“I drink to make other people more interesting.”
― Ernest Hemingway
In the great world of tending bar there is a myriad selection of customers one would encounter; The Social Drinker, The Self Defined Outcast, The Fish Out of Water, and last but never the least, The Freshman. Each level of drinker has its advantages in social circles and also has equal negative repercussions. Most of these classes aren't built from years of drinking, rather are formed through the personality traits they already have developed through their childhood and young adulthood. Only when alcohol is introduced to the equation, we see these great classifications shine through and become polished for all to enjoy.
In the wild, one would typically encounter the common Social Drinker before all others. This class is rampant through the wasteland's strip bar culture in most urban sprawls. They commonly drink with one or more others of their kind, mostly drinking colorful shots made with fruity vodkas. The sightings start as early as 3:00 pm on weekdays when most others are at work. These drinkers are the bartender's best customer most of the time due to there usual 1.00$ tip for each drink they order and rarely make unneeded work for the bar keep; Starting fights, keeping the bar top clean, and mostly, not too loud. However, this classification opens the door for more treacherous foe.
The hardest to engage and even classify is The Self Defined Outcast. The minute they walk into the bar they usually eye up the bar and stay, but only if there is Social Drinkers. The reasoning I presume for this action is due to not wanting to drink alone in a bar, but still drink alone in a corner, or at the end of the bar. With their he...
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...he air with gusto. Everyone in the bar saw it coming and yet the bartender still let it happen.. I would like to call it boredom on the bartender's behalf due to wanting something to stir up the crowd and get the Freshman out the door and make the scene balanced once again.
The next time you walk into a bar and see that all the elements seem to be at balance and the bartender is smiling ear to ear, you'll know that this will be the bar you'll stay at. The Social Drinker came early and set the stage by drinking with the Outcast, making him socially acceptable. The Freshman has already been kicked out for dropping his third beer and The Fish Out Of Water is starting drinking games, all the while, Huey Lewis And The News is blaring from the speakers. A bartender dreams of this perfect balance of Bar goers on a nightly basis and here it is at-last.
Alcohol has always been a part of feminine culture, but it took a dramatic shift in the early 20th century. In the book, Domesticating Drink, Catherine Murdock argues that during this period, women transformed how society drank and eradicated the masculine culture that preceded this shift. Murdock draws from a few different sources to prove her argument, such as: etiquette manuals published after the turn of the century and anecdotes from the time period. She provides many interesting and unique perspectives on how drinking culture evolved, but she shows a clear bias towards “wet” culture and also makes very exaggerated claims that turn her argument into something that is nearly impossible to completely prove.
Scrivo, K. (1998, March 20). Drinking on campus. CQ Researcher, 8, 241-264. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/
Drinking: A Love Story (1996) is a memoir by Caroline Knapp where she shares her experience of gradually becoming an alcoholic. She found drinking to be the most important relationship in her life; she loved how it made her feel, how it coped with her fears and worries. She chronicles some of the effort and self-realization required for recovery from this addiction, but her primary focus is on the charm, seductiveness, and destructiveness that she was able to find in two decades as an alcoholic, hopelessly in love with liquor. Her relationship with alcohol started in early teenage years and progressed through young adulthood, until she finally checked herself into a rehabilitation center at the age of thirty-four.
To illustrate, in The Great Gatsby, alcohol is a social lubricant. For instance Nick Caraway says he has only drank twice. The second time was when Tom invited him to a party at his apartment in New York City, where he has his affairs with his mistress myrtle. Nick drinks to mute out the chatter and gossiping about Gatsby and describes everyone as superficial and fake. He describes the whole afternoon as “[having] a dim, hazy cast over it” (Fitzgerald 32).Although when The Great Gatsby takes place, the Eighteenth A...
“80 percent of teen-agers have tried alcohol, and that alcohol was a contributing factor in the top three causes of death among teens: accidents, homicide and suicide” (Underage, CNN.com pg 3). Students may use drinking as a form of socializing, but is it really as good as it seems? The tradition of drinking has developed into a kind of “culture” fixed in every level of the college student environment. Customs handed down through generations of college drinkers reinforce students' expectation that alcohol is a necessary ingredient for social success. These perceptions of drinking are the going to ruin the lives of the students because it will lead to the development alcoholism. College students who drink a lot, while in a college environment, will damage themselves mentally, physically, and socially later in life, because alcohol adversely affects the brain, the liver, and the drinkers behavior.
Pittman, David J. and Helene Raskin White, eds. Society, Culture, and Drinking Patterns Reexamined. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, 1991.
