This thread and all of it's self-rightousness makes me want to drink.

well if you drink alot, and those of us know who we are, you should add up all the money you spent on vice last month, and if you spend dough on ahem, off the radar vice, then you'd probably be extra shocked at home much dough you wasted. for me, it got too a point where drinking for fun, stopped being fun. i got sick and tired of being hung over and going to work, feeling like crap. can't party like im 25 anymore and my body started telling me so. so did my GF!!

I feel you on that one. When I was in my early 20's, I could drink like a fish till 2am and then go too work at 7am feelin like a champ. I am 30 now and I am sleeping by 10pm and feeling like sh@#t the next day.

Actually I am doing the same thing you are. Today is my last day of drinking. I am going on a 3 month wagon trip from the booze, but right now I am drinking Patron silver on the rocks.lol

SOOO GOOD.

I drink about 4-8 drinks a month (sometimes more, sometimes less) and it works for me. I don't see the point of giving it up completely and forever.

If you're drinking to the point of being hungover entirely for the next day (or even worse things are happening), then just turn it down a notch or two. If you can't do that, then, yes, it maybe time to give it up entirely.

I lost 15 pounds when I quit. Empty calories and mixers add up.

Eating, drinking and humping are among life's greatest joys. I read all the time that alcohol and especially red wine is good for you in moderation, just like fine dining with friends and loved ones.

Two months now for me. I developed plantar fascittis and it wasn't getting completely better. I read alcohol affects nerve realted problems, stopped, and it's much better. Plus I've lost about ten pounds.

Friend and I rode 40 miles in the rain Saturday, then after getting to his place proceeded to get exceeding drunk.

ha. you drinking types and all that jazz.

wise herb enthusiasts cannot relate to such problems.

Where's the line?

I had and still have to deal with the aftermath of alcoholism, not me but a person close to me. It's hell.

It's stupid, on one side you might be tempted to get away from all the **** it creates by drinking too but you're not being any better than the problem itself. So all of that made that I will probably never really enjoy alcohol/drugs so I don't drink/smoke at all.

Plus, when I drink, I still feel like I'm all there just a bit dumber and can't walk straight. Not worth the money if you ask me.

i dont do drugs

I gave up booze 16 years ago.

I am 26 and have never had an alcohic beverage. The stuff is evil.

Couldn't hold liquor when I was young, so I gave up trying... Could never give up red meat. Porterhouse here I come :D.

I've dropped drinking to prep for a double century. It's helped me drop 25 pounds to 138. But I miss my red wine in the evening. Plu, from my blog...

• The best thing about drinking wine is not that it tastes so wonderful. It's not even that it's so relaxing. It's that if you wake up not feeling well, a bit sore and grumpy and with an aching body you can think "Hey, I should have skipped that last glass of fine vino." Now that I've cut wine out of my diet (temporally, as a weight loose measure,) when I wake up hurting the only thing I can think of is "Damn, I'm getting old." I miss the wine.

This.

Thank you.

There are folks out there who have no business imbibing, as it controls their lives.

There are folks out there who could use a beer or two, and need a bit of the spirit to get the exorcism going.

It's all good.
But for those who think it's anointed them with some sort elevated status...
DGAF, I'll be lamenting all the dooche crits I could've won with my super lightweight poo-poo parts whilst drinking at the local dive bar.
Probably not the kind of folks I'd be riding with, anyway. I ride for fun-not ego.

Its ******, but amen to everything else.

^ I get it now... you could also use Dusche

So true. Eating and humping are good for you too, especially with friends and loved ones.

I love a good ale. When I'm training hard, I don't drink much at all - maybe one beer a week. But I've been laid off for several weeks with a bum knee, so have been enjoying a couple glasses a night.

That's impressive. I've never had a cigarette. Cigars a couple of times. I'm just curious..... do you abstain from drugs too?

I have enough trouble dealing with depression without having alcohol make it worse. I don't have alcohol at home, but I will sometimes drink elsewhere. No real drunkenness 30 years. I drank enough at a party and woke up and had no idea how I had gotten there. That and the hangover was enough to convince me that I should put the brakes on.

I switched to smoking crack when I started riding seriously; but it's really hard to keep lit while underway.

I abstain from drugs/alcohol/smoking.

Good for you!

I was somewhere around 30 before I had my first alcoholic beverage, and since then, I rarely drink.

No drugs, no cigarettes either.

I just couldn't see the point of spending money on stuff like that. I'd rather buy bicycle stuff and travel around the world. :D

You've made a choice that works for you, and that's fine. Condemning other's choices in this regard hasn't worked too well (i.e. the Volstead Act)

Moreover, there is a growing body of evidence that consumption of alcohol makes you live longer, so it perhaps it's not so evil.

I was never a heavy consumer of alcohol, I never thought it was necessary to drink to have fun while in undergrad, but then again I wasn't a hardcore partier. The few times where I went nuts I ended up doing something I regretted.

At 22 I already feel like an old man, I enjoy the occasional glass of wine at dinner or formal events, and when I go out I just nurse a single beer for the entire night. My colleagues in law school though seem to drink a lot, and many of the people in the profession are alcoholics too.

I've encountered this sort of judgemental attitude pretty much my whole adult life because I don't drink.

The drinkers presume that because I choose not to drink, I am therefore being "self-righteous".

I don't drink for various reasons. That's my choice. I also choose not to eat sushi, not to eat calamari, and to use milk only occasionally. My avoidance of the first two of those is a personal taste thing ... I'm not overly fond of seafood. My avoidance of milk is a health issue. It doesn't sit well with me.

Are there things you don't like to eat and drink?

