GnikNus

It doesn't bother me. Alcohol is a problem- for me. If others do not face that problem and can have a few drinks without addiction, then more power to them. It's not up to me to decide whether it's good or them or not. I can decide it's not good for me- but that's all I can do.

NoelleR

Ah, although some folks' bodies react to alcohol as it it's a poison, it really is not. Do some research.

(o:

Mountainmanbob

I'm powerless over what the rest of the world does with alcohol.

I don't care if they all get drunk but I won't.
Mountainman

Time2Rise

I know, I attended Mass yesterday and 3/4 of the way through, the Priest started drinking wine. I couldn't believe it. Later, while reading a few Bible passages, I kept coming across more references to alcohol in the form of wine. Jesus himself turned water into wine at a wedding, and he was underage. Unbelievable. I was an emotional basket case by that point, so I thought a little secular philosophy might calm me down. So I grabbed Plato's Symposium off the shelf and guess what? Even more mentions of wine!!

I was afraid to go back any further in history because I know that alcohol was prevalent and an important part of almost every ancient culture known to man (Babylon, China, Egypt, Persia, India). Sigh, I just can't get away from the stuff.

thenewguy

Social drinking is binge drinking, and even the "normies" drink a lot more on the usual occasion than is recommended.

Some of my relatives are like this. They drink their wine under the guise that it's more sophisticated and in smaller glasses. But almost invariably the glasses are filled more often, the conversations get louder and more pointless and annoying. I've been avoiding these occasions for this very reason.

Let's not kid ourselves; even moderate is binge drinking/heavy drinking. That's the real culture.

KAD

I carried around a lot of anger for quite a long time over alcohol and what I perceived to be a pervasive drinking culture. I was so angry about it I even said I wished Prohibition was still in effect. Through the process of recovery, I've come to realize that much of what I perceived was skewed because I was hyper-conscious of alcohol, how much everyone was drinking, what they were drinking, etc. However, it is pretty ingrained in our culture, for sure, and quite a lot of double-standards and hypocrisy surrounding it as well. But, as others have said, it falls firmly into the "things I cannot change" column. Also, I've found that criticizing people for it always backfires. All I can do is take care of myself.

NoelleR

Actually, Jesus wasn't underage. This story is found in John 2:1-11; the wedding at Cana; a few days after his 'baptism' by John; therefore, he was probably about 30.

(o:

Time2Rise

My bad. I mixed up the wine miracle with 12 year old Christ visiting and discussing theology in the Temple.

BTW, just in case anyone thought I was serious, I was attempting (clumsily) to make a point: Alcohol has been prevalent in the affairs of man for thousands and thousands of years, all over the world, and in many types of cultures.

As I don't see that changing anytime soon, I personally don't concern myself with alcohol's prevalence and social acceptability. It's wasted energy, and I can use that energy to work on my recovery. Honestly, the prevalence of alcohol really doesn't bother me because I know I cannot do anything about it except to control my reactions and behavior.

Bunny211

Yes.

I went out for Mexican last week. I was meeting with my sponsee. I sat down and moved the drink menu out of the way. The waitress came over, pulled the drink menu to the middle of the table and opened it and said "Here's our drink menu!" Duh. I can see that. I closed it and when she came back she said "Can I start you off with a margarita?" Literally the SAME thing happened to my sponsee when she showed up at the table 10 min later. Sponsee sat down, waitress pulled drink menu to center, opened it, pointed and said "here's our drink menu!" We again placed the drink menu in the corner of the table. Waitress returned and offered us margaritas again. I KNOW restaurants make all their $$ from booze. But is IS VERY annoying!

Andante

Whoa… you mean to tell me that both the Church and the Greek Philosophers are in on this evil plot hatched just overnight by the greedy alcohol merchants and the soulless advertising hacks of Madison Avenue in a conspiracy to keep the poor downtrodden innocent masses intoxicated and thus defenseless to the nefarious plans of their evil power-mad multinational corporate masters? What’s the world coming to?

fred59

my soon to be ex(a great mother to our kids) has friends we go to concerts with we usually go to a bar where they get 3 to 5 drinks and then as soon as we get to the show they go right to the bar for more drinks and then they miss about 30% of the concert going back and forth to the bar and I am the designated driver. I have been friends with this group for 30 years and I am glad it is over.

Time2Rise

I usually just say right away that I (or we if that's the case) won't be ordering alcohol today. That's always worked for me. If it happens too much, you may want to mention it to the manager. Some wait staff will upsell items so their tip is bigger--especially alcohol because it's expensive--and I understand that. However, I'm very intolerant of any wait staff who is too pushy in their attempts to squeeze out a bigger tip.

frankster

ummm.......It most certainly is.

alcoholics wife

We are living in a time where booze is as glamorized as cigarettes were back in the 50's. The booze industry has such power behind it. Marketing sweet drinks such as "Smirnoff Ice" are targeting the young and they are well aware (get em while they are young right?) with social media like facebook, the "cool" thing to do is post pics of yourself holding up one of these beverages while you are still underage to even be drinking. When once upon a time you drank in your parents garage with your friends sneaking in your parents liquor, now a days with iPhones and social media, you are able to share these "cool moments" with your 500+ contacts adding to the glamour of drinking so much more. Because booze is legal and it turns a high profit, big companies will not stop or slow down what they are doing. Same goes for the junk food industry. Feed people crap, get our kids diabetes and obesity but just as long as it's "legal" and consumers are buying, it don't matter.

There needs to be a change campaign that is so powerful, it will make a difference. Similar to the stop smoking campaign. The kids now a days think it's so uncool to smoke cigarettes. Very different mentality than generations before them.

frankster

What in the....??? No more poisonous than water or salt???? We need water and salt to live. And that's your belief and opinion. Also not based on fact.

frankster

Serenity, serenity, serenity.

dwtbd

I try and neither romance or demonize alcohol and its prevalence in society.

I'm 49(well close to, just trying it on for size eww anyway) and seven years junior to my wife, with whom I just celebrated a 25 th wedding anniversary , the thing that irks me is the 'little blue pill' commercials , I mean c'mon , seriously what are they for?!!

frankster

Alcohol has demonized itself. I'm not here to justify social drinking. Who gives a **** about that. We don't drink in small amounts and if you do then why are you here. The amounts I drink at are definitely poisonous, so that's how I view alcohol. It's poisonous for me. I'm responding to other posts by people who are also poisoning themselves. Lives are on the line here. Debating whether alcohol is harmful in small amounts is irrelevant. No one here drinks in small amounts.

NoelleR

In regards to my water and salt comment.....there's an old adage that says it the dosage that makes the poison; water, alcohol, and salt. What I stated was NOT my belief or opinion; it's fact. I see that some of you didn't take my suggestion to do some research.

To give you a jump start, try checking out hydrocephalus and hypernatremia...........

(o:

Gottalife

The consequences of smoking were not so easy to hide in the statistics which is one reason they have fallen out of favour. Not so with alcohol. Apart from the ralatively rare "death through alcohol poisoning" usually a young inexperienced drinkers, the cause of death is attributed to any number of other causes. One poor chap I know of hit the bottle after 17 yeasr sobriety, and drove his car over a bank. He had the most miserable drawn out death you could imagine. Cause of death was "broken neck, lung infection, thrombosis of the legs, brain injury". No mention of alcoholism.

Of course the cigarette companies have been replaced by big pharma. Knock off the booze, and it is still quite acceptable, even fashionable to be enticed into some other regular consumption of chemicals. It is a very good business model, the repeat customer.