Who drinks (alcohol)? Why or why not?

[atlantis]

I do drink and enjoy it but I do so far less than I may have been used to.

It is certainly not for any of the reason highlighted by Puspa since:
1)I live in a predominantly Christian area where alcohol is considered part of the native culture and where the long time resident Muslims have little troubles to sip one glass or three.
2)I have access to pretty much any alcohol I may dream of (including smuggled one from the Philippines if I would like to) at the wholesale price and we store and sell quite a lot of it.
3)Religion? No, thanks.

It's more that I drink by period and that I don't have much time left to see my close friends and enjoy a few drinks with them. Also many of the people I was gathering with and was used to drink with have left. I still enjoy a cocktail or a beer with the wife from time to time but motivation is low when you know that you have only 3 or 4 hours to sleep and a long day of work awaiting you the day after, even if my alcohol tolerance is pretty high.

 

[El_Goretto]

Plaza Arcadia, right? Dang good food too...they had BOGO free Margaritas for a while (not sure if they still do or not..)

I usually go to the one in Pondok Indah Mall Street Gallery and yes, they still have happy hours with buy one get one. However, I always end up giving my free Margarita to one of the tables around because I just don't drink that much. Also, I usually drive so 1 glass is enough for me.

 

[waarmstrong]

When I am next in Jakarta, I will be texting you for your PIM excursion schedule in hopes that the happy hour table next to your is empty.

 

[Bad_azz]

I usually go to the one in Pondok Indah Mall Street Gallery and yes, they still have happy hours with buy one get one. However, I always end up giving my free Margarita to one of the tables around because I just don't drink that much. Also, I usually drive so 1 glass is enough for me.

When I am next in Jakarta, I will be texting you for your PIM excursion schedule in hopes that the happy hour table next to your is empty.

I was going to say that

I figure you are going to be popular when you go out (although I assume you are already) El_ G

 

[Anglian]

When I was a kid, our gang, all four of us would after a Sunday morning football kick around stop at the local pubs Bottle&Jug, we would order a pint of Shandy, the old landlord, and nice old boy would be very sparing with the lemonade, he would never sell us two pints, so we would roll home, each to a Sunday roast with Yorkshire pud, now sadly reduced to a can of Heineken euro fizz

 

[Bad_azz]

When I was a kid, our gang, all four of us would after a Sunday morning football kick around stop at the local pubs Bottle&Jug, we would order a pint of Shandy, the old landlord, and nice old boy would be very sparing with the lemonade, he would never sell us two pints, so we would roll home, each to a Sunday roast with Yorkshire pud, now sadly reduced to a can of Heineken euro fizz

The UK drinking culture was based on ale & wine and not all that long ago that was all that people imbibed.
Because the water was undrinkable... and 100 years later the water is good but the drink culture remains.
I don't miss that really. Where I lived in a seaside town drink or drugs seemed to be the norm and teens don't handle it well so then comes the violence and vomit.
I have seen some real sights in my time there.

 

[fastpitch17]

Growing up and coming from the US Upper Midwest it was primarily a beer culture. Neighborhood taverns on most corners or taverns associated with a workplace. There was always beer. You could get something like a shot but it came with a beer chaser. A little further you ordered a boilermaker and dropped the shot glass into the beer glass. Had a hangover, you got a red beer. Beer and tomato juice. Sure, there was the harder stuff and most homes had a stock of it for get togethers. ladies didn't drink beer then. They were more the grasshopper, velvet hammer types then. In those days if you were of age or not and had too much to drink, the police would be kind enough to give you a ride home.

 

[El_Goretto]

Believe it or not, a table of young bule2 refused my drink the other day. I was gonna take the opportunity to invite them to expatindo too. Ended up giving my drink to this lovely old couple who were very happy with it.

 

[fastpitch17]

Believe it or not, a table of young bule2 refused my drink the other day. I was gonna take the opportunity to invite them to expatindo too. Ended up giving my drink to this lovely old couple who were very happy with it.

Because old couples are smart. She gets her one drink limit and he gets two out of it.

