I'm 50. I began drinking regularly at around 25. Over all these years it's been more or less the same -- a couple vodkas (Skyy most often), or maybe a gin, with an olive or two, before dinner, red wine, or maybe just the third or fourth vodka/gin, or occasionally white wine, with dinner (just "table wine," usually around $10 for a 1.5 liter bottle, for either the red or white), and then a couple more whatever after dinner. In the past year or so, my tolerance has lessened for the after-dinner swigging. Maybe on one or two Saturdays and Sundays per month I'll have 2-4 bloody marys or screwdrivers in the late morning. When I was younger, on some Saturday nights, I would get plastered, particularly when wanting sex.
Most of this time I've lived alone. I drink to alleviate the solitude. To break up the monotony of an unmedicated internal mind that is too much with itself.
I also smoke pot; typically about a joint a day, during the daytime mostly. It's much easier on the system than booze. Although I've only had two breaks from drinking, each a few weeks, I've had numerous pot breaks, some as long as six months. I experimented with hallucinogens and cocaine when I was younger, but they never became part of my life. I'm gay, and from about age 25 to 40, used poppers (amyl nitrate) too much. Prescription drugs, except for a sleeping pill about once a week, are not on the agenda.
I eat well and I exercise. I'm about 15-20 pounds overweight, because of the drinking, I think. Until I hit my mid-to-late 30s, my weight stayed perfect, and I never thought about it. About two years ago I developed rosacea, and my nose is now pretty red. From what I know, drinking doesn't cause it, but it doesn't help it either.
Drinking has never caused any big problems in my life. Never drove anyone way because of drinking; never lost a job because of it.
I've never been able to identify with anything at all about AA. The cultishness, the higher power stuff, the equation of booze with Satan....
I've had a reputation almost all my adult life for being difficult. I nearly got expelled from one graduate program because I couldn't fit in, and have been fired from a number of jobs because of my "attitude."
I'm a horrible underachiever. Was a brain as a kid, and am overloaded with graduate education, but until 2004, never earned more than $40K. Now I write business reports. I go into a small office a mile from my home, and the work is pretty solitary, except for phone calls to people for info about the reports I write. This year I'll probably make about $65K, and my parents will gift me another $10K-$15K. I have no savings to speak of, only what should be a big inheritance from money my parents accumulated in their later years from land mined for natural resources..... if I manage to outlive my mother.
I rent a nice house in a good neighborhood in a large central Florida city. The yard is well-landscaped, and it requires a lot of work to keep it going. I've been here a year, and am just starting a second roommate. It's somewhat for the money, but as much for the companionship. This one, like the first, is a much younger guy. I'll probably buy something in the first half of 2007, but doubtfully this house or one as nice.
I grew up in a smaller Florida city, but have lived everywhere as an adult -- New York, Washington, San Francisco, New Orleans, Caracas, and that's only about half of it. I'm pretty much a green/Marxist/leftist/atheist.
When I was in my 20s and living in New York and working out every day, I had lots of sex with gym guys and models. I did odd jobs there; newsroom assistant, documentary video center administrator, taxi driver, waiter. When I lived in Washington, I worked as a business journalist for 9 years, much of it freelance.
I've always thought that if I found love or a work/political/ artistic passion, I would be so preoccupied that I wouldn't habitually drink. But it hasn't happened. The only time I feel less of a want to drink is when I'm visiting my parents or nephews. I sometimes think, though, I drink because this world is so @#%$ up and dying that it's become impossible for someone like me to find happiness without altering my state of mind.
I know next to nothing about this program. I just found the website yesterday. But I tend to doubt that a pill a day can override 25 years of behavior.
I'm not even sure that I want to stop drinking. The main reasons for it are my weight and the rosacea (my personal beauty). But I have so little hope of meeting another gay man past 40 with whom I could click, and in the past year I've pretty much wound up intercourse with pretty young things. I think something like male menopause has set in, and while in a general sense my attractiveness still matters, I've stopped thinking of being "alluring."
Well, there's pretty much who I am. If anyone would like to share him/herself with me and talk about drinking, here I am.
Most of this time I've lived alone. I drink to alleviate the solitude. To break up the monotony of an unmedicated internal mind that is too much with itself.
I also smoke pot; typically about a joint a day, during the daytime mostly. It's much easier on the system than booze. Although I've only had two breaks from drinking, each a few weeks, I've had numerous pot breaks, some as long as six months. I experimented with hallucinogens and cocaine when I was younger, but they never became part of my life. I'm gay, and from about age 25 to 40, used poppers (amyl nitrate) too much. Prescription drugs, except for a sleeping pill about once a week, are not on the agenda.
I eat well and I exercise. I'm about 15-20 pounds overweight, because of the drinking, I think. Until I hit my mid-to-late 30s, my weight stayed perfect, and I never thought about it. About two years ago I developed rosacea, and my nose is now pretty red. From what I know, drinking doesn't cause it, but it doesn't help it either.
Drinking has never caused any big problems in my life. Never drove anyone way because of drinking; never lost a job because of it.
I've never been able to identify with anything at all about AA. The cultishness, the higher power stuff, the equation of booze with Satan....
I've had a reputation almost all my adult life for being difficult. I nearly got expelled from one graduate program because I couldn't fit in, and have been fired from a number of jobs because of my "attitude."
I'm a horrible underachiever. Was a brain as a kid, and am overloaded with graduate education, but until 2004, never earned more than $40K. Now I write business reports. I go into a small office a mile from my home, and the work is pretty solitary, except for phone calls to people for info about the reports I write. This year I'll probably make about $65K, and my parents will gift me another $10K-$15K. I have no savings to speak of, only what should be a big inheritance from money my parents accumulated in their later years from land mined for natural resources..... if I manage to outlive my mother.
I rent a nice house in a good neighborhood in a large central Florida city. The yard is well-landscaped, and it requires a lot of work to keep it going. I've been here a year, and am just starting a second roommate. It's somewhat for the money, but as much for the companionship. This one, like the first, is a much younger guy. I'll probably buy something in the first half of 2007, but doubtfully this house or one as nice.
I grew up in a smaller Florida city, but have lived everywhere as an adult -- New York, Washington, San Francisco, New Orleans, Caracas, and that's only about half of it. I'm pretty much a green/Marxist/leftist/atheist.
When I was in my 20s and living in New York and working out every day, I had lots of sex with gym guys and models. I did odd jobs there; newsroom assistant, documentary video center administrator, taxi driver, waiter. When I lived in Washington, I worked as a business journalist for 9 years, much of it freelance.
I've always thought that if I found love or a work/political/ artistic passion, I would be so preoccupied that I wouldn't habitually drink. But it hasn't happened. The only time I feel less of a want to drink is when I'm visiting my parents or nephews. I sometimes think, though, I drink because this world is so @#%$ up and dying that it's become impossible for someone like me to find happiness without altering my state of mind.
I know next to nothing about this program. I just found the website yesterday. But I tend to doubt that a pill a day can override 25 years of behavior.
I'm not even sure that I want to stop drinking. The main reasons for it are my weight and the rosacea (my personal beauty). But I have so little hope of meeting another gay man past 40 with whom I could click, and in the past year I've pretty much wound up intercourse with pretty young things. I think something like male menopause has set in, and while in a general sense my attractiveness still matters, I've stopped thinking of being "alluring."
Well, there's pretty much who I am. If anyone would like to share him/herself with me and talk about drinking, here I am.
even though I;ve been here for a bit. We just get to know each other a bit at a time. 
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