When Is Alcohol A Problem?

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1) Do you drink alcohol more than once a week?

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Sometimes, but not usually.For me, "alcohol" usually means "wine with dinner, as an important flavor element of the meal."On the other hand, I have been known, when at a party or away on a trip, to have a cocktail or two if invited to a swank bar. I have also been on a week-long food tour in Portugal where I didn't have to drive and drank more wine in a week than I had in the previous several years.I also really enjoy hard ciders and some beers and will have one or two when out with friends and occasionally have picked up a case or a six pack to have at home. I have a whole shelf full of liquers, brandy, rum, vodka and other spirits that I use in baking and cooking, but I never drink them in shots or anything like that.But the "drunk" part of alcohol isn't anywhere near as important to me as the taste of the drinks. In fact, if Star Trek's "synthehol" was invented, that would be cool with me.I have only drunk alcohol to "get drunk" a couple times in my life, when I was young. I have never had a hangover, never been so drunk that I lost memory or got sick.

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2) Have you ever had a problem with alcohol consumption? (As told to you by others, if not admitted by yourself)

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No.

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3) When Is Alcohol a problem? What lines have to be crossed before a drinking habit affects an individuals or a families lives?

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If one drives when intoxicated, it is a problem.If alcohol is being frequently used as a drug to avoid dealing with problems or pain.If alcohol affects the user in a negative way, as in, "She's a really mean drunk."Basically, if someone is under the influence of any drug all the time, other people aren't really interacting with the real person. Edited by nator, : No reason given.

Just a couple of servings of alcohol renders a person (especially females) not in complete control of their faculties.Judgement is impaired, motor coordination is negatively affected, and inhibitions are lowered.It takes an hour for a person to metabolize a single serving of alcohol, so if you drink at a rate faster than one drink an hour, you are going to be impaired.

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impaired, fine. but not completely irrepsonsible.

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I never said "completely" irresponsible.

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motor skills and inhibitions do not change your personality

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but alcohol does change one's personality. Some people more than others, true, but that's kind of what having lower inhibitions and impaired judgement is, isn't it? A change in one's personality?

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and part of being a responsible person is understanding how your judgement is affected so that one is still capable of being a reasonable person despite intoxication.

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LOL!Look, anybody who thinks that they can decide, when sober, to maintain their good judgement and normal restraint after they have been drinking is just fooling themselves.

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usually, the only part of my judgement that is affected is whether i should have another drink or not.

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That's what they all say.

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this is an average. my ability to focus my eyes properly goes with the first sip.

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That's not possible, since it takes a little while for the alcohol to build up in your system.

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i generally don't lose much more than that.

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Again, you don't really know that since you are self-evaluationg.

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but then i have poor motor skills as is. and the whole idea that women hold less is due to the average body weight being lower and nothing more.

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That's not true either.Women on average have more fat and less water in their bodies than men, and since ethanol is water-soluable, women tend to reach a higher blood alcohol level than men if they drink the same amount.

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but then my tolerance is higher than boys twice my weight.

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That can happen becasue of the fat to water ratio thing, and also, if you drink a lot, you have geared up your liver to metabolize alcohol faster. Of course, people who drink a lot for years also tend to wear out their livers...

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i've never once done anything i wouldn't have done sober. i make my mistakes when i'm "in control of my faculties."

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If true, lucky you.That would make you somewhat of a medical marvel, actually.

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also, notice the difference between my statements and yours. you're discussing how little it may take to be affected. i'm discussing how much it would take to have an excuse for being a dumb cunt.

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Another difference I'm noticing in our statements is your reliance on self-reporting, when you were drunk, no less.

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i wasn't talking about complete control.

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Neither was I.

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i was talking about how much alcohol it takes to have an excuse for being completely irresponsible.

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I was never talking about being "completely" irresponsible.I was talking about impaired judgement and lowered inhibitions leading to less responsible behavior.It is a variable scale. Once can do some stupid, irresponsible shit when drinking that they might not have done, or done that much or in that way or at that time or done that loud, or whatever, if they hadn't been drinking. Doing that stuff doesn't mean they are "completely" irresponsible.Even a modest amount of alcohol can impair judgement. That's just a fact.

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responsibility doesn't require control.

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Of course it does.That's why we don't hold little children responsible for their own actions in the same way we hold adults responsible; children haven't learned to control themselves yet.We don't blame the screaming toddler in the theater, we blame the parents.

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but then maybe i've never really been drunk, if it requires that you completely lose your capacity to reason.

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I never said that any amount of alcohol causes a person to completely lose their capacity to reason, and this is the second time you have misrepresented what I have been saying.I don't know who's position you think you are countering, but it certainly isn't mine.I'll repeat what I said above:I was never talking about being "completely" irresponsible.I was talking about impaired judgement and lowered inhibitions leading to less responsible behavior.It is a variable scale. Once can do some stupid, irresponsible shit when drinking that they might not have done, or done that much or in that way or at that time or done that loud, or whatever, if they hadn't been drinking. Doing that stuff doesn't mean they are "completely" irresponsible.Even a modest amount of alcohol can impair judgement. That's just a fact.Remember, the reason I ever replied to you was this statement of yours:

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many irresponsible people have blamed it on their lapses in effort, and sure a few get so drunk that they really are no longer in control of their faculties, but that's a select few.

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My point all along is that alcohol, if you drink at a rate faster than the body can metabolize it, renders all people "no longer in control of their faculties", to a greater or lesser degree depending upon many factors.All people, not just a "select few".AbE: Do you want me to post the brain scan pictures to show the impairment?Edited by nator, : No reason given.Edited by nator, : No reason given.

OK, so maybe I misunderstood what you were trying to say. What I thought you were saying is that only a "select few" were affected by alcohol such that they lost any control of their faculties.I think we agree that this is not the case. It is simply not physiologically possible.

Yes, it is because you are Irish.When I lived in England for three months, the culture of alcohol consumption was very much more prevalent than I ever grew up with.Getting pissed seemed to be what people simply did. All the time. Like a hobby or something.Binge drinking and making a fool out of oneself, and being hung over and dehydrated 5 days out of 7 just seems like a big waste of time to me.