The loss of a friend

[Trotter]

We are just in and from completely different cultures, salty. Around here liquor by the drink wasn't even legal until about 6-8 years ago (except at the Country Club and VFW), and you couldn't buy bear on Sunday up until about 15 years ago. There are no liquor stores in my city as it is not legal here. There are not many bars, and they can only serve liquor if they also serve food (most just serve beer), no dance clubs, no strip joints.

If you head on south for a piece you come to Chattanooga that has all of that, but it would probably be much more restrained than what you are used to. I bet Atlanta would even seem uptight to you. You would have to head up north to one of the bigger cities, or out on the west coast, or maybe down in the party area of Florida. Here in the Bible Belt things are a bit different.

 

[saltynay]

Yeah I lived with a guy in Thailand who use to live in Vegas and travel ALOT he said he had never seen so much drunk debauchery anywhere like he saw in Thailand.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Atleast you guys can get beer on a sunday trotter, here, you can go into a walmart, and grab a case, take it to checkout, and the sale will be denied because it's sunday, even bars cant serve.

Honestly, I drink to celebrate one of many things, new years, birthdays, promotions, and so on.

 

[kmote]

I never really drank much and became consciously teetotal some time ago.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

I'll have a coldie or two when I get home after work, but apart from that I don't really drink by myself.

 

[Druid]

I guess I am referring to college when I say people who don't drink don't have many friends. People in college who don't drink definitely have less friends. They can't relate to everyone else so it is harder for them to be friends with people. Our weekends consist of getting hammered. A lot of people, myself included, usually black out on the weekend at one time or another almost half the time.

I'll have a coldie or two when I get home after work, but apart from that I don't really drink by myself.

Yeah, if you drank a lot by yourself you would be an alcoholic.

 

[synergy]

I don't drink and have plenty of friends--and most of them drink. It all comes down to respect. They know I don't drink and they don't bother me about it; I know they drink and I don't preach to them about not drinking. Sure, we have less in common, but we don't focus on the differences, we focus on the similarities. To generalize it like that is just ignorant. No offense.

I can see what Salty is saying about it being a part of business celebration and stuff, but even then it comes down to respecting the other party. I've been part of business meetings where they wanted to go to ***** clubs for meetings. My wife, understandably, doesn't appreciate me going to those establishments, so I declined. They understood and decided to go elsewhere out of respect for me and my marriage. The same principle can be applied to alcohol, food, smoke, etc.