Do all you beer swillers and whisky sippers ever have alcohol-free days? One of my best mates here has a week off the grog once a year. My Mum used to pester the old man to have a monthly grog-free day (which he complied with about three or four times a year). Some people I know are just weekend drinkers.
I’m currently into my driest spell since the summer of 96; gone 5 days without so much as a sniff or lick of the stuff.
Just curious.
Sure. I also have potato-free days, skim-milk free days and newspaper-free days. I don’t really think about it - I just let things come naturally…
If you have to think about cutting down, maybe cutting down isn’t enough…
Alcohol-free days are very easy – just do as I do. I find that if I drink myself into a stupor, its difficult to even contemplate a drop the following day, so I get about three booze-free days per week. 
I suppose its good for the liver to give it a break ocasionally.
Using the same principle it must be worth giving the lungs a break from the air pollution by not breathing for a day or so.
My principle is that a break from alcohol does not make you live
longer it just makes it seem longer.
Sure… but I don’t plan to have them… they just happen, once in a while. If the bar serves only A-B Budweiser or some other swill, I order a Coca-Cola.
Someone once told me that if you lay off the swallie for 48 hours that your internal bits have time to cleanse themselves. I try (often fail) to not drink for two straight days each week, usually Mon & Tues, and i think i feel better for it.
M
If you have trouble not drinking for even a day, there might be a problem.
aataiwan.atfreeweb.com/english.htm
I’m not saying there is.
Sandman,
Thanks for the Irish Zen philosophy “Drink more to drink less.”
And Richard, your link might be useful for other posters. No names, but I’d say anyone who smokes, drinks, and averages more than three posts a day on Forumosa would be a prime candidate for an AA session.
[quote=“almas john”]Sandman,
Thanks for the Irish Zen philosophy “Drink more to drink less.”
And Richard, your link might be useful for other posters. No names, but I’d say anyone who smokes, drinks, and averages more than three posts a day on Forumosa would be a prime candidate for an AA session.[/quote]
Hello, my name’s Alleycat, and I’m an alcoholic.
How many days have you been post free? Oops, looks like you already relapsed 
Well, I made 6 nights! Good enough. Now I’m back on the “happy water” (as it is called by the Karen people of Thailand/Burma). Feel like a man let out of prison who gets to shag Cindy Crawford. She’s not bad.
Tigerman, I respect your taste with respects to the amber fluid. I love Belgium beers, too. But you can afford them. A lot of the people I know, like me ol’ man, can only afford the cheapest booze available. If given a choice between a half-dozen award-winning Belgiums and a barrel of swill, the old Almas would be going for the swill. I’m not having a go at you. Just saying you are lucky to be able to be so discerning and that people don’t always choose swill because they are ignorant.
Rock on.
That’s only because I don’t spend my money on non-essentials… I don’t have a car or scooter… I walk or take a taxi. I almost never buy any clothes… and I never buy any item of clothing that is a name brand… and I only buy stuff on sale… but usually, I just wait until my brother or borther-in-law give me their old clothes.
I know what you’re saying. Here’s my deal… I am a beer snob… not a people snob. My snobbery is directed at the beer and the makers of the same… not the person drinking it.
[quote=“almas john”]
Tigerman, I respect your taste with respects to the amber fluid. I love Belgium beers, too. But you can afford them.[/quote]
But the Belgians are a better deal for your alcoholic dollar.
I can drink four Belgians and get pissed to the wind for $600 to $800 depending on the cost at the establishment. That’s cheaper than six to eight cape cods at Q Bar for the same drunk and twice the cost.
Or if you figure that many Belgians are 10% alcohol, compared to a Heinekin at only 4% alc and only $50 less, it’s a better value.
But I only get sotted once a month these days and drink wine or beer no more than about once or twice a week now. I find that it affects me more and more the older I get and hangovers are highly unpleasant. I suffer like Sandman.
Also, I primarily buy directly from Geert… at a substantial discount compared to what you pay in a pub for the brews.
Yes, I do patronize some of the places that sell Geert’s beers… but I have several cases of different beer in my home at all times.
[quote=“tigerman”]Also, I primarily buy directly from Geert… at a substantial discount compared to what you pay in a pub for the brews.
Yes, I do patronize some of the places that sell Geert’s beers… but I have several cases of different beer in my home at all times.[/quote]
You make those cases sound like emergency equipment: first aid kits, fire blankets, flashlights, etc…
I try to go two nights a week without drinking alcohol, but it’s darned difficult where I live… three convenience stores within spitting distances, all with cabinets full of cold beer, whispering “it’s a warm evening, you’ve been working hard, drink me, driiiiiink meeee…”
In Japan I used the beer vending machines a lot. Never seen them here.
The first ever vending machines invented were for beer apparently. Where? In railway stations in Germany of course (just before WW1 I think). Not cans though. You had to use one of the wooden cups there.
Brian
The first ever vending machines invented were for beer apparently. Where? In railway stations in Germany of course (just before WW1 I think). Not cans though. You had to use one of the wooden cups there.
Brian[/quote]
Really? Fascinating!
In Japan I saw a beer vending machine in a temple, more than once I think.
Japan beer vending machines are a great way to get rid of all that loose change before you leave Japan. I was with some folks, and on our last day we went on a tour up to a volcano on a tour bus provided by the company we were visiting. I loaded up in the hotel vending machine and we sat off. It was a great bus ride and it definitely added to the volcano experience. Can’t say it did much for my reputation as the town drunk though.
Last January I was curious if my drinking was a “want to” or “need to” thing, so I got on the wagon for an entire month. It was a good month, didn’t have any desire to drink and it wasn’t something I had to force myself to stick to. After about a month I started drinking again and have been since. At that time I had a keg of beer on tap in the house at all times so it was always available. Sometimes I go dry for a couple of days just to see what it feels like.
I think the thing you really need to watch out for is binge drinking. I am really trying to cut back and to eliminate it on the weekends because I end up sleeping all day Saturday and Sunday and then getting up in time to go out to party again. Gets old after a while and you start to feel like you are living a strange version of “Grounds Hog Day,” except I am a drunken Bill Murray, and the only way the day will end is when the ground hog and I stay home and drink tea instead of going on a wild drinking binge and driving off a cliff with a van full of pyscho xiaojies and betelnut beauties.
I had a group of foreign friends in Kaohsiung and sometimes we would nervously laugh about our drinking habits, and basically it came down to 5-6 beers a day was healthy, otherwise we wouldn’t all be drinking like this. Guess part of it comes from being in a foreign country and the stresses involved, but in the US I drank alot, but never tied it to feeling better. It was something I did with my friends and roommates as more of a social thing. Sometimes here it is too easy to tie the drinking to feeling better, or coping. Alone I really don’t drink, and that is probably my personal “canary in the mine” for my drinking behaviour. Once I sit at home and get in a stupor every night by myself I will get on a plane and go somewhere for a nice long reality check.
I only drink on days with a vowel in the name.
I feel sorry for people that don’t drink - when they get up in the morning that’s as good as they’re gonna feel all day.
(Classic Rat Pack jokes.)
Hotala
They say that drinks will shrivel my liver
and also wreck my looks
But My hero is Dino Martin
I like Foster Books
Loudon Wainwright III - “Drinks Before Dinner and Wine with Dinner and After Dinner Drinks”