Beaten by a long shot

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2758988/French-actor-Gerard-Depardieu-65-admits-drinking-14-bottles-wine-day-despite-having-quintuple-heart-bypass.html
 
The article touches a good point, something I realized a while ago - how alcohol consumption is glamorized and how people who try and remain sober are often picked upon.
 
I remember a girl at work who once told me how hard it was for her as a severe alcoholic - maybe even more because she was a young lady in her 20s. People didn't take her seriously and would pressure her to come have a drink w/ them after work, they wouldn't believe that she really was an alcoholic. But as she told me - last time she had had a drink, it ended up being a 3 day drinking binge...
 
That's when I started noticing just how much BS people spewed about alcohol in our office - and everywhere. Mostly it was all talk and posturing, by people who lived a very boring life but wanted to come out as rebellious and cool. They'd have 3 beers w/ their colleagues after work on friday and maintain that illusion. The most important wasn't to actually drink those few consumption but to start talking about it days ahead, just to make sure that no one forgets that you're in the cool kids club.
 
Of course, it's all bravado. We're still a very immature species...
 
Me, I have my own love/hate relationship with alcohol, with generations of alcoholics on both sides. I consider myself lucky to have that sense of danger inside me which has kept me on the right path despite my strong potential for abuse. I've always felt like I had to be able to make music and write, that this was my life and that I could't let anything interfere with that. Funnily enough, my wife is exactly the same - singing quite probably saved her life. 
 
Anyway, I can't imagine how terrible Depardieu must feel, even just physically. 14 bottles PLUS Vodka and beer and all? Poor liver! At this point I'm guessing that that's why he can't quit - being sober would probably kill him, he needs the stuff to numb him.

Wow - that looks like an awesome place that you had! :) 
 
I worked in a bar for years - it was a pretty unorthodox establishment where the staff was regularly as drunk or even more imbibed than the customers. We lived in that place, often passing out on this long seats after-hours... I "worked" 5 or 6 nights a week but most of us were there 7 nights a week, and there was always one of us in a good enough shape to get the others drinking.
 
But when I finally left, I went on for months w/o drinking or feeling like it. As I said, the minute I can focus on my music or writing, it becomes the priority. At one point, getting some beer in me was the only way I knew to force me to take a break, because both things are absolutely incompatible.
 
Though a bit of wine can be a good thing, I'm actually quite sure that there are other ways to get those same benefits. I think some people are dead set on proclaiming the virtues of alcohol - funnily enough, it's often the people with the least healthy lifestyle.
 
Me I start from the principle that alcohol is piss and that if you really want to get overly anal about your health, you shouldn't drink it. But life would be boring, wouldn't it?
 
Which is why, once a week or so, I indulge. Life w/o Guinness just isn't as sweet (and it's hard to get really drunk on that stuff). :)
 
The weird part is that I'm not a social drinker (which my wife was worried about at first, but then, I'm not a social anything). I just dig sitting in the studio, listening to music, watching videos, shopping for equipment and having a few cold ones. 
 
 

I'm also lucky in that alcohol has never been a big attraction for me. In fact I never really liked it. I don't like the taste of alcoholic drinks to be honest. And I hate being drunk, it seems to affect me differently to most people. It gives me severe insomnia and I lie awake all night feeling crappy. Now the old green stuff...well that's a different story, if someone passes me a hit of that then I will always take it no matter what the circumstances, and if I have any of the stuff at home then I will always partake of it in the evening. I can't not. Which is why I said goodbye to it a few years ago - I hate the feeling of being tied to anything. And that stoned haze feeling is so nice, it just enhances everything for me...music, sex, reading, doing the dishes, you name it. Very dangerous. So now I just leave everything alone and I think I feel a lot better for it. Couple of special occasions a year and that's it. 

 
Binge drinking is getting out of hand. Social media doesn't help. Facebook has become a vehicle for cute memes and puns which validate everyone's alcoholism. Almost every female Facebook friend of mine is posting things like this 4 or 5 times per day now:
 

 
And they ARE drinking because they're posting photos of them doing it. It's like everyone's lives have become so crappy that all they want to do in the evening is drink themselves into oblivion (and post nostalgic YouTube videos on Facebook)
 
I've noticed this cult has spread to the little sandwich board advertisements outside of pubs these days....have you noticed they all have "witty" little jokes on them which make light of the current booze epidemic? They're all the same too, like crappy flow-charts both paths of which lead to "Get Drunk" and so on. Here's an example, I see this same thing all over New York and it's getting so boring: 
 

 
 

sharke
I'm also lucky in that alcohol has never been a big attraction for me. In fact I never really liked it. I don't like the taste of alcoholic drinks to be honest. And I hate being drunk, it seems to affect me differently to most people. It gives me severe insomnia and I lie awake all night feeling crappy. Now the old green stuff...well that's a different story, if someone passes me a hit of that then I will always take it no matter what the circumstances, and if I have any of the stuff at home then I will always partake of it in the evening. I can't not. Which is why I said goodbye to it a few years ago - I hate the feeling of being tied to anything. And that stoned haze feeling is so nice, it just enhances everything for me...music, sex, reading, doing the dishes, you name it. Very dangerous. So now I just leave everything alone and I think I feel a lot better for it. Couple of special occasions a year and that's it. 

