Current Events > Why is alcoholism so rampant and normalized on this board?

(+) Yeah! (+)

As a relapsing alcoholic i legitimately urge you to seek help. I have lost multiple family members to it. This stuff is no joke.

Cheers I'll drink to that bro

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I would argue it's normalized in our culture as well.

In the area I grew up in you were looked at as kinda odd if you didn't get shit faced wasted every other weekend of the year if you were between the ages of 18-26.

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You say anything about taking legal weed it gets modded.

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NoMeLx22x posted...

I would argue it's normalized in our culture as well.

In the area I grew up in you were looked at as kinda odd if you didn't get shit faced wasted every other weekend of the year if you were between the ages of 18-26.

You're absolutely right. Its an unspoken of and unaddressed problem in our society.

Why do you think liquor stores were deemed essential during lockdown? (Because alcohol withdrawl can be deadly)

KiwiTerraRizing posted...

You say anything about taking legal weed it gets modded.

Welcome to Biden's America

(This is a joke post, the US has serious systematic issues regardless of if the blue or red team sits in the chair)

I wouldn't say this board normalizes alcoholism

That being said, I fully accept that I'd probably be classified as a high-functioning alcoholic. I haven't been drunk in a while, but between a lunch drink, an afternoon bourbon or scotch, a couple beers when I get home, and a night cap, I usually have at least five drinks a day, every day, and have been doing that for over a solid decade straight.

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Dude... i mean I'm in the same boat but i at least took breaks when i was younger.

And i mean there's an ongoing/nightly "let's get drunk" social topic here. I'd consider that normalization because it sure as hell aint a support group

I just find getting drunk alone weirrrrd

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refmon posted...

I just find getting drunk alone weirrrrd

This is the weird line people draw like its any less weird to drink socially and feel as though you have to drink and get shitfaced to have fun with friends.

"Yeah i get drunk every weekend to 'loosen up' but at least i do it with other people!"

Our society is very sick in terms of how it approaches alcohol.

It ain't just this board

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Eh, the topics that are focused on drinking are very easy to avoid. I dont know why you would take a stand about it, really.

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JoeThe12th posted...

This is the weird line people draw like its any less weird to drink socially and feel as though you have to drink and get shitfaced to have fun with friends.

It's fun once in a while with friends but the people that do it alone usually do it constantly

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masticatingman posted...

Eh, the topics that are focused on drinking are very easy to avoid. I dont know why you would take a stand about it, really.

Because its a serious disease/issue that shouldn't be taken lightly

Cuz its one of the few thjngs we have in life

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K181 posted...

I wouldn't say this board normalizes alcoholism

It absolutely does, there's an entire "general" thread series dedicated solely to drinking and getting dunk.
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Bio1590 posted...

It absolutely does, there's an entire "general" thread series dedicated solely to drinking and getting dunk.

Yep.

I've been sober for 17 years. It's everywhere. I just mind my own business. On the rare occasion someone expresses a need for help, I'm always here to talk.

Or, you know, drink up. People can do what they want with their lives.

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I've gone all 2020 without driving any alcohol or smoking any weed. Hooray!

vigorm0rtis posted...

I've been sober for 17 years. It's everywhere. I just mind my own business. On the rare occasion someone expresses a need for help, I'm always here to talk.

Or, you know, drink up. People can do what they want with their lives.

Real shit. Respect.

Because is has been normalized in society. Nobody bats an eye when you talk about drinking. Say that you don't drink and people lose their shit and think something must be wrong with you.

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tbh I hide the drinking topics every time a new one opens.

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I got drunk - blackout wasted in spectacularly embarrassing fashion, actually - for the first time a few months shy of my 18th birthday and started binge drinking regularly the following year. I drank for over 13 years and the only reason I finally stopped is because it got so bad that the morning after my last bender, I found myself with a loaded gun and figured what that had to offer me was better than anything else I'd ever find. I don't know how I averted going through with it. I woke up later that day and the gun was put back in the safe, though I don't remember doing that. I reached out for help and found it in a bunch of different places that all added something to my toolbox that has kept me sober for almost 18 months now.

A lot of people don't really practice self-awareness in general, but with something like alcohol that is highly addictive and culturally encouraged, nobody has an incentive to look past the blind spot at their habits until it's too late and there's no denying they have a problem. Then, if they do, there's temptation and triggers everywhere on the path to sobriety.

The saddest part of it around here is that there have been people who openly expressed a desire to cut back or quit but their drinking buddies get ultra defensive, start picking apart anything that people trying to help have to say, and they lose their resolve. It's not an intentional thing but it really showed this crab mentality that I think a lot of drinkers really need, to the point that they subconsciously sabotage their friends. I've been on both sides of that, so I'm not judging but just speaking from experience and knowing it when I see it.

I had to tell all my buddies once and for all that I wouldn't be seeing them for a while. I took a break from parties, camping trips, and all of that while I worked on myself because I wouldn't be able to avoid temptation. I did all of this about 9 months prior to the pandemic and I still haven't seen anyone. It's been 18 months since I've seen my closest friends in person and it will likely be at least the two year mark before I see them again because I have to be supremely diligent about COVID-19 due to immunocompromised people in my family. My friends, fortunately, understood that. I was frank and honest with them about what sobriety means to me and more importantly, what drinking would do to me, and they understood.

