A Young Couple Assesses Their Abusive and Heavy Drinking and Their Short and Long-Term Goals, Aspirations, and Dreams
Merissa and Augie have been dating one another for eight-and-a-half years. They met while taking the same gender and sexuality studies class at a relatively large, rural, private liberal arts college located in the Northern part of the U.S. While they were mainly good friends at first, they finally started to date when they were in their third year of college.
Since both of them came from very conventional backgrounds, neither one of them drank much beyond the experimental stage when they first began dating. As the time went by, nevertheless, they began to go to more happy hours, keg parties, football bashes, and sorority and fraternity parties. As a consequence, they in a step-by-step fashion began to drink more as they progressed in their relationship.
Their Social Life Generally Consisted of Going to Restaurants Three or Four Nights Per Week, Going to Happy Hour With Their Friends, Going to Professional Sporting Events, Going to Parties With Their Friends, and Going With Their Friends to the Local Nightspot on the Weekends
After they graduated, they both found employment in a relatively small city that was located just about sixty miles from their undergraduate college. Then they at long last decided to move into the same apartment with one another.
Given the fact that they were far removed from the college drinking scene, however, their social life generally consisted of going to happy hour with their friends, going to professional sporting events, going to parties with their friends, going to restaurants three or four nights per week, and going to the local bar with their buddies on the weekends. To put it simply, Augie and Merissa began drinking in a hazardous and excessive manner.
Now that they were living in the same apartment together and starting to get more unwavering about their relationship, then again, they started to think about having children, getting married, becoming more responsible, and buying a house.
With any big adjustment in an individual’s life there is frequently something that prompts the particular transformation in question. For Augie and Merissa the notion of buying a new house and having children was this “trigger.” In a word, for the first time in their lives, Augie and Merissa started thinking about their irresponsible and abusive drinking and the long term alcohol effects on their lives.
How Would Their Hazardous and Excessive Drinking Affect Their Relationship With Their Parents, Their Finances, Their Relationship With One Another, Their Ability to Have Children, and Their Mental Health?
Would their abusive and hazardous drinking negatively affect their ability to have children? How would they be able to continue spending almost all of their money on drinking if they were to start saving for a new house? How mature would they be if they had children and continued to drink in an abusive and irresponsible manner? How would they be able to face their parents and tell them about their long term plans, hopes, and dreams while they still drank in an excessive and hazardous manner while having fun as they did when they were in college? What would their irresponsible and excessive drinking do to their relationship? How would their excessive and heavy drinking affect their mental health?
From a different perspective, although neither one of them ever suffered from alcohol poisoning, received a DUI, or experienced alcohol withdrawal symptoms, they realized that their hazardous and excessive drinking was becoming a troublesome issue that they could not ”sweep under the carpet” any longer.
After Giving Their State of Affairs Considerable Deliberation, Merissa and Augie Finally Comprehended That Their Dreams, Plans, and Hopes Would not be Accomplished if They Continued Their Hazardous Drinking
All of these uncertainties unmistakably indicated the same conclusion: Augie and Merissa needed to get a more complete picture of the fact that they couldn’t continue their abusive and excessive drinking if their plans, hopes, and dreams were to be accomplished.
Once they got to this conclusion, they advised their drinking buddies about their marital plans, about their goal of buying or building a new house, and about their plans to start a family. They also told their drinking buddies that they still wanted to hang out with them but that they would be drinking responsibly from this moment forward so that they could begin realizing their future plans, dreams, and hopes.
Amazingly, all of their buddies expressed relief because they too had been contemplating their lives and concluded that their life-styles were much too frequently focused on drinking. They also believed that they would have to change radically if they were to become more mature and display more consideration for their careers, their health, and for their goals in the next ten or fifteen years.
After their candid discussion with their buddies about their hopes, plans, and dreams, Merissa and Augie basically started to have more meaningful relationships with all of their buddies. The key reason for this was the fact that all of them had the same outlook regarding their irresponsible and excessive drinking and their short and long-term goals, aspirations, and plans.