I'm not a teetotaller. I've drank the odd pint. I've been drunk exactly twice in my life. Neither time was the least bit fun. So when people ask do I drink, I say no: well, I do, but I can go from one end of the year to the next without touching alcohol and it wouldn't bother me. It's not even the tiniest percentage of importance in my life.

Were you burdened with serious responsibilities early in life?

Also, even though Guinness is the best beer ever and the Irish are wildly serious about their “pints” I also think there’s a lot of depressed old drunks in a typical Irish pub. I’m sure there are exceptions but I imagine that the bar/club culture in the UK and the US is more about the cheap sex thing. Pussy puts the magic in the air.

Bent edge 4lyfe. :bringit:

I myself get hammered like 5 times a month.

Not really. Karen was diagnosed in 2001, and made redundant from her job the next year. That made me, what, 39? Even then, she was generally able to more or less take care of herself up to about maybe 2006. I took redundancy in 2009 and she got a "surge" or had a stroke (doctors are still arguing about it) in 2010, so technically only began REALLY caring for her in a serious way nine years ago. Mind you, from 2010 I had carer help coming in; prior to that I had to dress her, wash her, help her go to the toilet etc. Plus I almost got killed once or twice.

But as to the drink: I just simply was never interested. I never found a drink I enjoyed the taste of (I know you'll say **** that, you drink to get drunk not to enjoy it, but I never got that). Being in an office environment I did feel left out when we went out and everyone got drunk and I was sitting there with my Coke or whatever. Eventually I discovered a beer I liked (Smithwicks) but also realised my maximum was three a night, more like two - I wouldn't get drunk, I'd just fall asleep. I know: boring old Trollheart.

I never liked the pub culture - always felt I was wasting time I could have been using more productively and enjoyably - and yeah, you do get the stupid drunks, the fights, the sniping from women, not to mention beer is expensive here (I think about five or six Euro for a pint? Not sure) so it never attracted me. Also I'm a solitary ****, so don't do well in that sort of environment. I don't drink at home - don't need to, and besides it's true: draught beer is much better than out of bottles and it just isn't the same. So no, it's not really anything to do with my forced circumstances, but I was just never into it.

Would not consider myself a teetotaller, as my scumbag father was (a "Pioneer" as they call it here) and was one of the most insidiously abusive ****s you could come across - violent with a stupid smile and a ****ing whistle - and that couldn't even be blamed on drink, so **** him. Sorry. At least he's finally dead.

I have no idea what this means.

I respect all that Trolls

You do you, bro

It means you're not quite straight edge.

Well I've never slept with a man, so I think I am straight. :p:

I suppose I should also add that, until (and for some time, after) she got sick, Karen was a serious drunk. I mean, we're talking a bottle of red wine a day, every day. Seven days a week. Sometimes two bottles. Anything in the house got drank by her. One Christmas I was pushing around a clinking shopping trolley filled with, at the time, about 200 quid's worth of nothing but drink. Much of it was supposed to be for visitors, but nobody came up, so she drank it all. Whisky, gin, vodka, beer, a full bottle of sherry in one night, my one bottle of Southern Comfort that I had discovered I liked (drowned in red lemonade).

It got so bad that when Christmas came, and our customers would give us booze as presents, and the office divided everything up, I would take nothing, because I knew it would only go down her throat, and the less booze in the house, the better for her. And for me. She was a mean drunk. Terrible.

I think much of that turned me off drink, or at the very least reinforced my dislike of it when I could see firsthand the damage it caused.

You think or you know?

https://media3.giphy.com/media/JlVkLKuxRSvLy/giphy.gif

I guess you can't buy unless you try huh? But I ain't in the market for a man, thanks. :)