Godless Dave

Or are you using the chemicals to make those tasks less unpleasant and routine? Mowing the lawn and doing the dishes are more fun with a buzz on! But you have a good point, openeyes. If you spend all day getting high and thinking about the cool stuff you're going to do later, but you never do it, you are using too much. IMHO marijuana is both less and more dangerous than alcohol in that respect. Less, because heavy marijuana users tend not to do the destructive, violent things heavy alcohol users do; but more, because it's effects are initially so benign that some people slip into addiction without even realizing it.

HaysooChreesto!

Catching a good beer buzz is great. At the river, at the beach, in Las Vegas, etc. Some of my most pleasurable moments come from sitting in the back yard with gallons of beer I brewed myself at my disposal while playing with my daughter who will be 4 years old on Sunday. She even likes to try and help me make my "beerd" as she calls it.

From my patio, I can see the television and watch football while my daughter plays outside in her little pool. I have a round cooler that I place my 5 gallon keg in.The empty space is filled with ice.
My wife has left me in charge to watch The Lamma while she goes to the store for something.

"Now keep an eye on the baby in the backyard. You can't be inside wathcing football if she's going to be outside." That's fine with me. So I get my keg setup together and head out ack with the naked child. I fill her little plastic pool with water and floaty toys and she's happy as a clam. Then I sit in my patio chair under an umbrella and keep an eye on the game and her while I'm sucking down my home made beerd.
During this time I may call a bookie to place a wager on a game I like. Life is good.

Then the wife comes home. She's frazzled and irritated and wants help with the shopping bags. "Are you already drinking? To which I just kind of look at her stupidly. "At least your watching the baby-OHMYGOD! Have you been watching her, she has a piece of dog shit in her hands!" So I then turn around and surely enough the child now has in her hands a piece of dog shit which she didn't just 30 seconds before. "Lamma, don't pick up dog poop", I tell her. In short order the offending fece is dropped but the damage is done.
The wife is looking at me like I'm a drunken Albert Fish, and before I can move she's got the hose out along with a towel and some of my iodophor solution that I keep outside and is furiously scrubbing away remnants of dried dog doo-doo from the child's hand like it were leprosy.

I handle it all in good humor though. I kind of have to. Then comes the gattling gun of questions from the wife; Did you put the clothes from the washer in the drier? Did you call your mom about the party next week? Did you fix the towel rack in the bathroom like you said you were going to 3 weeks ago? The only thing good about all these questions is that I get to answer monosyllabically-and that single syllable doesn't rhyme with "mess".

But so what. I've got a good buzz on and a bet on the under in the second half of the Chargers /engals game. That's usually when the wife notices the phone on our patio table. Suddenly she's Sherlock Holmes. "If you didn't call your mom, then why is the phone out here... Did you call the bookie? Last week you gave me shit about spending an extra $50 on groceries and now your betting money?!?!? How much? What game? All these questions come at me before I can register a single answer.
Yeah, I tell her, I called the bookie and bet $100 on the under for the Bengals/Chargers game. It's a good bet and I tell her why. She's having none of it. "Can you call him back and tell him you don't want to bet?" She knows better than this but she's got a head of steam built up from our 13 year old daughter who can be a raging smart ass and I'm going to either take this shit with a dopey smile on my face or there's going to be a fight.
So in mid question, I turn back to my keg, grab the tap, fill my 1 litre specially designated beer glass...
In short order, my wife grabs a bottle of wine which I refer to as her "hooch" and we sit and drink outside together and talk things over and then head inside where we both root like hell for both teams to not score any points.

Littleguy, I don't suppose you've ever experienced anything like the events of above. You can't because you're too young. I find it unfortunate that before gaining any knowledge of a certain thing that you vow (without much chance of success mind you) to never experience it the way so many others do in a positive way.

DarkBronzePlant

Alrighty, this topic has already been beaten to death. But I will just add my two, probably redundant, cents in.

I don't get the smoking thing either, so no answers there.

As for drinking, well for starters, some alcohol does, actually taste good. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that your tastes change as you grow older. I mean, I still like soda, for example, but only once in awhile; mostly, it's a bit to sweet for me. Whereas when I was a kid, hell, I couldn't get enough!

I like things with a bit more bitterness mixed in. Well, maybe bitter isn't quite the right word, but things that aren't so sweet. That's one reason why I love a good red wine. Yes, I like the taste. And if wine only came in non-alcoholic form, I'd still drink it.

