Alcohol and Health.

I am not a medical professional. So….

If you aren’t damaging your relationships or employment (you can drink at your job?) or spending all your money on booze, and and if you have the self-awareness to ask if you’re drinking to much, you probably don’t have a problem with alcohol. How much your consumption level is affecting your long term health is another question.

However you might want to see where you fit in with criteria at Psychology Today on drinking.

Brits say three alcohol free days a week.

essentially its your call, me I used to drink like a fish and could drink anyone under the table (were talking liters of Jose Cuervo, Jim Beam and Jack Daniels a day, plus a couple of pitchers of bear to wash them down with). but then one day I realised how the alcohol was affecting me, not in a drunken state, but in that I was at the bar every night drinking and would wake up with a differant women every morning, realised that life was not for me so gave up the booze and got my life together, now I rarely drink if at all (maybe a 6 pack of Smirinoff ice a year along with a pitcher of margaritas a year).

I know for a fact that I have been over indulging for a while, and i’m only 27. About a month ago I had to put the breaks on and stop drinking for a while. I was getting to the point where I was getting drunk 3 or 4 times a week, easy, and I was having alot of trouble remembering one day to the next. One night I was just sitting at my computer, surfing the web and having a drink, the next thing I know i’m waking up in bed and its the next morning. I had no idea what had happened, but I lost track of what I had been drinking and somewhere in-between posting Symphony of Science to my Facebook wall and reading articles on Tesla I blacked out.

The worst came about a month ago at my friends wedding. I had gotten very drunk the night before because…… it was Friday? I don’t really remember. Anyway, she had the reception of her wedding at her house and it was a very lovely set up and a great time. It’s at this point I should mention that my friend is a German national and her whole family had flown over from Germany to go to the wedding. As the night wore on guests started leaving it got to the point where it was pretty much Just her family, and me… and an open bar, and you can imagine what happened when a bunch of Germans and and Irishman get to commiserating their common disdain for the English. I blacked out again and woke up at home the next morning feeling like death. Then, through the haze of my hangover, I began to remember things. I could vaguely remember leaving the house, and I feel like people there were trying to stop me because I was in no condition to be walking on my own let alone driving a car. Then I remembered stopping on my way home at Burger King, I don’t remember pulling in or trying to order food, all I remember is locking my key in my car, and frantically trying to get back in my car. The remote I use to unlock my doors had died and wasn’t working so I was pressing on the windows trying to force them down so I could reach in and unlock the door. I could get the windows to budge and I was leaving sticky finger prints all over the windows. In my desperation and drunken stupor I thought that I could stick my credit card inbetween the door and the cars frame and pick the lock, which as you might imagine, had no effect. In my anger and frustration I began to kick the drivers side door, desperate to get back into my car. As my frustration died down I began to panic unsure of what I was going to do next, and as I looked across the parking lot I saw my car parked at the other end. Yes, thats right, I had spent the last 20 minuets attacking a complete strangers car. You would’ve thought that when I ran around the to passenger side and saw a Winnie the Poo sticker on the back window I would have figured it out but in my state all I thought was “who put this sticker on my window?”, and proceeded to try and scrape i off with my car keys (which was unsuccessful and left Winnie looking like he had had a run in with Hannibal Lecter).

After that I stopped drinking for about 3 weeks strait, clod turkey. Now I have a drink or two (never more then 3) if the occasion arises, once or twice a week, but more often then not less then that.

There is a simple self-test you can do to see if you are addicted to something or not…  just do the following.

Ask yourself “am I doing this because I want to? or because I need to?”

For example… some mornings I NEED a coffee…  whether I want it or not…

I bet the same is true for drinking… do you drink because you enjoy it?  or because a part of you feels you need to drink…

Alcohol and Allies… :)

If you don’t drink and smoke you have no problems that can effect your health from them. So just don’t do it.

@wittmann:

I prefer: Axis and Alcohol. Every Edition.

Gargantua suggested Alcohol & Allies, and Wittmann suggested Axis & Alcohol.  A more extreme suggestion would be Alcohol & Alcohol, which is the point at which one should probably start worrying.

Along the lines of the self-test Garg mentioned, I one read about a similar one which involves imagining that, starting at midnight, the entire world supply of alcohol will have evaporated.  According to this test, the abstainer would shrug, the non-problem drinker would say “Damn!”, and the problem drinker would say “How am I going to get through tomorrow?”

Do the Italians fear the french too?

LOL, great post Marc.  I would definetly say HOW AM I GOING TO GET THROUGH TOMORROW, if all the world’s coffee evapourated at midnight. :P

It can ruin you life, I’ve seen it happen, I’ve lost friends because of it, I’ve spent a fortune on it when I was a drinker (power-house). I’ve been sober for 19 years now and I look back and say why did I do it? Peer presure, the need, it ran my life. Besides loss of good judgement it can cause one to try other things.
Nites I cant remember with friends I’ll never forget,….had some good times.

I’m pretty sure I bought Yuengling a new brewery while I was the Outer Banks this past week.  For some reason, I can go hard for a while but know before I’m getting to blackout state to stop and go to bed.  I may not remember every little thing that was said, but I am pretty coherent and aware.

I drink almost everyday, but that may be a beer or two, and never a case or anything like that.  I used to be able to make a 6 pack last for 2-3 days.  I could kill a 12 pack no problem a night, but I keep myself from doing.  The only thing with the frequency of drinking is that it makes me want to smoke, and I’ve relapsed too many times (and hang out with too many smokers).

But alcohol is good for you moderately.  Especially homebrew, which I make and hope to get in the industry soon.

@Jermofoot:

Especially homebrew, which I make and hope to get in the industry soon.

Awesome. I don’t make nearly enough time to brew. I keep promising myself a brewing friendly remodel of the house. Good luck in the job search. Do you have formal training like the UC Davis program?