To see someone reaching out for help here and openly expressing what drinking was doing to them, then having their friends come in and shit on this method or that method, talk about how important their drinking topics are and how they'd never give up that time spent together... it was heartbreaking and maddening.

I get it, man. I do. I know what it's like to have alcohol being what holds things together, or even being everything. But goddamn, it goes from harmless fun to scarily dangerous shit so fast and people just don't respect that. Hell, I sure didn't. My mom, who was around alcoholics starting very early in life, told me just months before my last drink that it catches up with you and you'll never see it coming. I scoffed and ignored her because I'd been drinking at the same pace for over a decade and it was all good. Never mind that that was untrue, never mind that it was a bad pace even if it had been true. It got so bad, so fast, and I never would've believed it had I not experienced it.

I see a lot of people flirting with disaster and I wish I could make people understand and respect it, but nobody could do that for me so I just have to let them do their thing and hope for the best.

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Thank you for that post. You are so right that people don't realize how bad it is and how bad it can get until it's too late.

I had two beers tonight and already feel kinda wasted ngl

being a lightweight actually isn't a bad thing lol

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Tag
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I never messed with the stuff tbh. As a young lad I often saw my family members get drunk and thought it looked so dumb. Like they barely could control themselves and acted like idiots afterwards, then I learned how it could damage your body and that's when I really didn't want to do anything with that lifestyle. Especially since those same people would always say to me "Don't do drugs, don't smoke cigarettes, they can damage your body" Lol

Idk, alcohol just seemed like bad news to me. Like people say that it makes them have more fun but idk, it feels like there's other ways to have fun. But as long as they're not hurting me, I don't care what other people do.

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I didn't used to drink this much, but this year really changed that in a big big way.

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pres_madagascar posted...

I didn't used to drink this much, but this year really changed that in a big big way.

Its been bad for a lot of us.

JoeThe12th posted...

Thank you for that post. You are so right that people don't realize how bad it is and how bad it can get until it's too late.

Find something better to do with your time.

Imagine bringing back a 15 year old account just to shitpost.
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Posting earnestly about addiction isn't shitposting. What is wrong with you

Ive drank at minimum a liter of liquor and a 6-12 pack of beer virtually every day for at least the past 6 years. Most people are alcoholics because of genetics, so we have a completely different physiological response the first time we try alcohol compared to someone who doesnt have the alcoholism gene.

I know its possible to kick the addiction but for a true alcoholic, telling them not to drink booze is almost like telling them not to eat.

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The worst part about alcohol is the memory lapses. So many events you shared that you have no recollection of that have a permanent impact on the people around you. I regret so many things i can never take back.

You mean rampant and normalized in this world?

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Yeah but i cant affect the whole world

JoeThe12th posted...

Its been bad for a lot of us.

Yeah. I would drink like 1-2 weekends a month, if that. Now it's like, every other day, sometimes many days in a row(like 5).

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JoeThe12th posted...

Posting earnestly about addiction isn't shitposting. What is wrong with you

To be fair, you are talking about virgins and "chads" in another topic...
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You can joke in one instance and be brutally honest in another. I already said I'm a relapsing alcoholic.

I appreciate your concern, but I choose to ignore it anyway.

JoeThe12th posted...

You can joke in one instance and be brutally honest in another. I already said I'm a relapsing alcoholic.

You've already showed yourself to be a liar.

Everything you say is probably bullshit.
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You're just mad because i called out your alcoholism in another topic. Don't be petty, this is a safe space of support.

JoeThe12th posted...

You're just mad because i called out your alcoholism in another topic. Don't be petty, this is a safe space of support.

Like I said, find something better to do with your time.
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because the people on this board participate in a society where alcoholism is rampant and normalized, and frankly, the US is actually way less of an alcoholic culture compared to a lot of other countries.

JoeThe12th posted...

You can joke in one instance and be brutally honest in another. I already said I'm a relapsing alcoholic.

Yeah but shitposting is shitposting and you brought an old account back. Is it unreasonable that he'd be cynical and distrusting of you? I didn't see your call out that you mentioned but if someone took that approach me under the pretense that they were trying to help me, I would walk away from them without so much as a facial expression and would not speak to them again or allow them to contact me. That's just me though. Can't speak for anyone else. Helping people in any context takes finding the right method of approaching them, and if I was helping you to help him, I would tell you that you are not taking hints that your approach is not working. Just an observer's 2 cents.
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JoeThe12th posted...

Dude... i mean I'm in the same boat but i at least took breaks when i was younger.

And i mean there's an ongoing/nightly "let's get drunk" social topic here. I'd consider that normalization because it sure as hell aint a support group

Speaking as someone whos been trying to dramatically cut down on the drinking... just dont go into the topic?

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Bio1590 posted...

It absolutely does, there's an entire "general" thread series dedicated solely to drinking and getting dunk.

Drinking and getting drunk =/= alcoholism.

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The_Creep_2020 posted...

Speaking as someone whos been trying to dramatically cut down on the drinking... just dont go into the topic?

He was being antagonistic as fuck toward acab and another user in another topic. Definitely a cold storage alt thawed out to troll. Unfortunatley he is really putting a damper on people who are genuinely trying to help and share their expereinces. No way he goes for a toxic derailing like this if he showed up to be supportive
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He could be someone who took a long hiatus (I did it myself, truth be told), but low karma alts seems to be dusted off a lot at the moment

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