alcoholics are pathetic.
weak kneed parasites. The biggest scam is society calling Alcoholism a disease. no one is born a drunk. It is acquired.
share
How right you are. These people opt to drink and/or continue drinking. It is not a disease, but a lack of self-discipline. The drunkards love that alcoholism is known as a "disease," because that gives them an out if they choose to continue down this path. These folks are weak sisters of society, and shouldn't be coddled but looked down upon and avoided.
right on.
shareRather than reply to this with the angry and pathetic rant I am tempted to, I will instead reply calmly, all the while holding in the back of my mind that your statements may be ironic ones. While it is true that if an alcoholic had never touched the first drink the alcoholism would not exist, I have no doubt that once the alcohol is used and abused, the alcoholic suffers from a physical illness. And it is a physical illness usually caused by mental anguish or even mental illness. Think of the scene in the hotel where Don overhears Helen's parents speaking doubtfully of him. The fact that this paralyzes him with fear shows a deeply sad man terrified at the thought of rejection. Yes, he is pathetic, but not in the insulting way you mean. Put yourself in his shoes. Try a little empathy. Think of what it would be like to be paralyzed by the fear of failure and rejection and then ask yourself: "Would I try to escape that fear with a coping mechanism? Alcohol? Shopping? Sex?"
sharemy advice to drunks: stop drinking, get a job and get a life. Society has become one big enabler for the lushes of the world.
share[deleted]
You know hownos most people with gainful employment have better things to do than gush poorly punctuated rants about drunks onto the IMDB website at 11:45 on a Wednesday. And just about anyone with a full social calendar isn't posting about "The Young and the Restless" on Friday evening. In fact most people with said employment or social life don't watch "The Young and the Restless." Know what think I'll go have another beer; very good for insomnia.
shareIn all the time since my first drink I have never regretted my actions while under the influence, even some of the more degrading and malevolent ones. If a man cannot act without circumscription & truly learn something about themselves, then the fault lies within them and not in the bottle.
By the same token, if a man acts without the restraints placed upon all of us by regular society and finds himself to be a monster, it is understandable that he will hide from himself and blame all but not his own nature.
For all the evils that are said to come from alcohol not one of them looks to human nature as the well they are all drawn from.
Men may see alcohol as the cause of all their worries, but they are merely blaming the looking-glass.
Me, I'm a drunk. Clear differences between being a drunk and being an alcoholic.
An alcoholic believes they are hunted by alcohol, they believe it makes them a victim. It makes them a way they don't want to be. They decide to stop, but they cant. They decide to change, but they cant. They decide that if they stop the flow of alcohol thier problems will go away. But these decisions will always fail because there is a weakness that they are refusing to acknowledge, they are instead focusing on one element of their problem - and hey I don't blame them. If I was in their situation I'd blame the thing that seemed to make things worse too. I've been in that position before. Alcohol makes you more you than you can normally deal with, but does that mean there's a problem with the alcohol or you?
A Drunk, is someone who has faced this situation and triumphed. Hell, they may not have even had to face it in the first place because that’s just the type of person they are, but for the rest of us who have; we looked at ourselves in the lowest place and way we could be, we looked at our lives and what we'd done, we looked at our loved ones and what we'd done to them, we looked to our future to see where we were going and we accepted that it was only us that had been responsible, there was something there that needed changing, needed fixing, and we fixed it. This is the story of how an alcoholic becomes a regular person. A regular person can drink and get drunk as often as they want. Hence, the happy person who drinks and enjoys the virtues of alcohol, having triumphed over himself is a "Drunk".
If you define your problems by your drink, then you are lost, a recovered alcoholic is still an alcoholic, its not until they realise what their true problem is and fix it that they can stop fearing alcohol and be their own person. What they decide to do from there is totally up to them.
There are some people that can follow the path of the "recovered alcoholic" and become regular people. Their will is so strong that they can work through all the garbage, if they choose to signify this by cutting out booze altogether then so be it. But a drunk chooses not to cut anything out of his life - we'll keep our booze thankyou, and smile while we drink it too (cause we're happy)
All in all, I'm just tired of people running away from their own problems and pointing the finger at the innocents. Pointing the finger at booze makes about as much sense at pointing at a block of cheese and saying "I did all those things while I was feeling bloated - that’s the devils cheese".
Now, I'm going to go have a drink. All this talk is making me thirsty - Good day to you all.
[deleted]
Zaddict - likkerhead felt the need to post the same post at least twice - classic alkie - justifying themselves - pleaaassseee understand meeeee - good luck, sot. Once you stop loving the stink of your own sorry ass, you may sober up.
Yeah, I got your reply there too. If you didn't get to see my response there, I'll copy it in here for you:
Just cause a man likes to drink doesn't mean you have to enjoy his company, and for a small part, man, I agree, drunks can be a pain in the ass. Everyone has their follies.
