Some Alcohol (Personal) Business I’d Like to Address

Hangover. It’s not a good feeling.

I started drinking when I was very small. My mother let me. She always joked about allowing her children to drink early so that they train a higher alcohol tolerance. These are her exact words: I train my children to drink so they don’t get taken advantage of when they actually go to college.

Though what she said is true — I have major alcohol tolerance and it takes more than just a couple of cocktails to get me drunk.

Drinking with friends is like that instant gratification. You get the alcohol in your system and you are happy for a few hours. But you wake up the next day feeling like your head is throbbing and that it is about to explode like a stretched out balloon. Why do people do this to themselves? I say that it may be peer pressure. When you are out in the clubs and watching your friends get to a certain “level” that allows them to finally open up and dance on the table, you feel like you have to “catch up” to their level. As I swallow the magic pill (i.e. Tylenol) to make these physical pains disappear, I begin to wonder about the practice of drinking. Some people don’t drink, and as my friends would joke: “I’ll never date someone who doesn’t drink”. Does this statement ring true for you? It seems to be true for me as well. To a certain extent, all my friends drink, they may not be excessive drinkers, but they won’t say “no” to ordering a glass of alcohol. Drinking alcohol seems to be a “prerequisite” for every young adult — a door towards socialisation and making friends.

Another reason that I will attribute to excessively drinking is to fill that void that we have inside. As to what kind of void — we all have personal issues that we don’t want to face and simply numb ourselves with drinks. I will share something that is quite personal. I used to drink alone a few years ago. I had beer cans and different types of alcohol in my refrigerator. I can easily reach them for lunch, for dinner, for “better sleep” at night. It didn’t just contribute to hangovers in the morning. It also contributed to several more pounds of weight. Now, I don’t have any alcohol at home. It is something that I have set myself strictly — no drinking alone. No drinking at home.

I did “relapse” one time when I just went through a breakup. I opened the cabinet and took out my dad’s expensive whiskey. Guess what? I downed HALF of the bottle like water and not knowing when I fell asleep, I woke up with a major headache and feeling worse. I do feel like as I get older, I feel like alcohol is more problematic. Of course, I don’t mind enjoying a glass or two outside. But drinking until I black out or get drunk is no longer something that I strive for.