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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:09:37 PM EDT
I gave it up last summer and never looked back. I didnt have a major issue or anything (like losing the wife, life saving, crashing the car, etc), just felt I drank more than I should, evaluated the entire situation, and decided I didnt need alcohol. My situation came out of one really really bad hangover. Decided I would never feel that way ever again, and figured the only sure fire way of never having it happen was not to drink again.
Sometimes I think a cold one would be great in certain situations, but I havent had one now since August 05. Who else has gone clean, or never even started in the first place? If you are willing to share, what made you stop? Or - why didnt you start in the first place? Every so often I get to thinking I should just have a drink every now and again, and I know in my heart that one here or there wouldnt make a difference in the grand scheme of things...but I also know what happens to me when I did drink, and I dont want to see that life again. What encourages you to stay sober? For me its mostly in knowing that I am able to respond to things 24/7. Never again will I be in a state of mind where I cant deal with this or that because I am loaded. It feels good to know I never need to slow down passing a cop car and wonder if he is going to pull out. Also have saved a ton of cash from not going out any more. Even just in the drinks I would have with dinner when I went out I save at least $15, if not more. All in all, its been the best 6 months of my life. 
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:11:51 PM EDT
[#1]
IBTP
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:13:00 PM EDT
[#2]
me
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:13:02 PM EDT
[#3]
Very little now. Only a beer or wine with dinner.
Drank enough for a lifetime in college. I wish I remembered college, it must have been fun though. 
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:13:08 PM EDT
[#4]
Almost 23 years old........I never started drinking so I never had to stop.
I'm not sure why I never got into it. My older brother and my dad both drink beer regularly but I never liked the taste and the idea of not having control of myself if taken too far Plus, not drinking gives me extra money for ammo 
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:18:21 PM EDT
[#5]
Good for you, Macro.
I personally don't like waking up the next day and feeling like shit. I rather get up and hit the trail outside my house. That said, I did give up drinking for a year back in 2003 while training for an event. I felt great. However, I have a beer or two now and then. I might get back to being alcohol-free someday. |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:21:12 PM EDT
[#6]
Oooops, wrong thread.
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:21:31 PM EDT
[#7]
I average 1-2 beers a day with dinner.
Beyond that, it's very rare for me to get smashed. I may have 12 pack now and then but that's about it. |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:21:44 PM EDT
[#8]
I don't drink. Never started, probably because I was born into an extremely conservative christian church (no alcohol, no drugs, recommend being vegitarian...). I've got a bunch of friends who drink, but I just don't understand how a beverage could be worth spending $5+ for when water is free.
Oh, and I'm 23 and in college. |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:22:00 PM EDT
[#9]
Well I don't really drink at all. Been drunk once in my entire life... Newyears 06'
Other than that Ive never even had a beer. Why don't I do it? for the most part just never saw the point of it all. Watched my brother destroy every pickup that he has ever owned by drunk driving and I decided I enjoyed having a licence. I still go to partys with friends often and normaly I'm the only one sober there. I get a little alienated once and awhile but it really doesn't bother me. I don't look down on people that drink regularly and I find the people watching to be rather entertaining. most of my friends appreciate the fact that someone is there that can handle things that get a little out of control. I driven lots of people home and have had friends call me at 3am for a ride simply because I'm the only person they know that wont be wasted on a saterday night. I will probably drink some in the future but It will never become a regular event for me... I really dont get that much of a thrill from being drunk. For an age refrence I'm 22 |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:26:34 PM EDT
[#10]
Never started, family full of alcoholics, didn't want history to repeat itself again.
Pretty much everyone I know or hang out with drinks, I've never felt the need. Free of all other drugs too. 