So for someone who can exemplify a justified opinion I'm astounded by your lack of understanding - "Typical likker head with all your philosophies and excuses" - Rather than accept one mans opinion and retort with a level-headed argument you have decided to deflect my statements through associating them with a flawed generalisation of a social niche, explaining away the exhibited opinions as typical philosophies and excuses.
The simple fact is that the afore mentioned opinions are mine and mine alone, each formed from observations made during my own experiences with alcohol, the people who drink it & those that don't, the world they each live in and the unjust allocation of social stigma placed upon both by either party.
In terms of the excuses you seem to be hearing, I can only imagine you are hearing what you want to hear. There are no excuses to be made. I am what I am. In my statements I make no reference to explaining myself as a means of excusing my actions, rather, I explain my position regarding the generalised labelling of alcoholics and drunkards including the unjust stigma of enjoying a drink.
To tell the truth, I don’t know how to feel about your response. I was hoping for something a little more refined.
But, I guess, in the end, if you feel like taking pot-shots at those who would rather enjoy themselves freely while you misspell liquor, you are more than entitled to.
Hope you enjoy yourself, cause I sure am.
---
I don't know what happened to you to make you so angry, perhaps a loved one succumbed to their own pain and reverted to alcoholism, hurting you very badly in the process by the sounds. All I can say is that I hope you don’t fall into the same painful trap, albeit in the other direction, discriminating against alcohol and those that drink it where they succumbed to their pain and abused its embrace. Either extreme will only create more pain, more misunderstanding and more heartbreak. Until one or either of you come to terms with your problems, solve them and move on, neither of you will be able to enjoy what life gives, even if it’s a drink. I hope you feel better.
And when they're not drunk (and even when they are) they sally forth with these long philosophical, introspective missives.
Just lay off the sauce.
It's nothing personal, but I have know just enough drunks in my life to now know the type. Good luck.
Hey, that's more like it.
I know it's nothing personal, this whole board is about alcoholics as a collective not a specific individual, and as much as I understand that it's unavoidable for us to refer to groups and collectives when explaining the way we feel about character traits(damn near impossible), whenever we do that we inherently remove the important value of the individual.
When it comes down to it everyone has their own story, they have their own reasons for doing what they do and why they are the way they are, and I can almost guarantee you that if you talk to a bunch of alcoholics you'll find out that they are people with their own problems first, alcoholics second.
I know that I can come on a little strong - very 'pro-booze' - and in a way I kinda am, I really, really, like to drink and I have a whole lotta fun doing it but I also know that booze isn't for everyone, at least not for now.
People who have problems should probably spend more time figuring themselves out than guzzling hooch, because the problem with 'Problems' is that they spread and screw everything up. So no matter what; whatever you did for enjoyment before, it will then have the increased probability of becoming a full-blown abusive vice or addiction. Discipline is a hard thing to follow, particularly when you feel like crap, so most people have the unfortunate tendency of falling into that trap. Its a nasty loop, one problem makes the other worse which in turn makes the original even moreso giving the person even more reason to give up on themselves - "why bother, its too big to solve now"
It’s the person giving up on themselves that provides the terrible destructive behaviour, what we see and tend to focus on is the effect of the tools they use to do it. In this case booze.
Even though I don't take kindly to taking orders, I'm touched by the fact that you would rather see me stop drinking than fall into a trap of hurting myself, I can tell that you are very tired of watching people hurt themselves, I don't like it either, however I don’t think attacking the tool they use will cure why they use it, just as attacking their character while they are at such a low point will not help them become a better person.
So I’m sorry Donofthedial, I will not lay off the sauce, my decision is an informed one and I am a very happy person. If I do end up having any troubles I will solve them, most probably with a drink in my hand, a discerning mind and determination to cure what ails me. I refuse to hurt anyone with my own problems.
I hope that in the future you are able to understand the hows and whys of peoples drinking and know that each person is different; one prejudice cannot possibly cover them all as individuals. To each, their own story, their own reasons, their own choices. If you have to judge them, do it by the context of their lives, trying to avoid stereotypes and generalisations. I can tell you are passionate about wanting people to stop hurting themselves and stop giving up on themselves, but really, you need to meditate over whether the target you are striking is the correct one.
(and dude, I love sallying forth, its one of my favourite past times, I always make sure I get my copy of Sallying Forth Weekly. It comes with this huge complimentary bottle of Vodk……aahhh, now I’m just makin’ fun. You know us drunks! :p )
"Zaddict", you obviously possess a degree of intelligence, and you're a good writer. So was Dylan Thomas.
I believe your quote was...
"drunks can be a pain in the ass. Everyone has their follies."
Yes, 2 of my high school friends were run over and killed by someone who was a similar pain in the ass. It turns out one of his "follies" was driving on a residential street at night, at 50 miles an hour, with his headlights off.
