Alcoholism has ripped up parts of my family to, although my immediate family handles it OK for the most part.

I got most of my drinking out of the way freshman year of high school. From there I tapered off and mostly just smoked weed. By college I hardly ever drank. It's nice in small doses to release your inhibitions, especially in new social settings, but there is other ways to help with that.

I was a bartender for the first 10 years of my adult life and have seen all manner of monkeys sipping the liquid courage. There is definately a spectrum of tolerance, some can handle the sauce to no end, others are caught in its swee tendrils of false promises.
I think knowing ones limit, like all things, is key.
I have witnessed countless beautiful souls drink themselves into stupor, and pull themselves out only to find their way down that well trodden path once again.
I take issue with the cultural sanctioning of this poison (in Australia), binding the wound with the bandaid of taxation while other substances have their taboo sustained by the uninformed polity.
Red wine is one of the most amazing things ever created though

I personally hate alcohol. I don't like the way it affects me. I feel less myself, and stupid.

It makes me lose my voice a little, and I get a wicked hangover. I don't understand why people drink alcohol. To me it's obvious that it leads people away from truth. I can see how, even in the connections that are made, the connections are based on something unsustainable, hence the awkward interactions later.

I just met/hung out with a guy who was kind of all about alcohol (as well psychedelics) to get over his last girlfriend. He was jocular, but I could tell that he had closed his heart, with the help of alcohol.

I prefer low dose mushrooms or cacti for enhancing social interaction. Or cannabis. Why kill brain cells?

I bet wine has contributed to some of the most moving art, poetry and music ever made.

I'm not into alcohol. I know too many people which consider others a junkie because they use cannabis while they get drunk almost every weekend, and this attitude sicks me.
And I'm nor a cannabis user.
Of course it's not alcohol, it's their ignorance the problem.
I also don't like alcohol itself as a substance, I get drunk a few times in the past and I find its effects too much a form of escapism.

A beer with lunch/dinner is cool. Wines good too. Nothing I can go overboard with anymore; never was a big drinker to begin with. I find one beer or a glass of wine is excellent mind lubricant; excellent verbal facilitation ime.

This sign sums it up nicely



The fact that it is legal and stupifying ... a nice way to dumb culture down, then speed them up with coffee... it sure breeds geniuses!

I disagree. We don"t have loaded guns to our heads forcing us to drink alcohol and be dummies.

With alcohol i think that it very much depends on how you use it. Like any other drug.

Ludwig van Beethoven, Charles Dickens, Vincent van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway, Shane MacGowan, Pablo Picasso, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Lord Byron, Orson Welles, Lyndsay Lohan, Charles Bukowski, Edgar Alan Poe, Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac, F Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Hunter s Thompson, Dorothy Parker, Richard Burton. The list goes on.


Some of the above may have had problems for which they self medicated with alcohol but they were still at the top of their game.

I agree.
As many of you here I've been one of those who claims "Alcohol is the worst drug ever!" but I actually believe that there are the proper healthy ways to use it (many scientific studies say that a moderate use extends life... and even Tesla claimed it!) and even alcohol abuse had a good influence on art in the end.

By the way, if the point is "breed geniuses", then of course I think that, despite the influence it had, alcohol is not a useful tool. It just, as an expirience, gave some inspiration.

I am truly shocked at some of these responses...

There is nothing wrong with having a beer or glass of wine. (Or anything else you want to put in your body for that matter. I speak from a sense of responsible use and moderation.)

Alcohol, like any other drug, exposes what is already inside of the person consuming it.

"Alcohol, like any other drug, exposes what is already inside of the person consuming it."

Within reason, I think there is truth in that.

Where I live that is essentially the situation. That is, if you want a social life.

When people find out I don't drink they don't want to socialize with me. "Oh, you don't want to socialize with those people anyway if they can't have fun without alcohol." You know how many times I've been told that? And how it's total BS? You can go to a party and not drink alcohol. You can hate being around drunk people. But you can't do both. And when you're completely surrounded by people who feel the need to drink at every social gathering, you're pretty screwed.

