Most Heavy Drinkers Are Not Alcoholics, According To New Study

Drinking is work,
combined with taking aspirin to get rid of subsequent headache.

Are you serious? I got rid of hangovers 30 years ago. The cure is to only drink top shelf booze. Have you been slumming it at the bar?

I don 't ofen drink much; don 't like its taste; not interested,
as a general rule.

That's pretty much verbatim what a former friend of mine once told me. I'm nowhere near that league. It's still "fun" for me in the sense that it works to put me to sleep. I used to comfort myself by saying that I don't drink to the point of stumbling or slurring my speech, but then I recalled that the former friend who drank from morning to night didn't get that way, either. He could be downright blistered by his own admission, but you'd never know it by his behavior (most of the time).

Is THAT how we define FUN???
Some years ago, I went to DisneyWorld with friends for a few days.
Watching the show from the seats, sleep was brutally forcing its way into my head.
I strove mightily to remain awake. Hopeless. I did not find that to be fun.

For a short period, I was taking a giant green pill against cramps.

When I took that pill, it was LIGHTS OUT, but fun????? I dunno about that.

This is an interesting subject, because the group I travel with most often are drinkers, and you can find most of us at the bar quite often during cruises. Even the travel company owner will usually have a glass of wine in her hand - most of the time. We all drink other stuff too! We travel to Cuba often, and we have their best beer called Bucanero, and we'll most often have wine with dinner. During the day or evenings, we have mojitos, pina coladas, martinis, and other drinks.

As a matter of fact, I'm leaving on the 27th of this month (in 3 days) on my way to San Juan to meet up with our regular travel group to spend a couple of days in San Juan before we go on a wine cruise on Oceania's Insignia, one of our favorite ships with 650 passengers. Our port stops will be at St Barts, Antigua, Saint Lucia, Barbados, and Grenada before we return to San Juan. We're returning home on December 7th, then on December 10th, I'm off again to Spain and Portugal with a retired professor I met on a cruise last year on the Rhine and Mosel.

I don't drink too much when I'm at home, but I do have a bar filled with liquor, and a cooler full of wines.

I read the book, "I'll Cry Tomorrow" written by Lillian Roth, the actress-singer who was an alcoholic, but she did recover after hitting bottom. She made millions, and ended up penniless.

Hence the scare quotes around "fun."

I have a Canadian friend who lived in Italy for a couple of years while getting his art degree. He talks about how even teenagers drink wine with pretty much every meal, including breakfast. That said, this guy has a penchant for exaggeration. I've never been there, so I don't know.

I've been to Italy several times, and I have not personally seen that happen at restaurants. I do know, however, that in France, children are given wine diluted with water.

Apparently those in Munich still sometimes do Weisswurst and beer for breakfast. I took note last year though that brewery workers can no longer drink beer on their lunch breaks.

but not as much as they used to I think

Here in Korea, people working outdoors, like farmers and construction workers, take breaks with something called 막걸리: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makgeolli

It tastes like what I imagine fermented maggot puke would taste like.

alcohol can ruin your life, slowly but surely.

not if u leave it alone

not if you drink in moderation.

This is all I drink.

Not shoju?

Soju is the evening drink. 막걸리 is the daytime one. Clear distinction there.

How is that pronounced in English?

'Makgeolli' @ wikipedia

Here's an example of the difference between an alcoholic and the merely heavy drinker: Both men have a very important job interview coming up. The heavy drinker decides to stay sober for a couple of days preceding the interview because he wants to be hangover-free and his best and most alert. The alcoholic can't imagine facing an interview like that without a couple of stiff shots to bolster his courage first.