Unhealthy associations with specific drinks
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2014
Posts: 1,222
Unhealthy associations with specific drinks
One of the reasons I kept drinking for so long I believe was that I never realised I was a full blown alcoholic. It crept up on me and I managed to convince myself that until I started to see signs of real physical damage that I was in the clear. Nonsense of course, but that's what the AV convinced me of.
One of the aspects of my deteriorating attitudes towards drinking and increasing abuse would be how I used specific drinks. I convinced myself that because I rarely drank spirits that I wasn't a real alcoholic. For newcomers here you will know if your drinking is increasing in quantity but there may also be signs of a problem in your choice if drink. Here are some of the factors and decisions I made as I spiralled out of control. Maybe you can identify some yourself and it may be a warning sign to you.....
Regular 4% beer
This was my staple in the early years. A few pints of lager or Guinness on a night out with the boys. In the early years, the warning signs of addiction was an increase in the number of pints I was drinking. But as my problem worsened I reduced my drinking of regular beer and replaced it with alternatives. At the end I would drink it to be social (when I wasn't really drinking) or when I was thirsty or in the morning. When I wanted to really drink or get drunk there were better options.
Light beers
All the alcohol and half the calories. Great. Meant I could drink more. Made sense as I began to get addicted and made it easier to control my weight and still get drunk. I also drank it when thirsty and when I wanted to give a good social impression eg. At a business function:"see, how can I be an alcoholic if I am so health conscious that I won't even drink a regular beer?" The problem is that it was low on taste, bloated me up and gets tiresome after 10 or 15. So as my problem worsened I needed to move on.
Red wine
My oh my. Sophisticated and socially acceptable. Tastes great. Strong, which meant I could get drunk without the bloat of beer and I could get drunk on it for approx the same calories as on light beer and approx 2/3 the calories of normal beer. Red wine took me from being a heavy social drinker to a drink at home problem drinker and eventually to being an alcoholic.
How I used it changed which is what I want to talk about. I first started on Bordeaux and cheapish table wines. Light, easy drinking. Pick up a bottle for dinner on the way home a couple of nights a week. I usually finished the bottle but didn't feel I needed to and never opened a second bottle. Healthy, normal and happy I figured.
Then I started to do wine tastings and became more "interested in wine". I started to buy more expensive wines, began to find what I liked. I started to make a hobby out of drinking more. My treat to myself started to become a nice wine rather than a CD or a book or a meal out. I was now a professional, sophisticated young man after all and this is what we do, right?
Then, I progressed to a bottle with dinner every night. By this time, I was on the spicier, heavier 13-15% Shiraz and Cabernet blends. Frequently I opened a second bottle. Mid week hangovers became normal occurances. I was probably an alcoholic at this stage without realising it.
Then I progressed to cheaper but equally strong new world wines and just bought the same bottles again and again and drank to get drunk. I stopped experimenting, stopped being interested in wine. It simply became a vehicle to get drunk.
White wine
White wine was for women mostly and wasn't really drinking. In the early years I didn't drink it much. As my addiction kicked in I drank some and drank it fast. I could get through a bottle in 20 minutes. Too fast. Made me feel like an alcoholic as it was too easy to drink so I switched back to red which I drank at a more sustainable pace. I would not drink white wine in a glass that held any less than 250ml (1/3 of a bottle) as it was just too annoying filling it up all the time.
Champagne
Loved it. Never really drank it in the early years. In my "interested in wine" years I drank it when I wanted to indulge but only when I had at least a bottle of red to follow it. In other words, as much as I liked to drink it no way would it be a replacement for getting drunk.
It had another purpose....to get those that don't usually drink to join me in drinking. If I said to my wife "hey, let's go and get 20 beers and get all bloated up and hammered" her reaction would not be good. If I said "you are really doing well in your career now, I want to I buy you a bottle of champagne to celebrate" then I had a chance. Obviously, I would buy the bottle of red while I was at it knowing she wouldn't want any. Mmm....and maybe a few beers while I was there, just in case.
Craft beers/Weiss bier
Rarely drank these when I first started drinking but in my later years they played a big part. Stronger in alcohol than regular beers and less likely to bloat. Could drink them steadily all day without sobering up or falling over so they were great for day long or multi day benders as a maintenance drink.
Also they were useful when with a group of light drinkers and we were drinking in rounds.....eg. me with friends looking at a menu of craft beers and regular beers and noticing one which was 8% or 9% and trying to sound uninterested..."oh, the brain blaster, that sounds interesting, let me try one of those".
Weiss bier was a beer that showed I was a bit of a connoisseur so was good in slightly more refined settings but crucially was stronger in alcohol than regular beer and I found it went down easy.