People have gone out of their way to ostracize me simply because I won't drink and I find it very unpleasant to be around. I've had countless people tell me I'm arrogant or even try to physically fight me because they think I have something against them because I won't drink a beer.

It's embedded deep in the culture where I live and there's no escaping it.

i enjoy occasional wine. i'm young (19) but i don't usually drink to get drunk (more for flavor and for slight tipsyness). i find that alcohol is boring on it's own but when mixed with certain other substances (cannabis, LSA, hops, other acohol soluble substances).

i really don't like getting super drunk, just one or two glasses of wine or some hard cider/lemonade, egg nog (i LOVE nog!). the harder the alcohol the less likely i am to be interested. hard alcohol is just too hard...

There is truth in that. This is a quote by a neurologist.

"Alcohol magnifies preexisting social tendencies. Aggressive people will become more aggressive, passive people will become more inhibited."

Who said this? I am one of those passive people and I have never been more inhibited after drinking.

That image

Ontopic: I don't like the way it affects me. More often than not, dysphoria and depersonalization. Dumbs me down. Inflates the ego while also somewhat paradoxically increasing impulsiveness.

I'll drink socially sometimes, only with people I'm comfortable with.. for all other (social) occasions, being sober is more than enough.

^^ "tyranny ftw" Love it! Lol

I used to be a bit of a drinker (to the point of stupidity, much as I hate to admit), but in the past couple years I've really taken a break from it. I might have two or three beers a month these days. While I appreciate the social nature of imbibing alcohol for the purpose of intoxication, I've found that without it my mind has been freed to find a higher level of spiritual enlightenment. 5 years ago, if someone told me they could talk to earth spirits I would have called them an idiot, or a hippy or a tree hugger, but these days I find myself communing with ancient spirits and loving every minute of it.

The lesson being: alcohol is a shit drug legal only because it helps powerful people forget the horrible things they do while the spice is criminal because it might open those same peoples minds to compassion and humanity

Yes! True! But when you wake up you need a few hours to be able to speak, let alone communicate. This is because alcohol makes you social for a while. That's the trick. For a while. Every time you go through a hangover you might as well be learning how to speak again. Coincidence?

I think alcohol takes a toll which might just be greater than all others which is why we are all drinking it.


Another example. Why do some people who stop drinking alcohol feel more comfortable drinking 0.0% near drinkers and soda in other social situations with the same people?
Because it tricks the alcoholics into being nicer subconsciously? It's a shareable addiction? It makes you less nice? Would anyone have tested such a thing about our beautiful substance which we all so much love and cherish, that even on this forum it has defenses? Perhaps why alcoholics are notorious for their great parenting? All kids need is love, perhaps kids "nowadays" scream because everyone is alcoholic?


Alcohol doesn't gain you anything. It teaches you a trick you already know but without your control. Speaking more freely. The next day this freedom might be a little out of your control.

Stanford University lecturer Prof Robert Sapolsky. In his lectures on Aggression. It's on youtube, if you feel like watching it. There's 4 parts, about 2 hours long each.

Also, there are always exceptions to a rule. The whole passive person becomes inhibited is just a general trend.

Only small quantities of quality beer and wine for me.

When I was younger I used to get drunk pretty often and it was quite common to mix it with other substances (mainly cannabis, but also coke and MDMA). Now I just have 2 or 3 good ales every now and then or more during special occasion. I just love the taste and the light numbness, especially when in company of good friends.

I come from a culture where is common to have a glass of wine with each meal, but I personally dont like this approach cause I cant function properly afterwards. If I drink I like to do it in a specific situation with a specific mindset.

Sex wise I always try to be clean from it, I really find it hard to create a connection with the other person and with my own body.

Nonetheless there is definitely something to this substance, it can bring the mind and the nerves to rest after a long day and it can help connection and bonding. Some huicholes drink at the end of peyote ceremonies and many amazonian and andean indigenous groups use fermented drinks (guarapo, chicha, ...) in communal situations.