How is your relationship with drugs and alcohol?

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Before the pandemic I would have at least 1 or 2 whiskey's a night (scotch, bourbon, rye). I only pour just enough to cover a couple small ice cubes and I'm happy to let it dilute the whiskey a little to prolong the drink.

That's increased to a minimum of 2 to as many as 4 a night, so yeah, it's increased, but can you blame me? Has anyone lived in the world these days, let alone Florida?

I take a night off once a week just to remind myself that I don't need it, but truly, I just love the taste. I almost never drink to get drunk, but I definitely would be considered an alcoholic by strict definition. I guess my dad passed on something to me after all.

Haven't done any THC products since my early 20's since it's illegal where I live, but I do indulge in the odd CBD product to ease anxiety and tension. It seems to work okay, but I could take or leave it.

[keratosis]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Smoke a big fat bowl. You'll love it.

Can't. I drive for a living and when I quit smoking back in the day, all it would do is make me paranoid.

[nieuwy-89]

I’m a drinker. Beer mainly. I also enjoy wine and whiskey (rye, scotch, and bourbon).

Pre-covid, I was a pub guy. We had a pub in our office tower lobby and we were regulars. 2-3 times a week, usually 2-3 pints before heading home. Once a month it would turn into an all-nighter. In addition I would drink a 6 pack or 4 tall boys at home every weekend, and a few glasses of wine and scotch here and there throughout the week.

When covid hit, my drinking reduced a lot. I went down to a couple beers a week and maybe a glass of wine on Sunday with dinner. No more pubs, which was very sad. As a side note, my pub closed permanently and it’s like losing an old friend.

As summer came, I got into back into beer in a big way, and my drinking increased quite a bit, back to my pre-Covid level. 2-3 tall boys a day and trying as many different beers as I could.

This continued into the fall along with a few more late nights at the bars when they re-opened. I started thinking about going to the pub all the time, even by myself. I sought out my old pub buddies and found new places to go. When I couldn’t find someone to go with I went alone.

I don’t drink to get drunk, I just enjoy the taste, the social aspect, and the overall experience. When I do get drunk I’m a happy drunk and generally have fun, even when I drink a bit too much at home alone. However, I sometimes do stupid things when I’m drunk, and have some regrets due to poor decisions made when drunk. I hate hangovers and find they get worse the older I get.

When the initial “second wave” restrictions came down in November, I stopped going to pubs again. I have also reduced my drinking at home a lot. It’s good to know I can still control it, although I admit it is a complicated relationship.

[indes]

I have a couple of drinks of bourbon once or twice a week at home and get on it pretty good around once a month. I'm 31 and my hangovers are starting to get more and more debilitating so I try to limit them.

[Magnum PEI]

I drink maybe two or three times a year. Never really got into anything else although I tried some things. Mostly for the experience.

[Weitz]

Wife’s company is doing a virtual beer tasting this afternoon for Christmas - SO’s included! Getting nicely acquainted with booze for a long Christmas break!

[marsplasticeraser]

Impressed how many others in a similar situation to me.

Booze ended up always making me feel subpar. It seemed I was drinking less every year, but still we’d have a couple of bottles of wine a week and the odd night of 5+ drinks.

Took a break in summer as I just felt like there was so little upside in booze for me. Went 100 days to see if I could. Did that. I’m sure I’ll drink again, but reaching for a scotch after a tough day has been replaced by a tea with no real impact to me.

I recall a time ten years ago where going a week without a drink felt tough.

[CliffFletcher]

I'm surprised at how many people drink alone. There used to be a powerful stigma attached to it.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

I'm surprised at how many people drink alone. There used to be a powerful stigma attached to it.

The world of booze is significantly different than it was 20 years ago.

[CliffFletcher]

I smoked dope daily in high school, drank to dangerous excess from 18-21, and tapered down to getting drunk a couple times a week through my 20s. That became a couple times a month in my 30s. Now on a typical week I have 2-4 drinks and get hammered maybe 5 or 6 times a year. I smoke dope in occasion, usually to mellow out the hyper effect alcohol has on me.

But booze flows freely at all of my social events. Family, friends, co-workers. I'm still close with a group of 8 or so guys who I've known since junior high and high school, and some have succumbed to self-destruction. In the last year or so I've pulled back from the excesses when the boys cut loose, trying to keep it to no more than four or five beer. It's taken me decades to recognize that the last few drinks add little to the fun of an evening, and only make the next day all the more punishing. Or at least it took me decades to demonstrate the willpower to say no.

Originally Posted by Weitz

The world of booze is significantly different than it was 20 years ago.

Or 40 years ago. My parents would get together with friends for dinner, cards, or putting records on and dancing a couple times a week, and the rye and cokes flowed freely. They were the generation who installed bars in the basement rec rooms of half the houses in Calgary's suburbs in the 70s and 80s. Someone crashing over a coffee table while pissed was considered high spirits. But drinking alone was a taboo. I never once saw either of them have a drink when they didn't have company over.

[Manhattanboy]

Can I quietly add ladies of the evening to the list of relationships?

Joke...

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

I smoked dope daily in high school, drank to dangerous excess from 18-21, and tapered down to getting drunk a couple times a week through my 20s. That became a couple times a month in my 30s. Now on a typical week I have 2-4 drinks and get hammered maybe 5 or 6 times a year. I smoke dope in occasion, usually to mellow out the hyper effect alcohol has on me.

