Attitude towards alcohol

With the time passing by, I notice more and more people being hostile towards alcohol (or at least not drinking it). I myself also belong to this category, and it's even hard for me to stay for long in a drinking company because I get bored and often angered by the people who change their behaviour under the effect of alcohol. It's also hard for me sometimes to establish a good relationship with drinking people because many things in this world are dependent on this, as if it is some kind of trust-giving ritual.

What do you feel about alcohol? Do you support the opinion that it should be a necessary part of any good party?

It gives a good flame.

Alchool seems to be just a soul-revealer ;
Unhappy people are more likely to fight when drunk.
Tired people will sleep when drunk.
Bad poeple turn bad, good people turn good. (I mean, feel good of bad in its life.)

I traveled a lot, and if I would choose one country for living, I would compare drunken people; where does drunken people are the most like I want to live?
so for me, it's more zen, quiet, peaceful... like in Japan.. They are that much busy at work, that when they do party most of people fall asleep when they drink. (I never saw any fight..)
In France, there is a fight in each party...

I Denmark it was quite normal to serve beer and stronger liquors at family parties and even the older kids would be allowed and sometimes even respected for drinking alcohol. The tide has turned a bit since the beginning of the new millennium, but the young Danes (in which I belong) still has one of the highest drinking rates in Europe and had the first place of drinking in many years. It is quite normal for young people to take one or two nights out drinking every weekend.

Personally I don't belong to the stream of people who goes out every weekend. I mostly stay with friend and still drinks soft drinks when we are just visiting each other. If I do drink alcohol with friends in the daytime, it is only for actually tasting the beverage and enjoying a little bit of strong drinks (which doesn't make me drunk, since it is very small amounts). Sometimes I do though go along my friend out drinking in the evenings, but I never drink so much that I get drunk. I do (unlike most people I know about) not like losing control of my movement and mind. I find it rather scary and uncomfortable and I imaging becoming some kind of Mr. Hyde version of myself if I get drunk. I can though find it relaxing to have drunken a little bit of alcohol as it makes me relax with my friends, but I never actually been drunk.

I'm with Orzie here -- I never drink alcohol, not only on principle but also because I just hate how it tastes. Funny thing is that some people I know IRL jokingly say they think I'm drunk all the time from the way I talk, lol.

Not drinking is one of the reasons why I'm not hurrying to get my driver's license -- a non-drinking person with a driver's license instantly becomes the driver at any party, and let's just say driving your drunk and pissed friends to their homes while they are puking all over your car is not very fun.

For me, it's just taste
And well, my family got some problems with alcohol to be frank. This influenced on me as a child, so I even have some problems with drunk people. We have a lot of them in Russia, you know.

Moreover, I'm getting really angry when I'm drunk myself, and I can easily make a lot of stupid things which can later bring me complex problems.

I am sorry to hear that. It is unfortunately common that people evolve alcoholism and with that even worse things tend to follow. When you first get caught the evil circle begins and things often get worse. Some people do tough either seek or receive help to stop their addiction and can often return living normal lives.

I'd never drinked in childhood due to awful smell, lol. So, I'd never tasted it.
Later, after high school, when I get used to it, almost all my friends already gave it up.

My first and only experience was vodka+ephedrine+caffeine, this hellish cocktail was written out by therapist due to flu. Strange feelings.

Lol, nice topic though
In Poland it's very hard to stay abstinent, since alcohol is involved into every meeting from the very
beginnig of secondary school ;P I can understand people who drink a small amount of alcohol such
like beer or wine to feel more "open", but drinking vodka glass by glass ... exactly like girls from
my old class who were already used to do it when they were 16

Even now after 5-6 years of friendship every event contain a moment, when all participants
unsuccessfully try to convince me to drink

I don't like the taste of alcohol, but after all it's not that bad as some suspicious things
that I waseating during my studies,   . However, I still keep far from it, because I'm
unsure if after a few "deeper" I will be still safe for my enviroment

Uhm wrote:

exactly like girls from my old class who were already used to do it when they were 16

Let's hope they were also used to have a snack just after!

Well, as a chemist I can say to you guys that the smell of alcohol is not the worst thing you can experience in your life. I myself sometimes even enjoy the smell of ethyl alcohol (96% solution) as well as many other substances. Yet, one day I smelt a fleece saturated with alcohol (I just had nothing to do for several minutes when I was making an UV-Vis spectral analysis of some my experiment samples) and got into a car accident later on!

Fun is, you can actually drink not only ethyl alcohol, but also all alcohols which have an even number of Carbon atoms in its structure (2 for ethanol a.k.a. ethyl alcohol, 4 for buthanol, etc.). The trouble comes with the compounds which have an uneven number (1 for methanol a.k.a. methyl alcohol, 3 for propyl and iso-propyl alcohols, etc.) - you risk to get blindness and even die soon. Some junkies in Russia figured out that methanol (poison) can be mixed with ethanol (common alcohol) to increase the resulting volume without killing the drinker, so they often drink that gruesome mixture and smell like zombies.

feanor wrote:

vodka+ephedrine+caffeine

Whoa, that's a damn hot thing. I guess you had a good trip just after. A mix of ephedrine (usually cough drops) and caffeine (usually caffeine benzoate) is used by junkies to get high all over the world. That is an even worse case than common consumption of alcohol - I've seen a lot of junkies in my life and that was not very inspiring, to say the least.

It seems that a lot of people here aren't very particular to alcohol, I have to say that, a few years back, I was utterly opposed to it for the same 'what if I were to get drunk' fear. I had seen a friend become terribly sick from too much wine, so I latched onto that to try to view it as the worst possible thing ever.

A friend of mine eventually convinced and I had some wine, which I wound up enjoying. Over the years, I've expanded to other kinds of alcohol, and I'm very happy that I have. It is very relaxing, as long as you drink a little and don't gulp it down.

Unfortunately, a lot of people give alcohol a bad name by going to wild parties , on the weekend, and slugging down packs of beer until they get drunk beyond their senses. I've never gone to one for those very reasons. You can ruin absolutely anything if you use it irresponsibly.

In short, I don't think alcohol is bad in the least. I enjoy sharing a drink among close friends, and I find it to be a relaxing bonding time.