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:26:37 PM EDT
[#11]
Im 26 and I have only had half a beer and two glasses of wine in my life. Thats it. Never saw a need to drink. It costs money, prevents me from thinking straight (or it would, never drank enough to find out) and makes it illegal for me to drive. I also do not like the idea of being addicted to something which is why I do not drink coffee or smoke or do drugs. I have never been the kind of person to do things just because others do or because of pressure. I decide to do or not do things based on the positives and negatives. To me, drinking has far to many negatives and hardly any positives. I guess I get it from my parents who never drank although they are not against it. My brother drinks alot but he has always been different from me and more "normal". I assume most people drink to get there mind off of work or other problems in life. For me I find riding my sportbike is far more effective for that type of thing, although it can probably lead to just as many problems as drinking.
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:27:42 PM EDT
[#12]
I am 30-something and never really got into it.
Was never much of a partier too I guess (you might bet). When I was young, I had a big family (9 aunts/uncles) and we lived mostly pretty close to each other. We'd have family parties evvery so often but I very rarely saw any family members drinking--my grandfather would not allow it. He did drink, and allowed his (adult) kids to--just not at family parties when grandkinds were there. And as it happened my mom & dad didn't anyway very much. So when I was little, drinking was something other people did--not anyone in my family. I remember that by the time I was maybe 12 years old, kids would come over and be amazed that my parents had beer/liquer just sitting around. At their house, their parents would lock it up to make sure they wouldn't drink it. The only time I noticed my parents ever drank it was when they had company over. -------- Another thing I remember--my grandfather used to roll his own cigarettes, with these little things that looked kinda like an old-style credit-card machine--but us kids weren't allowed to play with them. It was legal cigarettes--and we could pull out all the other stuff in his desk drawers (he was a general construction contractor later in his life) and draw/write silly stuff on all the blank forms. [I guess he hid the important ones!] But we were not allowed to ever play with the cigarette rolling machines. Of four kids (me, my sister and two cousins), the only one who ended up smoking+drinking was the one cousin whose parents constantly smoked and drank. ....Except at family parties, as long as grandad was alive. After he went, grandmother didn't try to enforce the rule, but I was ten years old by then and didn't notice. ~ |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:28:47 PM EDT
[#13]
None here. I had half a sip of some fancy wine on a vacation a few years back and that's it for me.
I can't get past the smell. . . I'll take a cold Pepsi, please. |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:29:05 PM EDT
[#14]
21 and never tried nor will I ever drink it.
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:29:53 PM EDT
[#15]
 I rarely drink now, too much of a hassle with driving and besides it makes me sleepy now. |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:32:03 PM EDT
[#16]
I do not. Not a drop
I havent done so since November 1999 (and I am 48 now) Never had a problem with it, I just didnt like the effect it had on me dangerous when taken in large doses
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:33:34 PM EDT
[#17]
You'll start seeing people from Utah responding very shortly.
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:38:23 PM EDT
[#18]
Tee-Totaler here, Bourbon, Heroin, Scotch, Meth, Crack, Gin, Vodka...it's all the same to me. I have no use for any of it.
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:40:00 PM EDT
[#19]
Back in '03, I went bowling with my then-girlfriend, her 7 year old son, and some friends from work.
I had 5 beers over at least 5 hours (with food) and decided as a courtesy, I'd let the GF drive even though I was nowhere near drunk. It was my car, BTW. She had barely got out of the parking spot when she backed into another vehicle, and she didn't even drink.  The corner of my back bumper of my car had popped in, but it popped right back out when I moved the car. The scuffs buffed out, so I was lucky.I haven't had a drink since then. I've decided it's better to stay in control and not have to worry about the drinking & driving thing. I was never a big drinker in the first place, so it was no problem to "quit." Scott |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:40:37 PM EDT
[#20]
Not a drinker here.
Drank heavily in my Navy days. More or less drank myself sober one night, decided that was that, haven't had a drink since. That was in 2000. |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:40:40 PM EDT
[#21]
I never have been a big drinker. I'll have a bourbon on the rocks once or twice during the winter months. A Manhattan once in a while when out for dinner. Other than that, nothing else.
