A Young Couple Assesses Their Hazardous and Irresponsible Drinking and Their Short and Long-Term Aspirations, Dreams, and Hopes

Merissa and Augie have been dating for five years. They met while taking the same social problems class at a small, countryside, Church affiliated liberal arts college located in the Eastern part of the U.S. While they were basically good buddies at first, they eventually began dating when they were in their third year of college.

Because both of them came from very old-fashioned backgrounds, neither one of them drank much beyond the experimental stage when they first began dating. As the time progressed, nevertheless, they started to go to more football bashes, happy hours, keg parties, and sorority and fraternity parties. Consequently, they progressively began to drink more the longer they dated.

Their Social Life Regularly Consisted of Going to Happy Hour With Their Friends, Going to Restaurants Three or Four Nights Per Week, Going to Parties With Their Friends, Going to Professional Sporting Events, and Going With Their Friends to the Local Saloon on the Weekends

After they graduated from college, they both got jobs in a large city that was approximately eighty-five miles from their undergraduate college. Then they finally determined that they would move into the same apartment with one another.

Since they were far removed from the college drinking scene, then again, their social life frequently consisted of going to parties with their friends, going to happy hour with their friends, going to restaurants three or four nights per week, going to professional sporting events, and going to the local pub with their pals on the weekends. To put it simply, Augie and Merissa began drinking in an irresponsible and excessive manner.

Now that were living with one another and beginning to get more earnest about their relationship, nevertheless, they started to think about having children, buying a house, getting married, and becoming more responsible.

With any important change in a person’s life there is regularly a trigger the particular change in question. For Merissa and Augie the notion of buying a new house and having children was this “vehicle for change.” Stated another way, for the first time in their lives, Augie and Merissa started to critically review their excessive and irresponsible drinking and the long term alcohol effects on their health.

How Would Their Excessive and Heavy Drinking Affect Their Ability to Have Children, Their Relationship With One Another, Their Mental Health, Their Finances, and Their Relationship With Their Parents?

Would their abusive drinking adversely affect their ability to have children? How would they be able to continue spending nearly all of their money on drinking if they were to start saving for a new house? How responsible would they be if they had children and continued to drink at their current pace? How would they be able to face their parents and tell them about their long term goals, aspirations, and dreams while they still drank in an abusive and hazardous manner while having fun as they did when they were in college? What would their drinking behavior do to their relationship? How would their irresponsible 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 abusive drinking was becoming a thorny issue that they could not close their eyes to any longer.

After Giving Their Situation Some Serious Thought, Merissa and Augie Finally Realized That Their Goals, Dreams, and Aspirations Would not be Completed if They Continued Their Hazardous Drinking

All of these queries clearly led to the same conclusion: Augie and Merissa needed to realize that they couldn’t continue their excessive and hazardous drinking if their goals, aspirations, and dreams were to be fulfilled.

Once they came to this conclusion, they alerted their drinking pals about their their plans to start a family, about their goal of buying or building a new house, and about their marital plans. They also told their drinking pals that they still wanted to hang out with them but that they would be drinking responsibly from this moment forward so that they could start to realize their future aspirations, goals, and dreams.

Much to their astonishment, all of their buddies expressed relief because they too had been reappraising their lives and concluded that their life-styles were much too frequently centered around drinking. They also understood that they would have to change extensively if they were to become more accountable and show more forethought for their plans, their health, and for their careers in the next five or ten years.

After their conversation with their pals about their dreams, hopes, and plans, Augie and Merissa actually started to have more meaningful relationships with all of their buddies. The key reason for this was the fact that all of them were on the same wave-length regarding their abusive and excessive drinking and their relatively short and long-term plans, aspirations, and goals.

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