 

[Jaime C]

I probably drank more underage than after I turned 21. Just never enjoyed the taste of beer and most wines. Only been drunk once in my life, my first night in college dorms at age 18. 6 beers, which I puked up soon after.

My kinda Muslim wife drinks more than I do. I do like to taste different types of liquor, but usually just a sip.

As a 16 year old, I attended an autopsy for school. Watching a mid 20's women get cut open, her cranium opened with a saw, after a drunk driver hit her while bicycling with her boyfriend leaves a lifelong image.

 

[Bowsaw]

I do. Have a few with dinner. If im out for dinner with family and its available i will. Mrs doesnt drink but that nothing to do with religion. Go and see other expat at his resto we get on it. Even Desa Kepala comes over for a chat but doesnt care im drinking. People in kampung see more than 2 empty stubbies they are amazed im still standing lol. Bwi is pretty casual on the religious end of things.

 

[macvert]

I don't mind a couple of beers alone & also enjoy a few with friends.


The last time I got relatively & unintentionally plastered was at a mate's birthday about a year or so ago when he brought out the expensive whiskies which went down all too easily & then crept up on me rather fast. At the end of proceedings my wife (who doesn't drink) piloted the bike home with me on the back.


The place was rather dark & due to a slight misjudgement I fell off the rail-less arch bridge leading to our front gate over one of the large fish breeding ponds. I went fully under the muddy water before resurfacing looking something like the creature from the black lagoon … my wife's initial wide eyed concern soon turned to laughter once I'd dragged myself out & she realised I was okay.

 

[Puspawarna]

The fact that drinking and driving is such a terrible idea may be one reason a certain class of expats in Indonesia (the ones who have drivers working overtime on weekend nights, or are definitely taking a taxi home) do go a bit crazier with drinking here...when you have a driver to take you home, there is no need to watch your alcohol consumption.

I am a moderate to heavy social drinker, but I would NEVER drink and drive, nor would I ever get into a car being operated by a driver who was drinking. Nor would I let people at a party I was hosting drink a lot and then get behind the wheel of a car. I have a good sense of humor about most thing. Not that.

 

[Scooterindo]

Drink culture was more prevalent in the UK when I was in my early teens in the 1980s there was always this fantastical target of being able to drink 10 pints of beer in a night and stories would circulate about so and so being so hard "coz he drunk 10 pints" although in reality most of us at this age (14 or 15) would gag after about 3 pints at most. But still the stories would prevail in our school of how so and so "got so wasted" the previous weekend and did something totally stupid (with age comes the realization that traffic cones as funny hats isn't a good look and in retrospect not really that funny) However at the time We were just kids experimenting and by the time we were 16 or 17 we would congregate in the local pubs that would turn a blind eye to our obvious underage antics. Drinks at the time would be chosen on an experimental basis with concoctions like Snakebite and black" for the blokes and "Pernod and black" for the girls being a firm favorites (creating puke stains from hell)

By the time we were all legally able to drink at 18 most of us had our own scooters, just as the law was changed to a 2 pint limit as part of the metropolitan police's drink driving campaign, We would regularly get caught in police road blocks and breathalyzed on the way home from pubs and clubs, so that kind of slowed things down a bit. That was until we were introduced to "Wizz" (BA is smiling knowingly at this point) Wizz or speed was the street name for amphetamine sulphate, which when taken with just a couple of pints of alcohol would certainly "speed things up a bit". This was a blessing in disguise because at the time the phenomenon of "drug driving" was an unknown concept to the police and provided you didn't drink too much alcohol you could still beat the breathalyzer if stopped.

So this continued for a few years, and through the course of time you'd become more used to seeing people fighting when they were drunk, girls going all soppy and crying (or sometimes fighting to) people shagging strangers (and then crying or fighting over it), people passing out cold where they fell, and people puking up all over the place. We just accepted it as a normal part of drinking culture in the UK. I still blame this on the outdated drinking laws in the UK with the pubs closing at 11pm which gives you the sense of urgency to "get it down your neck" before last orders, even with a "lock in" chances are you would be on your way home by 12. This in itself results in horrible consequences and as a 19 year old I was witness to someone being "glassed" one night which turned me off of pub culture altogether.

