The Role of Alcohol in Social Interactions

I was just having this conversation last night with a sober friend.  I just stopped drinking myself about two months ago and have no desire to go back.  But, unlike you, I had a drinking problem and knew it.

No, I never got hammered in public (except this summer at Bloger.  Ugh!) and I rarely ever made a fool of myself.  I can usually hold my liquor quite well.  Pay my bills.  Go to work, etc.  The problem was that I drank every night.  Every single night.  At home.  After my husband went to bed. Or even before.  I wasn't hiding it exactly.  But since he doesn't drink at all, it made me feel a little funny to be toasted around him.  Like we were on different channels and not really communicating.

I couldn't stop drinking at night.  If there was alcohol in the house, I had no choice but to drink it.  It got in the way of the things I wanted to do with my life and my time.  It made me feel ashamed.  It made me feel like a loser.  So I stopped.  Cold turkey.  And honestly, I have no desire to return to that out-of-control place.

But I do wonder how alcohol affects us in social situations.  Do we really interact genuinely with others when our brain is impaired by alcohol or drugs?  Are our conversations genuine?  Do we connect in a way  that is real?  I ask these questions because I feel like I am finally seeing people, and myself, clearly for the first time.  Which is another reason I don't want to go back to numbing out via alcohol.

But we are all different and have different brain chemistries.  So I'd love to know how other people would answer these questions.

Beth Terry: attempting to live plastic-free and blogging the heck out of it at FakePlasticFish.com. Follow her on Twitter.

I've been sober for some four years and you will still find plenty of updates all over my social networks about going to bars or clubbing with friends into the wee hours of the morning. I think the correct response to someone who expresses concern based on nothing but conjecture like this is a warm thank you for their concern. What more can you say, really?

Of course, if the comment affected you enough that you felt compelled to write about it, it's possible you are--however subconsciously--questioning your level of dependence on alcohol, particularly as a social crutch.

This soul-searching is important. It's hard to come up with activities that don't involve alcohol in our worlds--most of us work during the day, after all--but you might want to consider focusing some energy on bonding time with friends involving activities outside the bars and lounges on the weekend like ice skating, antiquing, taking a really touristy tour of the city. Stuff like that.

As for the question "Do you think I'd know I had a problem?" I didn't realize I had a problem until I hit rock bottom--and it was quite a fall to get there. This is why the soul-searching matters. Keep at it.

As for me, alcohol is still in play. As I said, I go to bars and lounges with regularity and club on occasion. Alcohol is something my friends enjoy. They know they're welcome to drink in front of me without judgment or concern that I may be tempted. They know that if they stay at my place, they can bring some to enjoy at my home. They know they can still expect the finest pisco from me whenever I go back to Peru.

But they also know that they must never, ever call me while they're drunk. And that if I should ever find them drunk out of their minds when we're out on the town, that I am not going to hold their hair when they bend before the toilet to puke their souls out.

We make our choices. If they choose to drink to the point of insanity, I will leave them alone to crawl on hands and knees over insanity.

PS--thanks for the link love!

AV Flox is the editor of Sex and the 405--what your newspaper would look like if it had a sex section.

Most of my pictures are from parties, because I'm a people person and what I enjoy about doing things the most is the people that I get to do them with.  Therefore, out of my current 1,002 Facebook pictures, I'm rarely in a picture by myself and if I am, it's because someone else I was socializing with at a party pointed a camera at me.

Here in NYC, when we party, we drink.  Period.  I can't even RECALL going to a party that didn't have either a cash bar, sponsored drinks or BYOB that everyone pitched in on.  Like I can't remember a non alcoholcentric party :)

It's easy for us to get cabs, trains or buses here, so there's no drinking & driving issue.  There's pretty much no reason for us NOT to drink.  I have my drink IN MY HAND in most likely a high percentage of my FB pics.  I decided to roll with it as a sort of running joke and actually bring up drinking any chance I get... like now. :)

People will find out in 2010 that a lot more situations like this are going to happen.  I've already gotten used to people I run into IRL quoting me things from my blog, but it still feels strange every time.  Basically, anything you put out there might get to anyone, and as you've stated, they're going to make up their own conclusions about you and they may or may not tell you about it to your face but rather act upon it as if their opinion is actually truth.

~ Bill
I blog at billcammack.com