But I'm sure he, just as yourself, took stock in his weaknesses, and came to terms with them.
Enjoy all the bands at "Denial-fest, 2007"!
Some see things that are and ask Why? I dream things that never were and ask, WTF was THAT?
Whoa! Hold up a second there Squidtoad. Yeah, I said drunks can be a pain in the ass, I never said that getting loaded and killing people was cool.
Responsibility is one of those things that people get hazy about when it comes to acting under the influence. “How can I be responsible when I didn’t know what I was doing”?
I think that’s biggest load of crap ever.
When you make the decision to get drunk you are wilfully accepting the fact that your behaviour will be influenced. When you act under this influenced behaviour it is with the previous knowledge that such acts will be influenced respectively.
This guys folly wasn’t drinking and driving, it was being an idiot retard who should have known that getting into your car when you’re loaded is going to get people killed - or even worse – he knew that in the first place and he didn’t care.
If you hurt anyone, at any time, you deserve any and all repercussions for that act, regardless of whether you are under any influence or not. ( and quite frankly I hope that guy who ran your friends down suffers their loss with the greatest and most intimate of spiritual anguish knowing that he has taken life in a moment of self-betrayal that he will never be able to shed. That mark will be with him always.)
Yes, I say that everyone has their follies, by that I mean - EVERYONE - has their follies, not just drunks when they’re drunk. Everyone has the ability to be a pain in the ass; drunks, teachers, priests, the elderly, the young, that guy over there – all of them, every single one. They all have follies out the YingYang. Having follies is fine.
BUT - if a “folly” hurts someone – it’s not a folly, it’s a problem, and like I said, if you’ve got problems – hooching is not for you. You have to achieve being a good person before you can achieve good drinking.
( Denial Fest 2007? WTF was THAT? )
Tell me, Zaddict, just why are you a happy person? Is it the liquor that makes you happy? Or are you happy in spite of it? That's the difference between an alcoholic and a mere social-drinker.
Alcoholics desperately need booze, not just to be happy but to just cope with life. Without it, their entire beings fall to pieces, just as Don's did in the movie. A social-drinker may enjoy a glass of wine or a cocktail, but is perfectly content without it.
From the tone of your posts, it seems to me that you are a genuine alcoholic: one whose whole raison d'etre is getting that next drink.
By the way, there is no such thing as a "happy drunk". Those who claim to be that are just obnoxious and disgusting when under the influence. I wouldn't doubt it if your friends and family claimed that you are like that.
Alcoholic vs. drunk, is a debate of pre-conceived notions. Or of how we fit our definitions of things to justify our perceptions. Maybe most things are like that, come to think of it.
Drinking is a way of life that goes back to a time long before it was classed a "disease" - and as long as there have been proponents of that way of life there have been opponents too. There's propaganda either way to paint pictures of drunks as sloppy and irritating, hard-core sobriety as stick-up-the-butt boring...
But this movie gets you into the mind of someone who is not living in a place where it's okay to be drunk over-frequently - also he's not functional, as the drinking gets in the way of his livelihood.
I can't speak for all obsessions, but everyone I personally have known who centered their life around a single thing has ended up kind of boring me: but then again, drinking is something you can do with one hand, and it's perfectly reasonable to find someone who can also do, or speak or be something else with the other.
Hey there NSurone,
"Just why are you a happy person?"
That is a big question. Very big. Not just as a question posed to me personally, but as a question we all face - "What makes you happy?"
Subconsciously we deal with this one every day. It's a high order query that affects every aspect of our lives. I guess it could be said that our desire to be happy drives us through our lives, start to finish - makes our decisions, tells us where to go, tells us what to do.
Though the question is the same, as individuals our search for what makes us happy will vary from person to person, contributing to this variation; the structures and influences of society & culture.
Now...I'm no big city lawyer, but I've got the idea that essentially, the answer to this question can boil down to one concept - success.
When we achieve - we are happy. The opportunity to achieve exists for as long as we are alive. Succeeding in one area will never fulfil our desire to achieve and as such we are constantly searching for new goals, even though it's just my opinion, I figure man as a species just can't get enough of goals - we're greedy buggers, we'll take on as many as we can handle.
Personally, I'm fond of achieving and like many people I have more than one goal, so I guess (now this is just a guess, I don't expect this to be the rule of law for everyone’s happiness universally) my happiness can be gauged by the mean of the general achievement across my board of goals. As each goal is succeeded - happiness goes up, and as each new goal is taken on board happiness levels-out according to the level of achievement towards the total success for the new goal/s.
My main point here is (I guess) that my personal happiness is not focused around one sole subject of life’s pleasures and/or vices. Booze is not the 'be all and end all' of my life, but I won't deny that it plays a constant and enjoyable role.
