Has your use of alcohol changed?

There were times and places. I have to wonder a couple of things…how I got thru college for instance. Then there was that marriage…so much more fun to drink. But all that “false courage” got me to be able to talk to boys….then got me out of a marriage I had no idea how to be happy with. After all the dust settled I find drinking a pretty rare event.
 

Don M. said:
I had enough of that good German beer, when I was stationed in Germany back in the 1960's, to last me a lifetime. When I came back to the States, the US beer no longer tasted good. I've never been "drunk" since. A few years ago, I found that a sip of flavored vodka allowed me to get a full nights sleep, so I keep a bottle in the cabinet, and have about 1/2 shot near bedtime....that's about all the "booze" I drink, anymore.
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Never heard of flavored vodka. Do tell!
 
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shedevil7953 said:
Never heard of flavored vodka. Do tell!
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Yes, there are several flavored vodkas....Vanilla, chocolate, whipped cream, and several fruit flavors. The best I ever had was a bottle flavored with cinnamon roll flavor...wish I had bought several bottles of that. The "flavor" seems to reduce the alcohol "bite". A small sip if that stuff is better than taking a sleeping pill...IMO.
 
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Teacher Terry said:
It doesn’t agree with my BP and I can only eat 1600 calories a day to maintain my weight loss so I prefer to eat my calories.
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Elevated blood pressure was my primary reason for going on the wagon in 2006. Now that I'm off the wagon weight control is a big issue, I'll forego a drink if it would interfere with my daily calories.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
charry's thread about wine got me thinking about alcohol. In my 20s & 30s, I was on my way to become a dedicated bar fly. But I haven't touched alcohol since a sip of Champaigne on New Years Eve, 2000. It's not that I have anything about drinking, it's I just don't want to, and it's no big deal. Has your use of alcohol changed?
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Look, it's lent, we forgo alcohol, as well as meat and all things sweet. So can we just drop the subject please.
Only another thirty days to go!
 
When it comes to spirits, I'm a holiday drinker, cocktails, an ounce of spirits 9 ounces of juices. From Christmas eve to the day we'd put the decorations away (around 5th January). It's reduced to one a week since hubby's and son's passing.

Wine remains the same, shared bottle on special dates. Drunk over two days.

That style only since we had our last car in 2011. As we're both drivers, we never drank in case of emergencies and until munchkins were 18 years old.

Christmas Spirits bought one December usually last two years or more.
 
Murrmurr said:
My brother sneaked a bottle of dad's good whiskey out of a cabinet when I was 11 and I took a big swig from it. After that, I didn't drink alcohol until I was about 25, give or take a year. That one swig was enough til then, believe me.

At 25, I saw myself as a dedicated husband and father working 60-hours a week who totally deserved a Friday night out to get sloshed and laugh my arse off with the work-crew, and I made it a near-weekly habit. When my wife said that for every one of my Fridays out with the guys, she deserved a Saturday out with her girlfriends, I saw the logic in that...mainly because it was basically an ultimatum; "Give up your Fridays or give me Saturdays."

The real trouble started soon after our daughter was born. I'd found a better job and we moved from our quaint little town to a big city, where Shelly's nights out with a bunch of new gal-friends included lots of drugs, weed, and philandering, and weren't limited to Saturdays.

I wasn't going out drinking with the crew on Fridays. I worked late, worked weekends, and my co-workers were more, um, sophisticated, you could say. Plus, they were mostly women and mostly married. So I only drank occasionally during that time; on holidays, sometimes my birthday, sometimes at barbecues; and I didn't drink enough to get drunk. I really had to stay sober because we had 3 kids and Shelly got totally wasted nearly every day, right up til the divorce. Well, and after.

Fast-forward to today; I don't drink alcohol.
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Yes, living with a heavy drinker will do that. I don’t drink as well. No reason to.
 
It's an ebb and flow for me. 1-5 months, maybe 1 beer. Then 3-30 beers in 3 months. Usually Hurricanes, or Steel Reserve (8.1% alcohol by weight) chicken and ranch dip and beer, seasoned wings and beer, two burgers and beer.

If not drinking, it's crystal light and water mixed (Grape, lemonade, strawberry)
 
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I drank hard liquor like Vodka & Tonics and Tequila Sunrises when I was in college and into my early 30's. I met my partner in 1991. He doesn't drink at all, so it has been wine for the last 30 years.
 
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No can't do alcohol anymore; it keeps me awake. Seriously: I've suffered from insomnia all my life and starting about 15 years ago, I found that more than a sip of it makes the insomnia way worse and keeps me awake forever. Plus, no matter how much I tried to drink, I never felt that high or buzz or euphoric feeling like it used to, it just only seems to act on me like strong coffee. I kind of miss relaxing with that glass of wine--an excuse to put my feet up for a while, you know--in the evening and I'd love (oh, how I'd love) to find something to relax me. But it's not worth it being awake for hours and hours.
 
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My mother was a functioning alcoholic so it's classic psychology that her children are focused on control in our lives. We all cope differently (big age differences, for one) but it's why we don't get together much as we have very different interests and lifestyles.

I do like wine and got into it when I was in my 20's. Prior to that what was available was US beer and hard liquor/cocktails, and I didn't like any of that. California was in its first flush of earning publicity for its wines and it was ridiculously inexpensive to join a wine-tasting class at a local wine store. In those days tastings were free anyway if you visited the wineries, LOL.

