121–130 of 312 posts
Oh well, people drinking.... social darwinism. Drink away I guess
I used to think that I was going to drink at one point. I remember thinking, "if I was of age I'd like to buy that lady a drink." But by the time I turned of age and could, I decided I wouldn't touch it. I'd never really been offered alcohol growing up - so maybe that helped settle in the habit. But, I got offered it constantly once I was of age. I declined every time and never sought it out. I don't drink at all and even more so, I don't pay or contribute to alcohol bills directly. If my significant other wants a drink, I tell her to put it on a separate bill.
I used to think that maybe I'd drink but then I'd go to parties and smell beer. And I knew I wouldn't. I'd feel so much anger and resentment as soon as I smelled it. It pulled me back into hell. On top of this, I felt like I was the prime candidate for substance abuse. I have amazing executive control (I have suffered incredible emotional and physical pain over the last decade but I have never shed a tear in that time. Hell, I watched a lot of Disney movies and I still didn't. I do it just to prove that I still have control). You lose some of that control when you drink alcohol (from what I've been told).
So, I just don't. I don't care to know if I'm a jovial or mean drunk. I don't need to know if I'll have a substance abuse problem. Personally, I'd be quite happy if it didn't exist. I wouldn't have to deal with the problems it causes so frequently. I abstain from most other substances as well for similar reasons. (Caffeine really being the only thing that I normally ingest)
My father died in July of 2015 from alcohol, at the very young age of 60. He drank daily, and then slowly stopped moving due to other health issues related to back pain. After refusing rehab and other options, he eventually died at his home one evening. His drinking buddy was my step-mother, who followed an identical trajectory. Less than four years later, she died in the same spot of the house, in her late 50s. The…
My adoptive father also died of alcohol abuse. I am Much older than you are though. He served in WWII, also most of his friends drank heavily--I suspect it was due to combat war related PTSD; but that is merely a guess.
I am very careful about how much I drink, and I do have an addictive personality. I just had a talk, tonight in fact, with my 20 year old about drugs--and was surprised to hear that coke is big again at my child's University. My kid drinks a bit, but has a 4.0 average as Bio major looking to get into Med School. No guarantee of a drug free life but my point is talk to your son about it when he's older.
Sorry for loss.
Congratulations on the birth of your son!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
After going sober, how did you deal with social situations where either other people were moderately drinking or you were expected to be gregarious?
Great question, the first year my sponsor said "avoid those events or have an escape plan" avoiding was a non starter so the "escape plan" was I committed to leave, akwardly as it may be, before i picked up a drink. aka if someobdy was pressuring me to drink to the point i felt i had to i would say "ok get me a beer i have to go to the bathroom" and then disappear and blame it on an upset stomach and believe the trut…
> aka if someobdy was pressuring me to drink to the point i felt i had to i would say "ok get me a beer i have to go to the bathroom" and then disappear and blame it on an upset stomach
I hope this doesn't come across as rude, but I don't understand -- why was pretending to get sick easier than telling the truth -- "I can't, I've quit drinking", or a softened version, "I'm not drinking tonight", etc.? Or did you start off with that and they'd continue to pressure you? I don't think I know anyone who'd be that much of an a-hole, unless they were already very drunk themselves.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correct me if I'm wrong but this post reads like the answers are an easy 'no' but doesn't address GPs situation.
I believe they're similar questions in that they each address an addiction (junk food, nicotine, adrenaline, adrenaline), and for the most part, the only person at risk of death is the addict.
My father is an alcoholic. (in his case, he went to rehab and doesn't drink much anymore but he is still an alcoholic) I used to think that I was going to drink at one point. I remember thinking, "if I was of age I'd like to buy that lady a drink." But by the time I turned of age and could, I decided I wouldn't touch it. I'd never really been offered alcohol growing up - so maybe that helped settle in the habit. But,…
Edit: Let me mention that the guardrails on this have narrowed since my daughter was born.
The state of men in the US is really deteriorating. Men are drugging, drinking, and smoking theirselves to death. And sometimes the death is very explicit, being by suicide which is climbing to rates higher than ever. Prisons are filled with men, universities are increasingly seeing fewer men than women. Men are increasingly sexless much longer than females. Seems we have a big problem on our hands.
Driveby conservative and liberal punditry regards men as uniquely targeted/at fault for their lots respectively, but I don't think this sex-specific interrogation yields any real solutions. At least not compared to universal class-based politics, which addresses the root of the issue rather than the way the problem manifests for a particular demographic.
Hey gang. I've been an HN member for a long time, fairly prominent Bay Area tech executive, rich in the sense of both bank accounts and family. Alcohol brought me to my knees in my late 20s / early 30s. It started out as the typical "social lubricant" to help a natural introvert be better at connecting with people and was wonderful at that - I was the life of the party. Over a decade it leaked into a "requirement" fo…
Paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/acer.14239 A few notes: - It's comparing absolute, not per-capita, numbers. The US drinking age population is up >20% since 1999, so that accounts for some of this rise. - The paper spends a lot of time discussing the fact that alcohol isn't reported completely in death certificates. - Alcohol-related drug overdoes are broken out separately from alcohol overdoses, and this is up 580% (!…
You're the right person to ask this I think - what is likely the attributable cause of death responsible for this? Mostly the overdoses, or other disease-related things?
Between this, the spike in suicides across the US, and the opioid crisis, the US appears to be experiencing a kind of “die off” whose only analogue I can think of is post-Soviet Russia. I wonder if we’ll be able to correct course or continue to believe that things like rising GDP, unmoored from the material reality of most people, can paper over these trends.