The wife and I pretty much quit about a year and a half ago. I say pretty much because we'll still have a beer or a drink if we go out but quit keeping any at home, and since we only go out once or twice or month, we drink very little. I drank 2 (or more) drinks (beer, wine, liquor) virtually every night for 35+ years. Like many people, we had no health or other issues with it but it was just too easy to simply veg in the evenings, and as we got older it got more difficult to maintain weight. So, one day we just said let's quit having it at home, and we did. It had been a long term habit with many associations so I certainly missed it at first and was tempted to pick up a bottle or sixpack, a temptation I did succumb to a handful of times. I can't say quitting made any miraculous differences in our lives or anything. It's still work to maintain weight and we still go about our lives the same way. I will say that after being off it for over a year it's lost it's allure and it isn't as pleasurable and relaxing as it used to be... and I'm no longer tempted to pick up a bottle. What we're saving on drinking we're now putting in our gas tanks.

No, you don't need alcohol to have a good time....but we have much better stories.



Sincerely,

Drunk people

To be clear: He didn't condemn ANYONE, he expressed his feelings about the substance directly. What you imply from it is entirely different.

Also it would, in light of BF misinformation, be appropriate to site your sources when everything I have read over the years says the benefits are independent of the alcohol content and the health benefits exist before it even becomes alcohol... where as the ads that advocate the heath benefits are funded by that particular industry... a conflict of interest in my opinion. Nutritionists (non-sponsored) that I have seen over the years seem to believe that the energy content and the damaging effects to you liver seem to outweigh any long term benefits of the anti-oxidants found in the [wine typically]. Again, not that I care personally, but still I feel the body of evidence is about the size of a single celled extremophile.

Ok, some sources off a very quick search:

"Reviews of research evidence report a strong, consistent relationship between moderate alcohol consumption and reduction in cardiovascular disease in general and coronary artery disease in particular.4 On the basis of its extensive review of research, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) reported that moderate drinkers have the greatest longevity."

Moderate drinkers tend to live longer than those who either abstain or drink heavily.

•The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has found that the lowest death rate from all causes occurs at the level of one to two drinks each day.10
•Drinking alcohol in moderation (1-2 drinks per day for women and 2-4 for men) was found to reduce risk of mortality significantly according to meta-analysis of 34 studies of alcohol and total mortality among 1,015,835 men and women around the world.11
•An exhaustive review of all major heart disease studies found that "Alcohol consumption is related to total mortality in a U-shaped manner, where moderate consumers have a reduced total mortality compared with total non-consumers and heavy consumers."12
•A Harvard study found the risk of death from all causes to be 21% to 28% lower among men who drank alcohol moderately, compared with abstainers.13
•A large-scale study in China found that middle-aged men who drank moderately had a nearly 20% lower overall mortality compared with abstainers.14
•Harvard's Nurses' Health Study of over 85,000 women found reduced mortality among moderate drinkers.15
•A British analysis of 12,000 male physicians found that moderate drinkers had the lowest risk of death from all causes during the 13 year study.16
•A large study of about 88,000 people conducted over a period of ten years found that moderate drinkers were about 27% less likely to die during the period than were either abstainers or heavy drinkers. The superior longevity was largely due to a reduction of such diseases as coronary heart disease, cancer, and respiratory diseases.17
•A twelve year long prospective study of over 200,000 men found that subjects who had consumed alcohol in moderation were less likely to die during that period than those who abstained from alcohol.18
•A study of more than 40,000 people by the Cancer Research Center in Honolulu found that "persons with moderate alcohol intake appear to have a significantly lower risk of dying than nondrinkers."19
•An analysis of the 89,299 men in the Physicians' Health Study over a period of five and one-half years found that those who drink alcohol in moderation tend to live longer than those who either abstain or drink heavily.20
•An Italian study of 1,536 men aged 45-65 found that about two years of life were gained by moderate drinkers (1-4 drinks per day) in comparison with occasional and heavy drinkers.21
•A study of 2,487 adults aged 70-79 years, who were followed for an average period of over five and one-half years, found that all-cause mortality was significantly lower in light to moderate drinkers than in abstainers or occasional drinkers (those who drank less than one drink per week).22
•A large prospective study found that older men consuming up to about three drinks per day and older women consuming over one drink per day had a dramatically lower risk of dying than did non-drinkers.23
•A large study found that moderate drinkers, even after controlling for or adjusting for numerous factors, maintain their high longevity or life survival advantage over alcohol abstainers.24
•A Danish study of about 12,000 men and women over a period of 20 years found that abstaining from moderate alcohol consumption is a health and longevity risk factor. Choosing not to drink alcohol increases the risk of illness, disease and death.25
•A 14-year study of nearly 3,000 residents of an Australian community found that abstainers were twice as likely to enter a nursing home as people who were moderate drinkers. Drinkers also spent less time in hospitals and were less likely to die during the period of the study.26
•A prospective study of middle-aged Chinese men found that the consumption of two drinks per day was associated with a 19% reduction in mortality risk. This protective effect was not restricted to a specific type of alcoholic drink.27
•Alcohol prevents more deaths than its abuse causes in the United Kingdom, according to research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.28
•Scientists at the University of London concluded that light and moderate drinking saves more lives in England and Wales than are lost through the abuse of alcohol. If everyone abstained from alcohol, death rates would be significantly higher.29
•The Cancer Council of New South Wales concludes that "If the net effect of total alcohol consumption on Australian society is considered, there is a net saving of lives due to the protective effect of low levels of consumption on cardiovascular disease

http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/AlcoholAndHealth.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/026207_wi...cy_health.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...817988696.html

http://english.pravda.ru/science/tec...645-alcohol-0/

http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/AlcoholAndHealth.html