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:42:55 PM EDT
[#22]
The only alchohol I consume is in NyQuil when I am sick. Other than that I am a tee-totaler
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:44:42 PM EDT
[#23]
Haven't for a good while now since I've been trying to lose weight. After I get back down to my ideal weight, though, I don't foresee myself drinking that much at all.
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:46:56 PM EDT
[#24]
I haven't drunk much alchohol since college (were I drank too much sometimes).
However, since being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, I haven't drunk anything at all since october 2004.- CD |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:50:58 PM EDT
[#25]
I am in this camp. I tie one on perhaps once a year but not like the college days. Never had a problem with it, just didn't feel like it any more. |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:52:14 PM EDT
[#26]
I drink very little maybe 6 Mike's Hard Lemonades a year. I probably should drink more. They say its good for the heart and I come from a long line of dead before 60 men
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:52:58 PM EDT
[#27]
I've never drank any alcohol. went through college completely sober.
It just never appealed to me (i.e. smell/apperance) kinda like the same reason i've never eaten liver, chitlens, or squid. |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:53:05 PM EDT
[#28]
I'm never drinking again after last night
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Posted: 2/25/2006 2:54:40 PM EDT
[#29]
I don't drink alcohol, I swill it.
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:01:04 PM EDT
[#30]
I don't....
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:01:18 PM EDT
[#31]
i'll go about 6 months at a time without getting drunk - sometimes more. i usually just have one beer every week or two.
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:16:02 PM EDT
[#32]
Whoops. wrong thread Sorry GM |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:17:14 PM EDT
[#33]
+1 |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:17:22 PM EDT
[#34]
me
I decided when I turned 21 in Oct that my money is better spent on Ammo. |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:20:10 PM EDT
[#35]
I haven't had a drop in a couple of months.
I have, at times, been a very heavy drinker. In college I'd drank to the point of memory blackout a few times. Drinking a bottle of wine followed by a 5th of tequila in an evening wasn't uncommon. I've toned it down QUITE A BIT since then. |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:21:23 PM EDT
[#36]
Gave it up years ago as I don't get a buzz - I get a headache instead and who needs that?
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:24:06 PM EDT
[#37]
My reasons. |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:27:08 PM EDT
[#38]
Not a drop in 5 years.
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:29:38 PM EDT
[#39]
My dad died in 1977 while driving drunk. No one else was injured, but he was killed after almost being torn in half by the seat belt after hitting a curb/pole.
Not a drop and I don't hang out with folks who make it a habit, it's just my way. Eric 
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:31:16 PM EDT
[#40]
It'll be 20 years come this July.
But,boy did I drink before then! 
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:36:36 PM EDT
[#41]
I used to be a binge drinker, which invariably led to other forms of mind-numbing ingestibles.
I would go 2-3 weeks without a drink, then seemingly make up for lost time in one night. It would often go like this: 2-3 beers at a bar, maybe some dinner, flirting with the ladies, couple martinis, couple more martinis, phone calls to "friends" in order to part with outrageous sums of cash and watch the sun rise (peeking out of windows). I just decided that I had enough, so this practice ended for me in 1999. Since then, I have been completely clean of every form of intoxicant with only one exception in 6.5+ years (I got excessively drunk while on business trip last year - Coyote Ugly!) |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:37:44 PM EDT
[#42]
I drink about eight to ten ounces of liquor a year - about a bottle every two years or so. Mainly just special days I might have a couple of Margritas.
