I think anyone drinking daily has a problem, and anyone doing more than 3 drinks once a week or more (bingeing) also a problem.

I do like a cocktail on the weekend, usually do about 3 per week, and take 2 months off completely each year. It does seem to affect me but not much & I really don’t want to be obsessive about health, just overall healthy. As long as I wake up feeling good I figure it’s ok.

When I see movies and people are in situations so dangerous, they need their wits about them, and they show these people drinking, I always think that is the last thing I would want right then.

Why do so many people in here think you have to get drunk every time you drink alcohol? You can stop at one. There are some studies suggesting a glass of wine might have health benefits. You could also just eat a handful of grapes.

I drink almost every night, one or two beers, often leave the second unfinished. Sometimes if I run out of beer I’ll go a few days without drinking because I’m too lazy to walk across the street and buy more.

I like the taste of beer, so many styles, so many flavor combos. What am I supposed to drink at night? I drink water all day. I don’t like soda, or tea, or milk. What am I supposed to drink with my burger? Soda? Pizza and tea? I don’t really like being drunk and hate hangovers. Has no effect on my work.

Why does there have to be alternatives? Don’t want to drink? Don’t. Worried about being judged? Fuck em. The people in here on their moral high horse that think if you drink you’re a drunk driving alcoholic, fuck them too. Or if your friend group are staying out at one place, get a Guinness. It’s a dark beer so people assume you’re going to be sipping it and it’s one of the least alcoholic beers you’ll find on tap most places.

Worried about your health? Stay active, get a dog.

I quite like alcohol. In fact I liked it so much I drank my whole lifetimes share, and several other people’s lifetime share, by the time I was 35. Decided it would be greedy to have any more. Better to leave some for the rest of the gang, so I stopped 3 1/2 years ago.

I’m 50 years old.

Most of my life alcohol has just been there and had never been a problem for me. I just drank alcohol when appropriate. As I got older and had kids and a house and responsibilities, having a cocktail in the evening was a nice treat that I felt like I deserved. Still no problem. To me I had a normal relationship with alcohol.

Then I started on a GLP-1 med a few years ago. And I stopped wanting alcohol. Was I an alcoholic all that time? I really don’t know. I definitely looked forward to that evening cocktail…was I addicted to drinking alcohol? I just didn’t see it that way and assumed I had complete control. But now I question it.

Im 37 and drink nearly daily since Trump returned to office. Its my insurance policy to not stay alive that long since people in my family live to late 80s.

I can’t wait to take my eternal dirt nap and I hate the societal structure we’ve built.

But Ill say if your drinking results in causing pain to others, that is not okay. There has to be a stopping point so you don’t black out and cant recall what youve said or done.

I think I only ever emptied a glass of alcohol once and that was a cocktail with more fruit than alcohol. I absolutely hate the taste of alcohol. And I don’t like the effect either. I’ve obviously never been fully drunk, but the mild effects were unpleasant enough for me to not want more.

I don’t care when others drink but I hate the culture around it. In certain circles you get comments for not drinking alcohol. I don’t like how normalized it is and I also don’t like the hypocracy in certain circles: you get comments for having soda in the house because only drinking water is healthy but the same people will call you a goody two shoes and tell you to live a little when you don’t order alcohol on a night out.

I also don’t like the questioning. If I order the second soda or juice at a night out, some people will ask if I don’t drink, why I don’t drink etc. Thats so annoying, I don’t question why they didn’t order a burger or a coffee.

I think people that aren’t just trying it out and that drink even one drink in a setting more than once a week are alcoholics to varying degrees. I don’t condemn them, but I do think that at that point, the alcohol is a habit, and you are addicted and therefore an alcoholic. Not a raging alcoholic, not a helpless alcoholic, but you have proven yourself able to be, and are, addicted to alcohol and at that point need to be VERY careful.

Also, alcohol is basically just bad for you, fully. Do whatever you want, maybe I’ll join you happily occasionally, but this is the fact of the situation.

I used to drink and smoke weed daily. The combination of a few beers and lots of weed would numb my brain and take the edge off reality. I did this every single day for years on end, during which time the amount of both drugs crept up on me. When I lost a friend to suicide, the brakes came of entirely and no more fucks were given. I drank before and during work several days a week, and even more after work. Binge drinking also became more frequent. The last time I drank I got completely fucked up, blacked out, lost half my things, ended up with a court date for threatening to punch two ticket inspectors and a broken nose (unrelated to the incident with the ticket inspectors).