Frey and Schonbeck explain that it is estimated that over 76 million people worldwide are affected by alcohol abuse or dependence. The chance of having an alcoholic in one’s life is very high. Children that grow up in an environment with an alcoholic may increase that child’s chance of becoming an alcoholic themselves. In the United States, the most commonly abused drug among youth is alcohol. Even though the legal drinking age is 21, nearly 20% of all alcohol consumed in the United States is by people under the legal age (83). In fact, when youth start drinking at social events in their teenage years, they are greatly increasing their risk of developing alcohol problems (85). Alcoholism can affect people of all ages. Furthermore, some experts try to differentiate between alcoholics and social drinkers. Typically, they base this off of five categories. Social drinkers do not drink alone. They consume minimal amounts of alcohol during social functions. Situational drinkers may not ever drink unless they are stressed out. These drinkers are more likely to drink by themselves. Problem drinkers can be described as a drinker that alcohol has caused problems in their life. However, they usually respond to advice given by others. Binge drinkers are out of control in their alcohol consumption. They may drink until they pass out or worse. Alcoholic drinkers have found that their lives have become unmanageable and that they are completely powerless over alcohol (84). Alcoholics should be cautious of their surroundings to prevent
Royal Melendy writes about a rising social culture taking place at the turn of the twentieth century. He depicts this culture as the ambiance emitted in early Chicago saloons. “Saloons served many roles for the working-class during this period of American history, and were labeled as the poor man’s social clubs” (summary of saloon culture, pg. 76).
that select group that will drink more nights out of a week than not. And when
To recognize that they have drinking problems, alcoholics have to be completely miserable and willing to change. When they get to this point, it is called their "bottom." There are "high bottom" and "low bottom" drunks, but it doesn't matter as long as they get sober. There are many different reasons why an alcoholic decides to get sober, but in my own case, I lost my self-esteem, I couldn't control my drinking, and my life became unmanageable.
The painting which I decided to do my paper on is called ‘The Absinthe Drinkers’, it was made in the year 1881 by a French painter who is still very revered, his name is Jean Francois Raffaelli. This work of art is an oil on canvas painting with the dimension of 110.2 *110.2 cm which is made for the private collection, known as Salons in French. A Salon was a meeting of rich aristocrats of France. At the legions of honors we passed by this painting and I just fell in love with the scene presented inside of it. The first thing which came to my mind when I saw this painting was a hopeless depressed France, stuck in poverty. What intrigued me much about the painting was the fact that the two men inside of the painting where drinking Absinthe which is a very luxurious alcoholic drink, yet the two people who were drinking it seemed a little poor, as I noted that by looking at their
I walked into the house where the "party of the century" was going to be held. I was psyched to be going. At the time I was a little naive freshman invited to my first official high school party at a senior’s house. I was at the party no more than 30 minutes when this boy offered me a drink. Thinking nothing of it, I agreed. He brought back a half-filled cup.
Underage drinking is a huge problem that needs to be taken seriously and no one should ever feel pressured into drinking in order to look cool or fit in. One could only wish that more people were educated on the issue and maybe it would be taken more seriously than it is right now. Works Cited Dunlap, M. P. (n.d.). Retrieved from Biological Impacts of Alcohol Use: An Overview: www.oregoncounseling.org/articlespaper/documents.etohbiof.htm. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse.
Let’s ask a question: why do people start using alcohol at the first place? And why they start doing it at such young age? Well, just “like other adult drinkers, college students expect alcohol to produce a series of positive effects – relaxation, socialization, sexuality – and the strength of these positive expectancies is related to drinking” (Walters & Baer, 2006). And who wouldn’t take a couple drinks to gain a group of friends? It lowers social inhibitions, so it is very well known among shy individuals as well. However, this activity can be also pressurized by peers. In this case, pressure wouldn’t be effective on people who do not accept or see positive aspects of occasional drinking. That means, everyone starts by saying ‘yes’ to a glass.
Most people do not realize that alcohol is a drug that claims the lives of youth in college campuses across the world. In my case, it took the encounter with the ORL staff at UCLA for me to come to understanding that I am putting myself and those around me in danger through my risky drinking habits. With hours of self-reflection and the help of a cosmopolitan article called The Deadly Drinking Mistakes Smart Girls Make, I have found that there are several risks associated with alcohol that can put me at a quarrel with death. Even so, drinking does not always need to be deadly, and by keeping in mind the well-being of my fellow bruins and the skills mentioned in the article, I can find a balance between drinking for fun and drinking till death.