Guinness
My true love. Too painful to think about her so I will move on. Towards the end one of my greatest indulgences would be to go to the place that served the best Guinness. Clear the day and not eat and pour in as much as humanely possible. It wasn't alcoholic drinking you see, it was truly rewarding myself. A private personal indulgence. Do you have a private, pet favourite that you will allow yourself to drink with no limits as a special treat?
port, sherry, wine in a box, super strength lagers
Didn't drink them much as it made me look like an alcoholic. Port maybe an exception with cheese and crackers, that's just enjoying food. It would be rude and disrespectful to eat cheese and crackers without red wine or port.
shots
I didn't really like spirits after some very bad experiences with it when I was young and through my mid career of drinking as my problem grew I rarely drank shots. In the final years they reappeared, not to make me drunk but to get drunker. I would start the night with a civilised beer or two. Get drunk on red wine. Add a few shots to get totally hammered. Then go back to red wine to maintain and then back to beer to take me through till morning.
I also began to associate moments and foods with drinks. Experiencing these moments or foods without their alcoholic counterpart would drive me nuts. This increased as my problem grew. Examples:
Skiing: Weiss bier during the day, red wine in evenings
Sunny day: light beer
BBQ: white wine while cooking, red wine with food
Emotional drinking: red wine
Grabbing a beer with friends I didn't really know: regular beer
Steak: red wine
Curry: beer
Fish pie etc: white wine
Cheese: red wine
Before dinner: a beer, then white wine, red wine with dinner, finish the red wine after dinner. Then move on to whatever was in the house.
So this is how it went from weekend social drinking to daily alcoholic drinking. Nice and slowly over the years it burrowed deeply into my life. Recognise any of this? If so and you don't think you have a problem you may want to back up a little. Catch you later....
One of the aspects of my deteriorating attitudes towards drinking and increasing abuse would be how I used specific drinks. I convinced myself that because I rarely drank spirits that I wasn't a real alcoholic. For newcomers here you will know if your drinking is increasing in quantity but there may also be signs of a problem in your choice if drink. Here are some of the factors and decisions I made as I spiralled out of control. Maybe you can identify some yourself and it may be a warning sign to you.....
Regular 4% beer
This was my staple in the early years. A few pints of lager or Guinness on a night out with the boys. In the early years, the warning signs of addiction was an increase in the number of pints I was drinking. But as my problem worsened I reduced my drinking of regular beer and replaced it with alternatives. At the end I would drink it to be social (when I wasn't really drinking) or when I was thirsty or in the morning. When I wanted to really drink or get drunk there were better options.
Light beers
All the alcohol and half the calories. Great. Meant I could drink more. Made sense as I began to get addicted and made it easier to control my weight and still get drunk. I also drank it when thirsty and when I wanted to give a good social impression eg. At a business function:"see, how can I be an alcoholic if I am so health conscious that I won't even drink a regular beer?" The problem is that it was low on taste, bloated me up and gets tiresome after 10 or 15. So as my problem worsened I needed to move on.
Red wine
My oh my. Sophisticated and socially acceptable. Tastes great. Strong, which meant I could get drunk without the bloat of beer and I could get drunk on it for approx the same calories as on light beer and approx 2/3 the calories of normal beer. Red wine took me from being a heavy social drinker to a drink at home problem drinker and eventually to being an alcoholic.
How I used it changed which is what I want to talk about. I first started on Bordeaux and cheapish table wines. Light, easy drinking. Pick up a bottle for dinner on the way home a couple of nights a week. I usually finished the bottle but didn't feel I needed to and never opened a second bottle. Healthy, normal and happy I figured.
Then I started to do wine tastings and became more "interested in wine". I started to buy more expensive wines, began to find what I liked. I started to make a hobby out of drinking more. My treat to myself started to become a nice wine rather than a CD or a book or a meal out. I was now a professional, sophisticated young man after all and this is what we do, right?
Then, I progressed to a bottle with dinner every night. By this time, I was on the spicier, heavier 13-15% Shiraz and Cabernet blends. Frequently I opened a second bottle. Mid week hangovers became normal occurances. I was probably an alcoholic at this stage without realising it.
Then I progressed to cheaper but equally strong new world wines and just bought the same bottles again and again and drank to get drunk. I stopped experimenting, stopped being interested in wine. It simply became a vehicle to get drunk.
White wine
White wine was for women mostly and wasn't really drinking. In the early years I didn't drink it much. As my addiction kicked in I drank some and drank it fast. I could get through a bottle in 20 minutes. Too fast. Made me feel like an alcoholic as it was too easy to drink so I switched back to red which I drank at a more sustainable pace. I would not drink white wine in a glass that held any less than 250ml (1/3 of a bottle) as it was just too annoying filling it up all the time.