That’s when I decided things had to change and I made the decision to quit and I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since. My life improved drastically, practically over night, from that decision and improved further when I quit weed a few years later. I went from being miserable alone in front of the computer every night wasting my life getting drunk and high to a married man who will be a dad in a few months.

The moral of the story? I guess that drinking is fine until it isn’t and you don’t know if you’ll be one of the ones where it’s not until it happens. I really didn’t drink that much at first and it was already a big problem before my friend died, so it wasn’t that that caused it. I would recommend everyone who drinks any amount of alcohol to regularly evaluate the reasons they are drinking and if their habits are becoming problematic. But even then the hard part isn’t realising you have a problem, it’s actually finding the will do change that’s hard.

Drank most weekends in my twenties. Not so much now. My wife and I take years to go through a bottle of booze.

It’s tough trying to decide which reply to post this under so I guess at the top….

I do enjoy drinking occasionally, and I also drink much less than I used to. I admit to unhealthy binge drinking in my early 20s. Now, I essentially never have enough to get impaired, so that’s good. I do also respect my brain and want to take care of it. Also as I get older, alcohol is just less appealing and the hangover is harder to deal with. I’ll have a couple drinks every few weeks

I’m actually tempted to try to drink more often. It helps me socially and helps reduce stress, so why shouldn’t I have a drink or two every weekend. I do know alcohol is a sneaky bitch though, so would never actually try to drink more

And of course when I mentioned this to a buddy, I found out he had gotten up to 2/day by following that logic. Yikes

I think that occasional social drinking is probably a good thing for society. It encourages people to socialize, open up and trust each other. Yeah you low-key are poisoning yourself, but your liver can handle a couple drinks a week. Id say I average about 1-2 drinks a week, and as such I have like no alcohol tolerance. The upside of which is that im a pretty big guy and I can get pleasantly buzzed off a single drink on an empty stomach.

The first time I had alcohol I hated it. The feeling, kinda like what you said, that my brains processing power has gotten throttled down. But once I learned to relax, its actually quite pleasant. I dont judge anyone for not wanting to drink, though, it’s not for everyone. But if youre gonna alter your mental state with drugs I think its a decent choice. There are safer drugs, like cannabis probably, but I think in today’s world alcohol is more the energy that society needs. I dont think that its a coincidence that the decline in alcohol consumption among young people is closely correlated with an increase in loneliness.

Alcohol is a sneaky bitch.
I used to drink only on the weekends, and I was never the guy who drank the most, or got wasted every week. I was the sensible one in the group.
My limit was 4 beers when I did get drunk, but a lot of the time I was the designated driver and had no problem having fun and dancing sober.
Then in university, Thursdays were the inofficial start of the weekend with the most parties, since a lot of people left town Friday till Sunday.
I didn’t, and in that town no one needed to drive, so now I was partying and drinking 3 nights a week.
Then came the daily beer to wind down in the evening. And over the next 10 years, gradually, this evening beer turned into 2, then 3, then 4.
6 on weekends, more if I actually went out.
Scotch also became popular in my circle of friends, and since we all made good money, it wasn’t uncommon to get gifted a 100€ bottle from a trip to Scotland. Which lead to a bit of a wake-up call when those friends visited again a week later to taste some of that really nice Scotch with me, but the bottle was already empty.

You only notice how bad it got once you stop. And then you realize you’ll never have a relaxed attitude towards alcohol again, cause whenever you have one drink, it won’t end till you pass out.

So that part of my life is over, and good riddance. I will not drink today.

I really like it. It enhances nights out, social gatherings, music, and comedy.

It doesn’t affect my work as I only drink if I’m not working the next day. I probably get drunk 2-4 nights a month.

It’s absolutely not for everyone. Some people should never drink.

My biggest issue with it is that it screws up my health due to the empty calories and poor food choices/lack of exercise the next day.

I enjoy some light drinking. It curbs my social anxiety and makes me loquacious and stimulated. Just not to the point of being sloppy, slurred and clumsy.

I don’t drink much but I do smoke weed a lot, and its effects are similar. I’m actually high right now. I think regularly drinking or using weed is fine as long as you’re responsible and don’t do it in a way that interferes with other responsibilities. Do it after you’ve done all your tasks that you need to be sober for. Also, try not to be dependent on it. Learn other ways to cope with daily struggles.