Do you drink to get drunk?  Or just because you like the taste of alcohol?  A lot of teetotals I know say that a reason they don’t drink is a matter of taste.  Other people drink, but only a little and rarely to get drunk.  Control is often a big issue.  So is health.  And then there are all the social, ethical and religious issues related to alcohol which affect a person’s decision to drink or not. 

I drink to get drunk.  Or, at least, I drink to achieve a state of mind that goes beyond sobriety, and once I get there I’ll often do all I can to stay there.  When I’m drunk I can dance, I can shout, I can talk to people I don’t know…  I do it for confidence.  I do it to escape from being so agonisingly obsessed with how other people see me every dragging second of sobriety.  But it’s not just a social thing, often I’ll drink wine with close friends or family in a domestic setting and I’m always, always ready for a refill…  The only reason I can muster for that is similar to the previous one – that I’m trying to escape the internalisation of negativity.  (You should have seen the amount of wine/gin my mum and I got through the week after my dad went into hospital last summer!)  Just a few moments of things seeming a little better than they are is worth the hangover. 

I didn’t post with the intention of whinging again!  oops!  I wanted to open a debate about alcohol – if you drink, what are your reasons?  Is there a stigma attached to the admission that one ‘drinks to get drunk’?  What are your reasons for not drinking?