stewie wrote:Being Irish, drinking was introduced to me pretty early, but I didn't really do any truly hardcore binging until I came to the states.
Jesus, I thought English people drank a lot, until I went to Ireland. My mother is Irish and I dread having to go drinking with my cousins when I visit Nothern Ireland at Christmas. At some points in the evening I might have as many as four or five pints on the go at once. There is nothing worse than waking with a chronic hangover and having dried black Guinness crusting corners of your mouth. I don't even like Guinness.
I drink alot less and less frequently than I used to. I also try to drink better a quality of alchohol these days. There was a time when I had penchant for drinking cheap bottles of whisky named things like, Highland Glen, or Highland Chief, or The Commisioner (I even drank a bottle of something called 'Lowland Glen' once).
I also recollect buying a bottle of methylated vodka from a guy on Russian container ship when I worked one Summer as trawlerman in Hull. I went on board the ship and made the internationally understood sign/gesture for drinking and gave him £5. That stuff really sent me and my flatmates round the bend. We realised that it was methylated alcohol after we saw an item on the local news later that summer that featured the same bottle and warned people not to buy the illicit booze.
Another side-effect of drinking in Britain, outside of London, is being beaten sensless by marauding bands of drunks. You could call it drinking aversion therapy. On occasion I have been head-butted, hit with a baseball bat, attacked with nun-chucks, threatened with a knife, held on the ground and beaten by a group of teenagers, held up against a wall and had someone offer to to bite my nose off, hit on the head with a full bottle of Jack Daniels (which didn't break) and had all of the windows of my house smashed out and the front door kicked-in. I have even been chased down the street by a bare-knuckle boxer, who was locally known as Ivan Drago. These events led to me curtailing my drinking somewhat, particularly drinking in city centres. Sitting in casualty at the hospital at three in the morning and talking to a bouncer who has been glassed in the face by a woman in a pub and man who has been stabbed in the head by his dad and then taken a kicking from his brothers can be quite sobering.
Nowadays, I get drunk maybe around once a month and drink moderately otherwise. I have always been able to go for long periods without drinking without any problem. I have lived with maybe three or four alcoholics and can say it is not pretty. Inventing strategies to deal with them can often be exhausting.
P.S. Never ever drink sherry. It is cheap for a reason.
