A Young Couple Reviews Their Abusive and Heavy Drinking and Their Short and Long-Term Dreams, Aspirations, and Goals
Augie and Merissa have been dating for seven-and-a-half years. They met while taking the same accounting class at a medium size, country, Church affiliated liberal arts college located in the Western part of the U.S. While they were mainly good friends at first, they finally started dating when they were in their third year of college.
Because both of them came from very ”old school” backgrounds, neither one of them drank very much beyond the experimental stage when they first began dating. As the time advanced, then again, they began to go to more keg parties, happy hours, sorority and fraternity parties, and football bashes. As a consequence, they steadily began to drink more as time went by.
Their Social Life Frequently 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 With Their Friends to the Local Pub on the Weekends
After they graduated from college, they both found jobs in a medium size city that was located around eighty 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 frequently 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 to the local club with their friends on the weekends. In a word, Merissa and Augie began drinking in an irresponsible and hazardous manner.
Now that they were living with each other and beginning to get more serious about their relationship, then again, they began to think about having children, getting married, becoming more responsible, and buying a house.
With any major transformation in a person’s life there is commonly something that elicits the specific transformation in question. For Augie and Merissa the notion of buying a new house and having children was this “change agent.” Stated more explicitly, for the first time in their lives, Augie and Merissa began to critically appraise their excessive drinking and the long term alcohol effects on their lives.
How Would Their Hazardous and Heavy Drinking Affect Their Relationship With One Another, Their Ability to Have Children, Their Finances, Their Relationship With Their Parents, and Their Mental Health?
Would their irresponsible and heavy drinking unfavorably 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 accountable would they be if they had children and continued to drink in an irresponsible and excessive manner? How would they be able to face their parents and tell them about their long term dreams, aspirations, and goals while they still drank in an irresponsible manner while having fun as they did when they were in college? What would their abusive and irresponsible drinking do to their relationship? How would their irresponsible and hazardous drinking affect their mental health?
From a different slant on things, although neither one of them ever suffered from alcohol poisoning, received a DUI, or experienced alcohol withdrawal symptoms, they realized that their hazardous and heavy drinking was becoming a thorny issue that they could not discount anymore.
After Giving Their Situation Some Serious Deliberation, Merissa and Augie Finally Understood That Their Goals, Aspirations, and Dreams Would not be Reached if They Continued Their Drinking Behavior
All of these queries undoubtedly indicated the same conclusion: Augie and Merissa needed to realize more fully that they couldn’t continue their excessive and irresponsible drinking if their dreams, hopes, and aspirations were to be fulfilled.
Once they came to this conclusion, they told their drinking friends about their plans to start a family, about their marital plans, and about their goal of buying or building a new house. They also told their drinking pals that they still wanted to associate with them but that they would be drinking responsibly from this time forward so that they could start to realize their future plans, hopes, and dreams.
Unpredictably, all of their pals expressed relief because they too had been pondering the direction of their lives and concluded that their life-styles were too centered around drinking. They also understood that they would have to change radically if they were to become more mature and exhibit more thoughtfulness for their careers, their goals, and for their health in the next fifteen or twenty years.
After their candid discussion with their pals about their hopes, dreams, and plans, Augie and Merissa basically started to have more meaningful relationships with all of their buddies. The primary reason for this was the fact that all of them were on the same page regarding their excessive and irresponsible drinking and their short and long-term goals, aspirations, and plans.