I quit in the spring of 1989. I found out that drinking doesn't make you any smarter, any funnier, or any richer. The day I quit was following a softball game on the island of Diego Garcia. We were playing league play and were up like 23 to 0 and ended up losing the game ... it was great. Afterwards the team that beat us and my team had a big party and I drank a quart of whiskey pretty much by myself in about an hour. Bad. I walked back to my barracks and tried to lay down ... the room was doing counter-clockwise spins, I was use to clockwise ones. I went outside onto the balcony to get some air in the late night ... I ended up puking a stream 20 feet off the balcony and wrenching my guts out ... and every light in the nearest four or five barracks came on - must have been 300 people out looking around. The marine sentrys were off their post looking around. Ended up that the volcano that Diego Garcia is the top of was rummbling a +7.0 but I was so drunk I couldn't tell. I like to tell the story that I was able to walk the common balcony just fine and all the sober people were bouncing off the rails ... then the earthquake stopped and I was bouncing off the rails and they were able to walk again. I took it as a message. I'm now a Buddhist and we don't drink to excess so saying no is easy enough. I'm the designated driver many times and other times not. |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:41:58 PM EDT
[#43]
Non-drinker here.
Looked in the mirror at a bar one night and saw my dad. Been sober for 15 years. It was hard for the first few years, but now it never crosses my mind. The fact that I have so much going on in my life now compared to before is a good motivator. When I was drinking I always planned everything around being able to drink. If I couldn't drink with it I didn't do it. I had to have the booze with me. It was quite an adjustment. Now with the stepdaughter out of the house I'm really running wild. The gun collection has grown from a single shot shotgun and .22 to three gun safes. 3 4X4s, a boat, a camper, I just learned how to weld with acetelyene. I've just started flying lessons. At this point there is no place for booze to fit into my life.. I'd have to give up too much. |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:42:12 PM EDT
[#44]
Oh yeah. My first long term steady girlfriend who I dated from age 16 to 21 had an alcoholic father and he use to beat his wife and threaten my girlfriend and two brothers with a pistol. He was drunken nearly every moment of the day and would take two thermos' of boiler makers to work. He was the plant's safety officer ... not a good thing.
That was the gunsmithing job I ever did. I took the hammer of that .38 pistol down just enough so that it wouldn't fire anymore. I was always hoping that he would pull it on the cops that he was always threatening. He was a bigot too and one black sergeant came so close to giving him special treatment. ETA: burn in hell Leonard and know that you ruined your life, destroyed your marriage, one of your three kids, and drove the other two kids into bad situatations too. |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:42:14 PM EDT
[#45]
I'm with you BAMA-SHOOTEWR ....ooops! Igueuss I'drank twwwwooo much tonite! Seriously though, If drinking is a problem in your life..... changes are neccesary! NOT IN MY LIFE< THOUGH!!!!!
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:43:54 PM EDT
[#46]
I gave up drinking some 8-9 years ago. There wasn't a catastrophic event that caused me to quit, but one day I recognized that I was headed down that road. Nice to say I learned my lesson the easy way - for once...
I sometimes miss the social aspects, but not enough to change my mind... |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:45:09 PM EDT
[#47]
Never saw the urge, Probably 5 beers total in my life and maybe 10 mixed drinks in last 25yrs.
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:47:36 PM EDT
[#48]
I don't drink anymore.
I don't drink any less, either  Seriously, I can't imagine life without beer, wine, or bourbon/scotch. I think I'd put a bullet in my head if I was told I couldn't imbibe alcohol any more. And for the record, I don't ever drink to excess or get drunk. Just a few a day and no binge drinking. I just love the flavor. |
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:47:41 PM EDT
[#49]
I tried it a few times and just didn't care for it. If it takes an acquired taste, why bother to acquire the taste?
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Posted: 2/25/2006 3:48:14 PM EDT
[#50]
I'm 34 and I drink very very little. I can (literally) go several months without having any alcohol at all. For all practical purposes I don't drink any beer and I keep my liquor/mixed drinks drinking to almost nil. My favorite alcoholic drinks are margaritas but I haven't had one of them since october of last year.
I also had the "benefit" of seeing, first hand, how stupid people can act once they've had one to many. I didn't like what I saw so I learned, fairly early on, that habitual drinkers usually also couldn't hold their alcohol very well and that it would be just a matter of time before they started acting like a complete jerk (or village idiot....or both) with everyone around them. No pun intended but what I saw left a bad taste in my mouth. |
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