Champagne
Loved it. Never really drank it in the early years. In my "interested in wine" years I drank it when I wanted to indulge but only when I had at least a bottle of red to follow it. In other words, as much as I liked to drink it no way would it be a replacement for getting drunk.
It had another purpose....to get those that don't usually drink to join me in drinking. If I said to my wife "hey, let's go and get 20 beers and get all bloated up and hammered" her reaction would not be good. If I said "you are really doing well in your career now, I want to I buy you a bottle of champagne to celebrate" then I had a chance. Obviously, I would buy the bottle of red while I was at it knowing she wouldn't want any. Mmm....and maybe a few beers while I was there, just in case.
Craft beers/Weiss bier
Rarely drank these when I first started drinking but in my later years they played a big part. Stronger in alcohol than regular beers and less likely to bloat. Could drink them steadily all day without sobering up or falling over so they were great for day long or multi day benders as a maintenance drink.
Also they were useful when with a group of light drinkers and we were drinking in rounds.....eg. me with friends looking at a menu of craft beers and regular beers and noticing one which was 8% or 9% and trying to sound uninterested..."oh, the brain blaster, that sounds interesting, let me try one of those".
Weiss bier was a beer that showed I was a bit of a connoisseur so was good in slightly more refined settings but crucially was stronger in alcohol than regular beer and I found it went down easy.
Guinness
My true love. Too painful to think about her so I will move on. Towards the end one of my greatest indulgences would be to go to the place that served the best Guinness. Clear the day and not eat and pour in as much as humanely possible. It wasn't alcoholic drinking you see, it was truly rewarding myself. A private personal indulgence. Do you have a private, pet favourite that you will allow yourself to drink with no limits as a special treat?
port, sherry, wine in a box, super strength lagers
Didn't drink them much as it made me look like an alcoholic. Port maybe an exception with cheese and crackers, that's just enjoying food. It would be rude and disrespectful to eat cheese and crackers without red wine or port.
shots
I didn't really like spirits after some very bad experiences with it when I was young and through my mid career of drinking as my problem grew I rarely drank shots. In the final years they reappeared, not to make me drunk but to get drunker. I would start the night with a civilised beer or two. Get drunk on red wine. Add a few shots to get totally hammered. Then go back to red wine to maintain and then back to beer to take me through till morning.
I also began to associate moments and foods with drinks. Experiencing these moments or foods without their alcoholic counterpart would drive me nuts. This increased as my problem grew. Examples:
Skiing: Weiss bier during the day, red wine in evenings
Sunny day: light beer
BBQ: white wine while cooking, red wine with food
Emotional drinking: red wine
Grabbing a beer with friends I didn't really know: regular beer
Steak: red wine
Curry: beer
Fish pie etc: white wine
Cheese: red wine
Before dinner: a beer, then white wine, red wine with dinner, finish the red wine after dinner. Then move on to whatever was in the house.
So this is how it went from weekend social drinking to daily alcoholic drinking. Nice and slowly over the years it burrowed deeply into my life. Recognise any of this? If so and you don't think you have a problem you may want to back up a little. Catch you later....
Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: California
Posts: 2,693
As I read through that I was picturing the different types of hangovers that each one caused. With 1 as the worst here is my math:
1. Champagne. Oh my god that headache.
2. Spirits. Shaky hangovers. Bleuck.
3. Red wine. Sticky gross mouth/headache
4. White wine. Same as red.
5. Beer. Bloat/beer s***s.
I drank only freakin' vodka. It was a cheap bang for the buck.
1. Champagne. Oh my god that headache.
2. Spirits. Shaky hangovers. Bleuck.
3. Red wine. Sticky gross mouth/headache
4. White wine. Same as red.
5. Beer. Bloat/beer s***s.
I drank only freakin' vodka. It was a cheap bang for the buck.
Member
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: PA
Posts: 12,000
okay, one day I decided to get the 10 OZ miller lites for doing yard work - I figured I would drink less beer. Well it seems that they went down a lot quicker. And I found myself actually drinking more because they were only little ones. Doing the math...
Member
Join Date: Jan 2015
Posts: 251
Been there done that... I get drunk on 6 regular beers so I'll switch to light so I can have 8 oh that didn't work so I'll do miller 64 so I can have 12 oh well I'm getting full after 6 with no buzz better get a colt 45.... None of it worked and looking back it was so stupid to try to put that much thought into "controlling" drinking.... No thanks.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 1,355
My drink of choice was usually a 4% beer. Sure sometimes I drink spirits- tequila, vodka, rum, but beer was my drink of choice. I knew I had a problem when I would finish my beer and then look to top if off with a few shots...
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