The class was great and I learned about not just CA wines but French and German wines. Still remember the 40-yr old Burklin-Wolf Trockenbeerenauslen all the class pitched in to buy, to celebrate the BD of one of the students. Dark amber in color with the viscosity of light honey.....exquisite! Those were the days I could buy a third-ranked French Bordeaux for less than $12, sigh.

However, I met my spouse, and he doesn't drink. He likes alcohol, he just can't drink it without getting a headache and going to sleep (sadly, it's genetic so hopeless). So I rarely drink now. On occasion at a party I'll have half a glass, and even more rarely I'll indulge in a flight tasting if I'm out with friends. I still prefer reds to whites, and Bordeaux-types or Champagne. Ruinart NV is my current fav; well priced and goes beautifully with almost all foods.

One thing that has changed over time is that I finally found some hard liquors I liked. Stoli was the first true vodka I tried and liked. Again, I drink only if I'm out with somebody who also likes that specific alcohol. I don't drink alone, ever.

Then one day my co-worker and I were at lunch. We'd just finished a very stressful project, and she impulsively suggested we share an after-meal drink. She picked a bourbon, something I had never tried. This was an upscale restaurant we enjoyed a lot, and their alcohol list was high-end. The bourbon she picked, just because of the name, was....Pappy Van Winkle's 20-yr old Reserve, from the original Stitzel-Weller stock.

In those days you could buy an entire bottle of PVW Reserve for $75-100, and getting one was a cinch because nobody drank artisanal bourbon then. Nowadays, of course, you can't even touch one for less than a thousand bucks, and at auctions it goes even higher.

So here's my problem: we both loved that bourbon, and I had it several times afterwards. Didn't occur to me to buy a case and stash it away, because why? nobody else I knew drank the stuff except me and my friend. And it was easy to buy, several shops carried it. Why buy a whole bottle of something I only drank a single shot of, maybe once or twice a year?

Then the bourbon craze hit....and Pappy's price flew out of sight. So did all the bottles! Sigh. I've tried many bourbon tastings, but nothing else is quite like the PVW Reserve. When you start at the very top, unfortunately pretty much everything is going to be "meh" in comparison.

I did manage to find a decent bourbon I like - the original Jefferson 10-yr Straight Rye. Surprised me because ryes are so often "hot", but the Jefferson is smooth and mild. It's made the exact same way Pappy is, and as a result, is the only other I've found that has that same signature long, long finish in the mouth.

And then the Jefferson got popular, so that shot off the shelves! Unfortunately the distillery decided to capitalize on its sudden popularity and came out with half a dozen less remarkable whiskeys, only a couple of which were any good. So my original bottle of the 10 yr Straight Rye is still half-full after 6 years, hoarded jealously to share with my one bourbon-drinking friend whom I seldom see.

So although I don't drink much, or regularly, I do still drink. I just make sure when I drink, it's something worth drinking.

I can assure you the Grand Marnier you can buy at any liquor store, doesn't taste at all like the glass of 150-yr old Grand Marnier I found on the wine list at a small neighborhood trattoria in a nearby suburban town. I never liked Grand Marnier ever, but I couldn't turn down the opportunity to try something from Civil War days - and I'm very glad I was able to do so, because it was phenomenal!
 
Yes, when I was younger I drank socially. My friends and I would hit the bars and clubs sometimes. I remember one night we had drinks lined up on the table from guys treating us. I didn't finish mine and I don't think my friend could finish all theirs either. I went from drinking sloe gin fizzes to Black Russians (Kahlua and milk) over the years. Sometimes I'd have wine. After I lost interest in going to the clubs (my 40s), I stopped drinking. I accepted Islam when I was about 47 (29 years ago) so I knew that being a teetotaler was permanent.

It's a wonder I took a drink at all after that first time. My father had some moonshine in the pantry when I was a teenager. I snuck a sip and that was the nastiest stuff I ever tasted! 🤮
 
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I still like the occasional cocktail, and generally have a beer a day. Coincidentally I had two vanilla vodka and pineapple liqueur martini's at lunch yesterday. It was on the menu where we were having lunch, and on a whim tried one. It was very tasty, so I had another. Not normally my kind of drink, but hey I'm on vacation.

Don M. said:
Yes, there are several flavored vodkas....Vanilla, chocolate, whipped cream, and several fruit flavors. The best I ever had was a bottle flavored with cinnamon roll flavor...wish I had bought several bottles of that. The "flavor" seems to reduce the alcohol "bite". A small sip if that stuff is better than taking a sleeping pill...IMO.
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I retired from drinking 6 years ago. I was at a meeting a couple of years ago and someone summed up my situation best. She said that around 90% of the people have the luxury of enjoying alcohol without any issues. However around 10% do not have that luxury. I fall into that 10%. I do not miss it at all And I especially don't miss it when I go to the grocery store and walk down the liquor aisle and see how much the price of my favorite bottles have gone up in the past few years !
 
I got drunk every night for about 25 years. I was functional and managed employment and housing, paid taxes and bills.....couldn't manage personal relationships though. There were a lot of messy and untidy episodes and various undesirable side effects. I quit for good 22 years ago after multiple failed attempts. I was a complete teetotaler for 15 years. Now? I adhere to some inflexible, absolute rules: Never take a drink alone. Only take a drink in company. Always stop at 2 drinks. The last occasion was in 2019 when I toured Israel with some friends.....we all stopped at the hotel bar before dinner and I really enjoyed 2 vodkas-on-the-rocks. The time before that was 2017 when I toured Iceland with some of the same friends........same deal.
I feel safe and secure about the whole thing, I follow my rules and it isn't a struggle.....the urges to get blotto are long gone and I recall the messy episodes with genuine regret.
 

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