I will definitely agree with you that without booze an alcoholics life will indeed fall apart. Believe me, no argument there. You take away the crutch a crippled person uses to support themselves - no matter what form that crutch takes - that person will crumple. It's not pretty.
However, your perception of what constitutes the difference between an alcoholic, a drunk and a social drinker seem to be a little misaligned.
To start with, you have alcoholics pretty much down-pat - they desperately need booze to cope with life - no worries there. Where the problem lies is within these quotes;
-
* That's the difference between an alcoholic and a mere social-drinker / A social-drinker may enjoy a glass of wine or a cocktail, but is perfectly content without it*
* By the way, there is no such thing as a "happy drunk". Those who claim to be that are just obnoxious and disgusting when under the influence*
-
What constitutes a mere social-drinker? How often is a social drink acceptable within the bounds of the mere social-drinker? What level of intoxication is acceptable with in the bounds of the mere social-drinker?
E.G - Here's John, John (for arguments sake) is classified as a social drinker, he will meet with friends and have a drink. He meets with them everyday after work and has one beer. On weekends he may have 6 drinks over the spanse of a Saturday with friends. Johns total for the week is 11 drinks. That's an average of 1.57 drinks per day, everyday for a week, every week for a year. The effect of one beer on John will give him a 'buzz' which he enjoys. The nature of his social interactions whilst drinking with friends is 'happy'
Does the fact that John drinks with friends everyday make him a drunk as opposed to a mere social-drinker?
Does the fact that John drinks more with friends when he's not working that day make him a drunk as opposed to a mere social-drinker?
Does the fact that John enjoys feeling the effects of alcohol whilst with friends make him a drunk as opposed to a mere social-drinker?
What if John had two beers with friends after work instead of one?
When the social-drinker drinks alcohol and feels happy, does that make them obnoxious and disgusting?
You accept the fact that someone can enjoy drinking without being intolerable however at a certain point you perceive them to be obnoxious and disgusting. Does the character of the person come into play with this at all? Both before and after drinking? Is it possible they were obnoxious and disgusting before they started to drink? Is it possible they were like that all along and it took a few drinks for them to display what they’ve been hiding?
Is it the alcohol or their character that is so offensive to you?
Your lines are blurred, however I don’t blame you. These lines have been blurred for a long time by many people, some on purpose, others through misconception. At any rate, all it takes to sort out where things lay and where you stand, is to have a good long think about it. Take in as much as you can, vary your experiences a little and weigh up the truths that the world has shown you and incorporate the fact that in the end – we’re just human.
NSurone, you strike me as someone who much like all of us is on their way to forming their views on why the world is the way it is and why people are the way they are. Its a very long process that takes most of our lives. You are a very focused person, and you have a lot of conviction in your beliefs - however, try not to let those qualities you possess exclude the value of other possibilities adding to your perceptions.
By the way;
*Those who claim to be that are just obnoxious and disgusting when under the influence. I wouldn't doubt it if your friends and family claimed that you are like that*
That’s a very personal and unjustifiable swipe as well as a big assumption - every member of my family and friends are swamped with love from every direction and would trust each other with our lives. I recommend you keep assumptions about other forum members family and friends to yourself, unless you wish to say something positive. Believe me, you will make more friends that way :) No hard feelings.
(Hey Zygimantas, I enjoyed your post )
Sorry it took me so long to answer, Zaddict.
You've written a very long message--perhaps the longest one I have seen on these boards--defending alcohol consumption. Why are you so defensive?
Believe me, I am NOT a teetotaller. I enjoy a drink just as much as you (and John) do, and I confess that there have been times when I've had too much and passed out, although that's always been at home, and I live alone, so at least I didn't say or do anything that I would be ashamed of later.
I, too, like the "buzz" and warm, fuzzy feeling that alcohol can give. But what I'm saying is that I don't NEED it constantly in order to feel good.
You say that your source of happiness is achieving. Just HOW driven are you to achieve and succeed? Is it such a consuming force in your life that you cannot relax without a few under your belt? And when you've achieved one goal, do you immediately set out for another without a breather in between? And what will happen when you've achieved everything and there's nothing left to strive for? Will you sink into an alcoholic haze?
As for some alcohol imbibers being obnoxious and disgusting, well, just look at that video of David Hasselhoff trying to chow down a burger on the beach while drunk. If that's not disgusting, I don't know what is.
You strike me as a very intelligent, educated person, and though I don't know you personally, I would really hate for you to destroy your self with the pressures to "achieve" and their end results: alcoholism, ulcers, high blood pressure, and perhaps early death. A wise man once said, "Slow down and smell the roses." Very sage advice.
P.S. I am sorry if I said anything that offended you. It wasn't my intent.
P.P.S. In case you're wondering, I had an aunt who died too young from the effects of alcohol.