Cheers!

The act of drinking alcoholic beverages was born in ancient times and it has evolved into a very different practice in the present. Although largely a social practice, the intake of alcoholic beverages might also lead to alcoholism. Alcoholism is now considered a disease that results from the constant consumption of alcohol despite health problems and negative social consequences of said act. As a social practice, however, there are not any specific guidelines people follow when drinking. Yet, there seem to be a series of unwritten rules people do follow as far as determining who is allowed to drink and on what situations. There is even a legal age for drinking, which varies around the world.
Everyone’s philosophy of drinking is different but there is a general idea of how one starts in such practice. One’s first exposure to drinking is through observing people doing it –usually family members at family events. One wonders what that liquid adults drink is and why it provokes them to act in a certain way and especially why one is not allowed to drink it if they seem to have so much fun with it. Some times one of those family members decides to let one taste said beverages and one comes to find out how ridiculously bad it tastes. One tends to decide at that time that one will never drink it again, but as time passes by one reencounters it, usually in a different setting and after another trial a sort of habit is created. It becomes a form of social interaction in which one participates because one does not want to be left out. But one grows to enjoy its effects if not the taste. That is not to say that said effects are particularly good. On the contrary, other than the health hazards it represents, alcohol also leads to memory lost among other things. In cases when people actually like the taste of it, alcoholism begins to develop.
The second exposure usually comes when one is a teenager. At that time, one learns the thrill of drinking. The strange yet enjoyable effect it produces, which tends to decrease inhibitions. Teenagers drink as a way of rebellion but also as a way to demonstrate that they are mature enough to do so. It is a game of appearances. If adults are doing it, then they will do so as well in order to prove they can control it though they are unable to do so. As teenagers grow older, they find a different meaning to drinking. It is not longer a symbol of maturity rather it becomes a symbol of simple adulthood. But it never stops being a way to fit in.
People have different reasons for drinking, which include celebrating important events, whether with friends or family, people toast to those who are celebrated or the event that is remembered. There are others, who drink, usually alone, to forget past mistakes or sorrows, which is a mistake itself since alcohol will only make them forget for the time being. Not only that, but there are also different types of drinks which also have different symbolisms. Wine has always been a symbol of sophistication for whoever drinks it. Hard liquor is usually a way to demonstrate strength although it is also considered somewhat vulgar whereas mixed drinks are usually taken as a sign of weakness. Historically, the former have been linked to men and the latter to women, yet that does not mean the correlation is correct or that only men or only women drink in said categories.
Drinking also has many effects some of which are recognized while others are not. Aside from the previously mentioned health hazards, some of those effects include but are not limited to making people violent, melancholic, sad, sleepy, increasing their sexual appetite, and sometimes happy. There is also the hangover, which seems to be a certain punishment for the abuse of alcohol. Not everyone experiences them because not everyone abuses alcoholic substances, yet most people fear the hangover due to its devastating feeling.
Due to the different levels of tolerance, it is difficult to generally define when one drink becomes too many. Alcohol as a form of diversion is acceptable. But when it becomes a habit used to drown sorrows, one finds out often too late that sorrows know how to swim and one’s life cannot withstand the extended exposure to alcohol –and drowning it has been.

xoxo,
Poison Drops


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