside when my ex was home and I needed to do some heavy drinking without her catching on -- Central Park, in a community garden with picnic tables a block away from where we lived, and while walking around the neighborhood, or in front of the bodega. I'd get a cup of ice for fifty cents, and mix my vodka with Diet Coke or iced tea. When it was too cold to drink outside, I'd go to McDonald's and buy a Diet Coke. I'd then go to the mens' room, pour out some of the coke, and fill it with vodka. No one bothered me since I made a purchase. If we'd had a dog, I would have walked it to death.

Oh...Towards the end of my relapse, pints also came in handy at work. I was working a dead-end job, partly because that's all I could do, and partly because I knew I'd be able to drink at work. I was regularly being warned about staff smelling alcohol around me, but I didn't care. One day after work, my supervisor called and said one of the nurses saw a pint in my back pocket, and that I shouldn't come back to work. I don't recall much about the day I got busted.

Even at home, my ex caught me frequently, though this was usually due to my carelessness/drunkenness...We both had leather coats for the winter. I used to hide a pint or more in my pocket while the coat was hanging from a stand by the front door, so that I didn't have to sneak it past her when I got home, and so that I had easy access to it after she went to bed. One morning, I woke up and there were two pints standing on the kitchen table. Seems I'd stashed them in the pockets of her coat which was hanging next to mine.

DramaStudent

I assume in the states a pint is a bottle serving? we usually have them in 70cl in the UK or 35cl - a pint would be between the two and isn't sold as a bottle. A pint is something you order in a bar- a pint of beer or cider. I have used pint glasses to drink vodka - usually a quarter pint of vodka and the rest mixer and thats how I've drank the night through a bottle.

Raufoss

You cannot legislate the behavior of addicted people. The USA tried that with Prohibition. It is a useful parable for the war on "drugs".

Back when I lived in downtown San Francisco, I went to my local bodega for some cough syrup. A woman in line berated me for buying "'tussin", and said that I would be good to go if I "burned that sh&t out -- likker!" Fun times.

Andante

I believe hip flasks became popular in the Prohibition days, and perhaps pint-size liquor bottles were developed to emulate the hip flask look. Of course, these days, only hard-core alcoholics and wanna-be poseurs would carry around a hip flask.

Which reminds me -- one of my colleagues once gave me the gift of a fancy hip flask on which was inscribed, 'Get Your Sh*t Together!" I guess it was his tender way of expressing concern about my escalating drinking problem. At the time, I found it insulting. I still have the flask as a memento.

I was very good at math. I had it all figured out. It was all about bang for the buck. The brand of beverage or even the type -- beer, malt liquor, wine, hard liquor -- didn't matter. I had it all memorized: the cost of the container (cans of various sizes, 12-packs, wine bottles, magnums, fifths, liters, handles, etc.), divided by how many ounces per container, times how much alcohol by volume (ABV) equaled how many "standard" drinks per unit price. I knew how to get the exact dosage I needed to establish or maintain a certain level of drunkenness (which, of course, escalated over time) for the lowest price. Imagine what I might have accomplished had I used those math skills more productively!

GracieLou

The ONLY time I ever bought a pint was when I was broke on a Thursday before payday.

I started buying fifths, then liters and on to 1/2 gallons. Not only did I want to make sure I had enough but I also wanted to avoid extra stops at the liquor store.

I did not want to stop everyday, ain't nobody got time for that!

jessie65

For the past couple years, in an attempt to 'control' my intake, I would only buy pints of vodka (and I would actually pour 1-2 'shots' out because I pretty much knew my black-out point and I was terrified of black-outs.

wheresthefun

Wow, listening to all "you people" sounds like I really wasn't all that bad... I only bought my vodka by the 1.75L bottles - THREE TIMES A WEEK!!!!!

TimesareChanging

This post made me smile and even laugh a little. but honestly it hits really close to home. All have have bought for years is plastic pints of vodka and or .750s. jeez. Focus on today right. must stay focused.

Markdad3

Ha! Plastic bottle were invented so drunks would stop chipping their teeth while shaking!

caboblanco

did you ever shake up a plastic bottle of cheap vodka?....it goes back to flat in 2 secs...amazing

i heard that's how the moonshiners would test the proof

Ncognito13

I think of it this way. If the cashier sees someone buy a large bottle of Grey Goose once a week, he might be an alcoholic. He sees a guy come in everyday and buys a pint of the cheapest vodka, that guy is probably more likely to be an alcoholic. Plastic pints are easy to conceal and that's why people generally buy them.

Ncognito13

I would buy pints also because I felt it was the perfect amount of booze to end the night on and I'd drink more than that if I purchased more than that.

Mind you a US pint (750) is 15 airplane bottles. Kinda sad my 'perfect' nightcap was 15 shots.

Andante

If you were drinking "pints," you weren't quite as bad as you thought. A little Liquor Measure Cheat Sheet:

750 milliliters (ml) = three-quarters of a liter = about four-fifths of a quart, or one "fifth" = about 25.3 fluid ounces = about 17 "standard drinks" (defined as 1.5 oz. at 80 proof).

375ml = what is sold in the U.S. as a "pint" bottle = 12.7 fluid ounces = about 8.5 standard drinks at 80 proof.

50ml = "nip" or airline bottle = 1.7 fluid ounces = slightly more than one standard drink at 80 proof.

80 proof = a typical strength for any hard liquor, including vodka = 40% alcohol by volume.

0 = the only amount of vodka which I need to be concerned about drinking these days.

Ncognito13

Then I misspoke because I was definitely buying 750's (a 'fifth'). I was never a big vodka drinker. I was more of a 12 pack of something cheap every night kinda guy.

TimesareChanging

Im not sure you can minimalize pints that way by saying its not that bad. It may be bad for some, not so much for others. Myself I started out drinking way more than a few pints when i was very young. Only after 20 yrs of liver torture and a million blackouts did my own body dictate that a few pints was all i could handle. Still black out just as if drinking 10 times as much. a couple, few pints of vodka a few days a week, its enough to give me painfull kidneys, swollen liver, blackouts and hangovers for three days. its enough.

caboblanco

opps wrong thread.. happy holidays to all

jade2112

I was never embarrassed about my drinking. Pathetic I know.

Went to the same liquor store so often she'd let me write post dated checks. Always bought two handles at a time as I was petrified I'd run out.

Turninganewleaf

The only people who buy pints of liquor are 100% alcoholics. There is simply no other reason to hide small liquor bottles otherwise.