The "normies"
 

This has always left me scratching my head a little. Many of you seem to be under the impression there's loads of "normies" out there who just have a beer or two, then stop.

Maybe I'm just lost, but where are these people? There's definitely a few out there, but I would say they're very much in the minority. My dad is like that. He can just have a beer or a couple scotches, then he'll be done. I've definitely not met many people like that though.

Generally, when people start drinking, they keep doing until it's time for bed. Isn't that your experience as well? For example, take a typical night out for dinner with a few friends. Everyone has a couple drinks, but it never ends after dinner. Most will head out to a bar, or maybe to someone's house, and continue drinking until the night is over, no?

The difference is, they have their lives in order. For them, it's life first, and partying / booze second, which is totally fine. These people ensure all aspects of their lives are in order from kids, house, career, vehicles, investments, etc., then allow themselves to have good night out and enjoy a good time.

Whereas with people like me, it's the opposite. It's partying / booze first, and life second. People like me decide we're going to party it up, and have a good time 24x7x365, and we all know how much fun we end up having in the end.

Is there really loads of "normies" out there who just have a drink or two? I've met a few, but again, I'd say they're in the minority.

they exist. we just surround ourselves with those other people.

My husband won't drink more than two. Usually he stops at one. I've only seen him drink once or twice since I met him. He won't drink in front of me, ever.

It's hard for me to imagine :) Being inside his head. How on earth can you just want one or two? Lol. He stops because he says he begins to feel the negative effects. Again, just mind boggling to me :) I'd drink two or three drinks in the space of his one, easily.

Most people are that way. If you hang out in bars or with the "party" crowd of course you will see a lot of alchol abuse, but that's only a small percentage of the population.

99% of the people I drank with were not those kind of people. But I've been in the restaurant/bar business for most of my adult life and I'd say that nine out of ten people that I serve alcohol to in those places stop at one drink. Heck, a decent amount of those don't even finish that one drink all the way to the bottom. While I'm not following those people home, it's pretty clear after seeing this for years that for most of them that one glass at dinner is where they stop.

I just think we as alcoholics tend to gravitate toward other alcoholics in our drinking so our view of what is normal drinking is then further skewed.

My late grandfather used to have his one bottle of beer at dinner. It made absolutely no sense to me! Why couldn't he have given me that gene!!!

I have a decent amount of friends I know who have a drink of two with dinner and then stop. Particularly, the older I'm getting the more friends I have like that. When I was younger I didn't know ANYONE who only had one or two drinks. We all blacked out every chance we got!

Ugh. I wish I knew those people. But. I do hang out with those people. I'm just not one. And being the person who's so drunk all the time gets old. Why can't I break the cycle?? We are in a hell of a place. It's not like other addictions... You can't do just a hit of heroin or coke or crack.. Those people are on the fringes. But alcoholics. We're accepted which makes it so much harder to fight our disease. God speed. We can do this.

If you hang with the party crew, that's what you find. Almost my entire family, except me are normal drinkers. My parents may or may not, have one drink at dinner. If not, then it's soda. They don't keep drinking at home. They actually have DUSTY liquor bottles in their cupboards. My sister in law doesn't drink and not because she is an alcoholic, or allergic. Just doesn't. My boss and another co worker don't drink. They just don't like it. We only see what we want to see and that is people drinking as much or more than we are. Truthfully, most of the world either doesn't drink or stops at one.

Again, I feel like there's no norm to drinking. Such a tough area. Everyone hates smokers,junkies, crackheads and coke heads. But our lines are very blurred. Makes our job Harder. In the spirit of love, let's give ourselves credit for recognizing. "Let's plug into the love current instead"-Francesca Lia Block. I'm done with self loathing. Love yourself for what you did today, not for what you didn't. Compassion is key.

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that people who function well but drink a lot are fine. I always put work and responsibility first and to the casual observer I have my act together - family, career, money. But that doesn't mean I haven't seriously harmed myself in less obvious ways or been a slave to alcohol all these years.

And yes, there are a ton of those people who really have one or two drinks and want no more. They just were not the people I liked to socialize with.

I only know 2people who don't drink: my husband and my friend from AA. I would now say, after years of boozing, mixing with boozers and researching about alcohol that all those that I know who do drink are addicted but at different stages.

That's when I first noticed I had a problem. My wife has never drank. When we would go out with friends I would get primed before hand. Then drink in the social setting. Others would stop but I kept going. Then we would get home and I would keep going into oblivion. I agree with Scott. We are the ones in the minority. When I got rid of the "party people" I realized most people are one or two drink drinkers or did not drink at all. These people used to annoy me till I realized they were the people with the right idea about drinking...secondary to living life. Thanks for the post.

As I gain more sobriety I meet more and more 'normies'. Or maybe I did meet them before, but they were off my radar. I was only interested in having friends whose interests supported my own (i.e. getting drunk). And surrounding myself with others who drank heavily was a real boost to my AV, as it meant that my own drinking was rationalised.

Here are some numbers on the US population from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health put out by the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration:

"Slightly more than half (52.2 percent) of Americans aged 12 or older reported being current drinkers of alcohol (i.e., 1 or more drink in the past 30 days) in the 2013 survey... Nearly one quarter (22.9 percent) of persons aged 12 or older in 2013 were binge alcohol users [or heavy drinkers]."

So that means (based on self reported data) non-drinkers and drinkers who did not binge or drink heavily were 77.1% of the population

One could quibble with the numbers, but probably not the general conclusion: the vast majority of people are normies when it comes to alcohol.

http://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/def...esults2013.pdf

They are there.

BUT - the other thing that struck me was, those 'normies' who do continue on and keep drinking until the night is over, that's just it, it's over. They wake up the next day, maybe have a headache and a couple of laughs about something that happened and get on with their day. And don't automatically spend the next day obsessing over 'when is it ok to start drinking again'.

Anyways just my thoughts

Normies hang out where alcohol is not the primary focus.

Yes. If I go to the cemetery, I'm bound to be surrounded by corpses. If I go to a bar, I'm bound to be surrounded by a lot of people drinking alcohol. If I work with a bunch of former frat boys, I suspect I will see some after work drinking (this is my personal experience). My wife's knitting club has a bunch of teetotalers. My point is, it's all contextual. It can be hard to find the right non-drinking circles.

Most people I know are able to stop once the feeling gets uncomfortable, and they realize they had enough, my husband included, and his family. It's not the same for us. We get an insatiable craving and just keep going, even when we know we are out of control. That is why we can't take that first drink, because we don't have a natural shut off switch.

... but I also believe that alchohol was not the primary focus in most situations I found myself, I just made alchohol the primary focus. "Just another reason to drink!"