Product of our environments

I like a glass of wine or an ice cold beer at the end of the day. It helps me unwind and relax. But, years of binge drinking has somehow made it difficult for me to just have one when in a social environment.

This past weekend, we visited friends in DC. We had an incredible time hanging out with people we don't get to see often in order to celebrate a friend's birthday and to just enjoy summer in DC. Of course, we had a few drinks along the way. I did not actually get tipsy at on any given occasion, but I also never just had one beer. At one point on Saturday night, we were playing drinking games and I realized, during an incredibly rousing game of Taboo, that I had drank three beers and had successfully made myself dehydrated, bloated and sleepy all at the the same time. I then wished I had passed on the calories, carbonation and alcohol so as to keep my mind keener for what had turned into the most trash-talk filled board game night in recent memory.

One friend is about to wrap up his time in DC and leave for a fellowship in India. I said something about my general discomfort over seemingly drinking for no reason and asked him what he would do about drinking during his year in a dry part of the country. He responded that he will just give up drinking and probably wouldn't pick it up when he got back because "we are all just a product of our environment." I thought about that convo the whole way back to Philly, after having three Coronas at the waterfront, and realized I need to make a change in my drinking culture.

In college, we started as novice drinkers and drank for courage, to fit in, to lower our inhibitions, and probably because that's just what you do in college. My friends and I all drank, but I wouldn't say we were the biggest drinkers. Two of us shared a fake id, so we had easier access to the bars and definitely took advantage of that one or two nights a week, but I don't know if we ever really drank 5 nights a week like some of our college counterparts. But, we did definitely drink to feel it and I don't think I ever had one or two beer nights in college on purpose.

In grad school, we drank because grad school SUCKED and cut us off from the other non-grad students in our lives. I think we also drank to escape the constant stress and realization that the real world was only a few years and a couple hundred thousand dollars of debt away. Again, I don't think we ever drank more than once or a twice a week and I was certainly too poor to have a glass of wine in the evenings. I stuck to cheap draft beer on special at the various "bar reviews" set up by the law school and drank to feel it every time!

In the working world, I think a lot of my peers brought the binge-drinking-as-therapy coping mechanism to the law firms as there was certainly a great deal of binge drinking in the early years. And, like college, we were thrust into new environments, looking to make friends and meet people, so we reverted back to how we handled that the last time: the liquid courage and escape a six pack/handle/bottle of wine always seems to promise at the beginning of the night, even though it usually only delivers hangovers, embarrassment and one-time-when-I-was-drunk stories the next day.

But now, I think we drink because that's just what we know how to do. I don't think any of my friends have a substance abuse problem (though there are a few who are super bad drunks and probably should never drink again, some may include me in this group), but I do think we all have a drinking problem in that we don't know how to just have a drink and to enjoy the alcohol. And I think Robin is right, we are all just products of our environment. I never put much stock in all the talk that Americans are irresponsible drinkers because we don't learn how to drink earlier and pick up binge drinking from our culture. I spent enough time in other countries to see that binge drinking is part of youth culture throughout the Western world. But, I do think my alcohol consumption is definitely a learned habit, brought about after years of participating in a binge drinking culture. While I think I enjoyed the drinking culture immensely, I may be reaching a point in my life, especially because of my health, where I need re-evaluate intense consumption. I no longer drink liquor (oh, how I miss margaritas) and the amount of beer or wine one needs to drink after years of binge drinking to continue to reach the "perfect buzz" is often staggering in terms of calories, cost and the sheer time it takes to drink that much. I am also happier now, which may eliminate the need to drink at times---though most of my friends seem pretty happy to me and I wonder if they would still be if they didn't drink. Generally, I wonder when, if ever, we will outgrow it and just be able to a have a drink or two because we enjoy it and not because its a means to a drunken end of the night. I am going to try to cut back, as soon as Chet's birthday week and wedding season and our anniversary pass of course. . .oh, wait . . .