But booze flows freely at all of my social events. Family, friends, co-workers. I'm still close with a group of 8 or so guys who I've known since junior high and high school, and some have succumbed to self-destruction. In the last year or so I've pulled back from the excesses when the boys cut loose, trying to keep it to no more than four or five beer. It's taken me decades to recognize that the last few drinks add little to the fun of an evening, and only make the next day all the more punishing. Or at least it took me decades to demonstrate the willpower to say no.



Or 40 years ago. My parents would get together with friends for dinner, cards, or putting records on and dancing a couple times a week, and the rye and cokes flowed freely. They were the generation who installed bars in the basement rec rooms of half the houses in Calgary's suburbs in the 70s and 80s. Someone crashing over a coffee table while pissed was considered high spirits. But drinking alone was a taboo. I never once saw either of them have a drink when they didn't have company over.

The difference is people just stopped waiting till the kids went to bed so they didn’t have to stay up till midnight to have a drink.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Weitz

The difference is people just stopped waiting till the kids went to bed so they didn’t have to stay up till midnight to have a drink.

That doesn't match my experience. Neither my parents and their friends, nor my friends' parents, were at all bashful about drinking in front of us. I was mixing drinks for my parents and their friends by the time I was 10, between being sent off to the store to buy smokes. My best friend's parents had a boozy darts league in their basement bar every Saturday. Like I said, half the homes in suburban Calgary had a bar in them at one time. But they considered alcohol a social lubricant. Drinking alone was associated with the mean drunk next door who beat his wife, or the depressed housewife who drank wine every day while she watched soap operas. If anything has changed, it's the fact adults with kids socialize with friends and neighbours less often.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

Can I quietly add ladies of the evening to the list of relationships?

Joke...

This is a thread about things that can ruin your life.

So ‘yes’.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

That doesn't match my experience. Neither my parents and their friends, nor my friends' parents, were at all bashful about drinking in front of us. I was mixing drinks for my parents and their friends by the time I was 10, between being sent off to the store to buy smokes. My best friend's parents had a boozy darts league in their basement bar every Saturday. Like I said, half the homes in suburban Calgary had a bar in them at one time. But they considered alcohol a social lubricant. Drinking alone was associated with the mean drunk next door who beat his wife, or the depressed housewife who drank wine every day while she watched soap operas. If anything has changed, it's the fact adults with kids socialize with friends and neighbours less often.

Like I said. They don’t wait till you go to bed anymore.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

I think the internet has changed things a bit as well for people like me who do drink alone at times. I'm not sitting in my chair, staring at the wall and slamming back a bunch of booze. I play a lot of poker and chat with people doing so, do the zoom thing with friends, facetime, etc. So yes, while I do technically drink alone sometimes, I'm being a lot more social than it sounds. I do prefer to drink with other people, but if I throw a few back at home by myself while chatting online I don't feel like I'm some sort of depressed alcoholic.

[#-3]

I have only ever drank socially, I think maybe 2 or 3 times in 9 years me and my wife have had a couple drinks at home together without friends/family over.

So I was probably 4-8 drinks / month in the winter, and
10-15 drinks / weekend in the summer.
Summer might have been down a little bit, still got down to the water and had drinks with people, but there was probably a little less after drinking.
Spring / Fall / Winter I'm probably down to +/- 1 drink / month
During phases of stricter lockdowns like now, it's unlikely I would drink at all (although next Thursday might be one of those times I have a spicy egg nog alone with the wife, I was also 16 the last time I didn't have a drink on Christmas Eve).

I quit drugs at the start of grade twelve, when I decided I need to at least put a little bit of effort into school, get into the course I wanted at U. Just never felt the need to pick it back up.

[FlameyMcFlameFace]

I do feel my drinking has greatly increased in this pandemic. I never used to drink scotch, however now I do. I'll sip on that 2-3 times a week. Keep in mind i'm in my mid twenties, so maybe this is a factor? However i've never really been a "drinker".... Whatever that is

[monkeyman]

I'm drinking right now. my bank account and liver are cursing 2020.

[combustiblefuel]

2020 didn't effect my lifestyle at all. I have been pretty recluse for 3 years now. Drugs .. havnt touched them in 8 years EXCEPT 1 or 2 times a year I'll go on midnight mystery ride on shrooms. Havnt touched MDMA in 9 years... hated the hang over. Coke haven't touched in 10 plus years. Only did that 1 to 3 times a year in the 2000s. Never touched sweet lady h or meth or pain pills. Till this day I still don't take tylonal or advil unless its doctor prescribed. My drinking was at 4 to 5 times a week but since the pandemic 1 time a week. Something about society slowing.g ad doing what I have done for years calmed my drinking . No longer felt like an outcast when the world normalized my lifestyle.I use to smoke a 1/8 to a 1/4 a night at one point with a 12 pack. I can barely get past 4 tall boys at 6 to 7% now before wanting bed.

I went a solid year without booze or pot and since then I haven't touched pot. Pot always made me paronoid and full of anxiety. Didn't matter the strain ot tinkerer. I just smoked or eat it out of habit. .

For the last few years only drinks on video game nights. Me and my demons are just fine with one another. My demons know if they cross the line , I'll slit there througts ear to ear and leave their corpses hanging on meat hooks outside there mothers door in hell to greet them early morn as the step outside their doors. Sans limbs and faces as that was what I used to feed Cerberus to gain access to hell.