....and I really feel as though this is a good thing.
I'll give you a brief backstory so you can understand how momentous a change this has been in my life. We are going to go back a long way in time at first.
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When I was a teenager I didn't really care for alcohol and didn't understand why other people did. For me, all alcohol tasted gross and I can vividly see interactions in my mind where I was given a beer at a party and then quietly went to a fence in the backyard to dump it out pretending to pee... then I would return to the group and a buddy would notice my beer was empty and give me another one... sheesh
Later, I would turn up at parties with a bottle of vodka, sugar, lemons, and a knife. This way I could make lemon-drops that tasted good and not have to feel left out. Other times I went to parties and just didn't drink alcohol and this came in handy this one time when a party I was at was raided by the police and a lot of the people I knew were jumping out of windows to run away but I calmly just sat there because I hadn't done anything wrong. I was just hanging out in a friend's house playing Nintendo with a buddy and talking to girls and when the cops raided I just went up to the front and they were initially aggressive with me (as cops tend to be) but I said something like "I don't drink, my car is out there and I would like to go".... I don't know if they were legally allowed to breathalyze me but I do know that they seemed legitimately disappointed when the results came back and I was telling the truth. They had to let me go, which I did. I don't think I ever got as much recognition from my parents about that incident as I should have because dozens of my friends ended up in jail and had to go to court because of that incident... but not me! I was home in bed like a good boy.
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Things would change for me later at college though because unlike high school there was a lot of pressure to drink as all social outings revolve around it and getting a girlfriend and making new friends is pretty tough to pull off unless you partake. I wouldn't say that I ever truly enjoyed the taste of alcohol, even to this day, but it is a very ubiquitous aspect of all social gatherings. In college I quickly began to be drinking more days than not and later on in life it became quite rare for me to ever have any days where I didn't drink at least some.
It's funny to me that drinking is something we are so unwilling to categorize as an addiction because we come up with reasons why it is a part of life and the normal social structure because lets be honest folks, in a lot of social circles it definitely IS the centerpiece of gatherings.
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Well if you follow my world at all you know that this "party" of mine carried on pretty strong for the next 30 years or so and I only recently made a very real effort not to quit drinking but to only do it on special occasions such as birthdays, concerts that I actually want to go to, and meetups with friends that I haven't seen in a long time. Other than that, I don't touch the stuff.
Well last night a good friend of mine was returning to Da Nang after 5-6 months away and wanted to know if I wanted to meet up for a few drinks. I reluctantly (legitimately didn't really want to go) agreed and met him at the local pub for a few.
Me and this guy are good friends - the type of person that I can sit with and talk about really anything for a long period of time and next thing I know I was on my 3rd beer. he is one of my sensible friends so I didn't fear that this was going to spiral out of control and it didn't. However, I did find that after my 5th beer that I started to feel drunk and wasn't enjoying myself anymore because the other people at the bar were MUCH more drunk than I was and I think anyone who drinks a bit can attest to how annoying really drunk people are to people that are not at the same level as them. To them it is fun, to me it is more of a "get the fuck away from me" sort of situation.
So thankfully I was very close to my house and because of a thunderstorm my dog was there with me at the bar and I had my excuse to leave. When I got home it became clear to me that I was a lot more drunk than I thought I was at the bar. I thought I was relatively sober because the other at the bar were so much further gone that I was. The room wasn't spinning and I wasn't going to throw up or anything but I felt drunk. I ate some leftovers and watched TV for a bit and then kind of struggled to get to sleep - which I hate having to experience.
5 beers
This is my limit now
That might seem like a lot to some people out there that don't drink but I want you to understand that for me, this used to be an "appetizer" for the night ahead's party. In the past and especially when I was in college this amount of alcohol is how much I would consume before I ever left the house to go meet up with people.
But now, after 3 or 4 months of mostly not drinking at all, I can say that my limit on being able to "stay level" is probably 4, not 5, beers.
And lets think about this honestly ok? Is there anything else that it would be normal to have 5 of to drink? Would you ever go to a starbucks and have 5 lattes? Would you ever go to a dinner and have 5 Coca-colas or 5 glasses of lemonade? No, of course you wouldn't. People would think it is odd if you did do that.
So for me I am still kind of wrapping my head around this new life I have chosen but there is one thing that has made me very happy that I have decided to change my life in this capacity: I don't feel terrible today and didn't sleep all morning long either because I didn't have to. I am not hungover. Also, several people that I have known for years but don't often see anymore came up to me and said that I had lost a lot of weight-- which is true. I have lost around 13 kg and that IS a lot of weight.
So for now I gotta say that being around people that are horrendously drunk doesn't appeal to me anymore. I don't find those people funny. I find them annoying and even a it aggressive. What this means is that I am probably going to have to either find a completely new group of friends or just accept the fact that I am going to spend a lot of time at home alone with my dog and honestly, that is just fine with me.