 
Binge drinking is getting out of hand. Social media doesn't help. Facebook has become a vehicle for cute memes and puns which validate everyone's alcoholism. Almost every female Facebook friend of mine is posting things like this 4 or 5 times per day now:
 

 
And they ARE drinking because they're posting photos of them doing it. It's like everyone's lives have become so crappy that all they want to do in the evening is drink themselves into oblivion (and post nostalgic YouTube videos on Facebook)
 
I've noticed this cult has spread to the little sandwich board advertisements outside of pubs these days....have you noticed they all have "witty" little jokes on them which make light of the current booze epidemic? They're all the same too, like crappy flow-charts both paths of which lead to "Get Drunk" and so on. Here's an example, I see this same thing all over New York and it's getting so boring: 
 

 
 

That's EXACTLY what I meant!

yorolpal
I've had a martini at about 6pm and then (almost always) three glasses of vino during the rest of the evening daily for the last thirty years and I still feel great.

Course, I AM going for a liver ultrasound tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

Best of luck for that! 
 
If genetics are in it for anything, my liver should resist even a nuclear catastrophe. My dad... I'm sure he's held together by nicotine and alcohol, in a Keith Richards sort of way. He's undead.
 
My grandfather was quite an alcoholic but, unlike my old man, always a true gentleman and real fun to be around... First thing I remember about him is that he'd jumped at sea to save a drowning coworker. Not the first time it happened, either. 
 
He managed to save the guy. But he himself was then thrown against the rocks by the raging sea. Broken bones, contusions, pneumonia, etc. The doctor were sure he wouldn't pull through it. But he did.
 
And for as long as he lived, it seems that the doctors were always issuing those same dreadful warnings - he always seems to only have a few months left. But he lived - and he cursed life because he hated being ill or wounded. I remember him staring at the cemetery through our window and cursing because God just wouldn't come get him... I loved that big old man.
 
He passed away when I was in my mid 20s.

Not so long water could kill you and drink was the only sane choice.  
 
Definitely a generational thing, the older you are the more likely you were exposed to a Don Draper type and you end up living that way.  
 
The younger you are the more likely your role models are pot smokers or straight edge.
 
JR
 

I've played with a few musicians who couldn't stay sober.  Not fun. I did work with a drummer who could drink and hold it fairly well. But the problem was, he couldn't say no. Started drinking beer early in the day, and would drink all day long, and then into the night. At last break in the show, he'd buy a 6 pack to go. And drink all 6 on the drive home.  Easily a case or two a day drinker.  He avoided the "hard stuff" and used that as his excuse to say he wasn't an alcoholic. 
 
As I type this, he's currently in the custody of the NC dept of corrections for more DUI offenses. He hasn't had a license to drive in 20+ years but that doesn't stop him. The one that landed him in the DOC this last time was a "beer run" with no license in him mom's car while DUI.
 
Many of the others are dead, or have quit and stayed sober knowing they can't touch it ever again. The bass player in the same band..... with that drummer, was an alcoholic. I chided him one time about not taking a shot of Jack with me. He calmly explained to me what I didn't know.... that he was an alcoholic and a bad one. He couldn't touch it and he knew it. I never pressured him again. He was a mountain dew man. He's dead now.... dropped dead in a store.
 
So many sad stories along this line....and for the most part, many of these folks are or were very highly talented.
 
Me?  I never had a problem with drinking. Pulled my fair share of knee crawling in the day.... but never used it for a crutch.  As I got older, I simply set new priorities in my life and alcohol wasn't on the list. Back in the traveling band days, I'd partake in the motels and at home. Driving while under the influence was something I avoided. At shows, I used to drink one or two before the show. When NC lowered the impaired threshold, I stopped drinking totally while in the clubs.
 
Now days, I drink the occasional home brew when I know I'm not going out later. Grilling a steak almost "requires" a brew..... handy for pulling out the flare ups in the grill.... I haven't had a taste of whiskey in years....and I have a bottle of Crown in the cabinet..... just have no real desire to drink these days.
 
Like I said, I have changed my priorities around a bit.