Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Naturally moderate

Options
  • 07-07-2009 12:54am
    #1
    Loxosceles
    Closed Accounts Posts: 171 ✭✭


    When I was a kid I was never surrounded by people who were physically drunk. When my parents had a beer once in a blue moon they would split a six pack and that would be pushing it. They would let me have a sip as a kid just to taste it and not feel left out. But I never saw anyone drunk, and drunk people weirded me out as a kid. My mom and I would get totally tipsy while cooking holiday dinner when I was older but that was different.

    Fast forward to adulthood. I'm living in a bohemian community. I see drunks on the street but I only drink socially, I've gotten drunk on a fair few occasions but not regularly- usually it's a twice-a-year sort of thing to get blotto on a special night and then wake up woozy and go back to real life.

    So I'll have a glass of wine or a couple half-pints now and again, but drinking alcohol on a regular basis would actually take an effort for me.

    Living here in Ireland now, I have realised that I need to immediately remind people who ask me if I drink, that I grew up in a naturally moderate culture so for me it's never a choice between excess and teetotalism. I say I can always stop at one drink or maybe two and always have, so being aggresively anti-alcohol or drink dependent is completely alien to me. Here in Ireland of the extremes, it seems that many people assume that if a drink passes your lips, you're a sloppy drunkard, or if you don't drink, you're a retentive religious nut who can't have any fun.

    I'm just saying that if you grow up with sober parents, not surrounded by drunkenness and drunk people on a regular basis, in a fairly productive and reasonable environment where people maintain a set of life goals and personal standards, (and who have fun regularly without any need for alcohol to lubricate the fun part of themselves out of the squeezing bind of inner fears and mental blocks), that moderation is perfectly possible. And if you surround yourself with those things regardless of your upbringing, you are perfectly capable of reasonable moderation yourself.

    lox.


Advertisement