It's like this: imagine drinking a soda. Now typically the sip itself tastes good, but often the aftertaste is not so good. Now, imagine if the sip itself was good, but that aftertaste was friggin' fantastic. That's how it is with wine. (see figure 1) Plus, with a good meal, it's a great compliment. It's certainly not food, but it's also not really a drink (the way ater or milk might be.) Instead, it's something that compliments the food, and makes everything taste better.


Figure 1: Mmmm!

There are other alcoholic drinks that i think taste good as well, especially any mixed drinks with lime in them (yum!) Beer, I don't like so much anymore, except for wheat beers, which seem to taste really good on hot summer days. (see figure 2)


Figure 2: Mmmm!

As for the buzz, I'll admit that once in awhile when I was younger, getting smashed seemed like fun. Now I can't stand it. When I am loopy to the point of not being able to walk or talk properly, it's not fun at all. Given that, a mild alcohol buzz is fun, flat out. Funny things seem funnier, interesting things seem more interesting, and good things seem better.

There are probably people who think that's some kind of a cop out. "Ooh, you're using chemicals to try to enhance your life. That's so wrong!" Well, if that floats your boat, fine. But I honestly see nothing wrong with that. Everyone uses something to nehance life. When I get on a roller coaster, I use adrenaline to enhance life. When I drive fast with my windows & sunroof open down highway 93, I use wind to enhance my life. When I go see a movie, I'm using that to enhance my life. There's no real diff there.

RevDahlia

Smoking is a horrible idea. I regret ever having taken it up and I'm proud to be down to three cigarettes a day.

Drinking, though? It's been said, but drinking in moderation is enjoyable and may be good for you. It's not a matter of EITHER abstaining completely OR going apeshit and doing a dozen jello shots and puking on your date. A drink now and then (particularly a nice dry Gibson) is a fine thing.

Ab_Normal

Thanks muchly. That pretty much aligns with my thinking. (And, yes, I hope I'd be equally polite if we disagreed. )

simian

While I can see moderate social drinking, I never saw the point of drinking to a "buzz" or being drunk. Of course, I am one of those people who dislikes being less than completely in control of his mental faculties. The last time my knee was operated on, I quit taking the pain medication - while it relieved the pain, it made me stupid - unable to do even simple engineering homework problems, let alone anything complex.

Of course, you need to keep in mind that on my mother's side, her father was the first male in his family line to live past the age of 35 - all the others drank themselves to death. Because of that I have tended to be very careful with alcohol.

Simian

DarkBronzePlant

That does seem to be a common thread here. My dad had a minor bout where he was hitting the beers a little too heavily about fifteen years ago, but he got over it and no major damage was done. Aside from that, my family's had no problems with alcohol. Perhaps my actions would be different if it had...

Ensign Morituri

Three a day? It sounds to me like you've quit and just don't know it yet.

EM - ex-smoker (2 years, 8 months, approx).

RevDahlia

Naw. Those three a day are a serious crutch. It'll be awhile before I'm able to quit altogether.. worse luck, considering the price of coffin nails these days.

pariah

I like darker beers (taste great), wine, champagne for the taste. How can you say it tastes bad ? Especially champagne, its so sweet!

Well, as for hard liquor, yeah it doesnt taste too good, but after the first one, it doesnt really matter does it? After the first drink, you wont notice how the second one tastes. And lots of mixed drinks have hard liqour and taste good (too girly though...) like mudslides, daquaries....

Drinking isnt bad for you though...i mean sure brain cells die but how many would have died anyway? wine is healthy for the grape skins, although beer is kind of fattening...=/ did you stop eating brownies too?

You really should screw the whole not drinking thing. No offense, but its fucking stupid to condemn something you havent ever tried (not counting the one cup of champagne...maybe it was a bad year or somefing). (edit: i may have come off condenscending here...well you should at least try a bunch of different drinks before you dismiss it all...if you do, then i have zero problem with your choice not to drink) As long as you dont become an alcoholic, theres no problem.

As for smoking, I don't smoke, but its like a small high whenever you smoke a cigarette. Sounds good to me.

Why do people drink/smoke? B/C they enjoy it, its fun, its social (namely drinking, not so much cigarettes, but cigars among men is very social)