Are there any activities or hobbies you’ve outgrown or lost interest in over time?
I can’t even remember the last time I willingly sat in a pub with a friend or group of other people and certainly can’t now remember why I found it a satisfying or pleasurable thing to do. As a boy, drinking was in my culture and even my family as the thing to do. My grandfathers and my father both were heavy drinkers. Indeed,it seemed definition of their masculine being, but I think in the 1960s, going out drinking was, or seemed, the thing to do irrespective of parental culture.
However, I did become over-dependent on drinking and drinking to excess. And when I gave up drinking, I could very easily be described as a ‘problem’ drinker. Why? I consulted a list of the reasons people give. Here are a few of the possible reasons given in the list:
past experience, stress, social norms, environment, accessibility, an act of rebellion, peer pressure, and fun.
All of the reasons here I have used in the past but none seem to me feasible to me, and, least of all of them, the search for fun or pleasure. That search is often related to the lack of immediate inhibition apparently caused by the early effects of alcohol. But like all of the given reasons this is somewhat fallacious. Alcohol suppresses the nervous system, for instance, rather than stimulating it. And now, none of the reasons work. Alcohol increases not only stress but other causes of stress.
So there you are. I gave it up.
Steven xxx
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