About a year or so later the rave scene took off in the UK and everyone was "loved up" on ecstasy and mineral water. The violence and bad times connected to excessive alcohol consumption seemed to become a thing of the past as drug culture and the summer of love dawned upon us. It was about this time for the first time in youth history that drinking beer and getting drunk were deemed to be seriously uncool amongst young people. All we wanted to do was love everyone and dance until sunrise then smoke weed until we chilled out enough to be able to get home and sleep for 18 hours straight. It was a great time in my early 20s.

After leaving the UK and eventually settling in Jakarta when I was 27/28 we continued to party in a similar style for a couple of years, it was a very hedonistic scene. However the club scene in Indonesia was very different to the UK (a lot more sleazy) and after a short while the quality of ecstasy fell very rapidly as people looked to cash in. The police also began to realize there was money to be made from the war against drugs and clubs began to get raided on a regular basis. As time wore on and responsibilities took over I grew up and just lost interest in that whole scene and a more mature approach to social drinking prevailed.

These days I'm just not fussed about drinking. I can drink a couple of beers on the beach every day if I choose to, I just don't choose to as I am busy with other stuff. I still have some beers and a few bottles of spirits in the fridge that get pulled out on special occasions if friends come round but that's about it. I still don't get that "dying for a beer" mentality and I am not really that into drinking wine. When I work away, a lot of the big oil companies have a zero alcohol tolerance policy in place and I can go months without a drink and I'm just not bothered in the slightest, these days I might only get "officially drunk" once or twice a year.

 

[fastpitch17]

these days I might only get "officially drunk" once or twice a year

Not quite sure what makes it official but I know I was drunk one time. Japan, 1970. Saki and beer. I was informed later I ate stuff that should have killed me, did things that should have gotten me arrested, slept for 36 hours afterwards. No idea how I got back to my bed. I swore off Saki after that. Just the smell puts me off.

I did learn I can not drink scotch. Got a scotch and water instead of a bourbon water one time by mistake and after one sip I stopped breathing. Fortunately it was a very short period. I did verify it one time again also by mistake. So, I avoided scotch ever since.

 

[jstar]

I have the same with tequila. After some major overdoses in Southern Europe when I was a student and worked there during summers. When I smell it, I have to throw up.

 

[fastpitch17]

I have the same with tequila. After some major overdoses in Southern Europe when I was a student and worked there during summers. When I smell it, I have to throw up.

I had tequila once. You know the lime, then salt, then the shot. Did that and said, "this taste like shit." Never had it again.

 

[Scooterindo]

Not quite sure what makes it official

As in officially wobbly.

Last time I got really hammered here in Bali was about 18 months or so ago, We were invited to the opening of a new restaurant in Seminyak called the Butchers Club, free burgers, free steaks, and more dangerously free Jack Daniels (my poison of choice) Well it started off alright but fast forward a few hours later and I was pissed as a fart. Got home and passed out only to wake up to a spinning room and a short stagger to the bathroom to gag, fell asleep with my head on the toilet seat (we've all been there huh ??). Woke up 12 hours later (back in bed somehow) with the mother of all hangovers, took me about 3 days to feel normal again.

Long gone are the days where I could get totally wasted and sleep it off in a single night - the older I get the longer it takes to recover these days.

 

[Bad_azz]

Scoot: " That was until we were introduced to "Wizz" (BA is smiling knowingly at this point) Wizz or speed was the street name for amphetamine sulphate, which when taken with just a couple of pints of alcohol would certainly "speed things up a bit"."

Ahem!
I have never used wizz/speed or any other "recreational" drugs...
well, I have had my fair share of weed, I guess- but never felt much of an urge to experiment further.
I was too busy with my larger, cider / snakebites- I remember well the 10p a pint nights at one of the nearby nightclubs. we could get sozzled for a fiver and £4 of that was the bus fare there & the taxi home!

 

[jstar]

When visiting my brother in Liverpool this summer, I saw street scenes that reminded me of certain areas of Greece/Spain many years ago. Must admit, was a bit shocked and thought these times had gone. (Passed out girls lying half naked on the sidewalk.)