Merissa and Augie have been dating one another for six years. They met while taking the same American studies class at a relatively large, countryside, liberal arts college located in the Southern part of the U.S. While they were in actual fact good friends at first, they finally started to date when they were in their second year of college.
Since both of them came from very old-fashioned backgrounds, neither one of them drank very much beyond the casual drinking stage when they first started to date. As the time progressed, then again, they began to go to more football bashes, sorority and fraternity parties, happy hours, and keg parties. As a consequence, they little by little began to drink more the longer they saw one another in a dating capacity.
Their Social Life Usually Consisted of Going to Professional Sporting Events, Going to Restaurants Three or Four Nights Per Week, Going to Parties With Their Friends, Going to Happy Hour With Their Friends, and Going With Their Friends to the Local Tavern on the Weekends
After they graduated, they both got jobs in a large city that was approximately fifty miles from their undergraduate college. Then they eventually decided to move into the same apartment with one another.
Due to the fact they were far removed from the college drinking scene, then again, their social life as a rule consisted of going to professional sporting events, going to happy hour with their friends, going to restaurants three or four nights per week, going to parties with their friends, and going to the local nightclub with their buddies on the weekends. Simply put, Augie and Merissa began drinking in an abusive and hazardous manner.
Now that they were living in the same apartment together and beginning to get more earnest about their relationship, however, they started to think about becoming more responsible, getting married, buying a house, and having children.
With any substantial adjustment in an individual’s life there is normally something that initiates the particular change in question. For Augie and Merissa the thought of buying a new house and having children was this “change agent.” Stated another way, for the first time in their lives, Augie and Merissa started to critically appraise their abusive and irresponsible drinking and the long term alcohol effects on their lives.
How Would Their Hazardous and Heavy Drinking Affect Their Finances, Their Mental Health, Their Relationship With Their Parents, Their Ability to Have Children, and Their Relationship With One Another?
Would their heavy and irresponsible drinking unfavorably affect their ability to have children? How would they be able to continue spending a large percentage 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 in an irresponsible and abusive manner? How would they be able to face their parents and tell them about their long term dreams, plans, and hopes while they still drank in an abusive and irresponsible manner while having fun as they did when they were in college? What would their excessive and heavy drinking do to their relationship? How would their heavy drinking affect their mental health?
From a different viewpoint, although neither one of them ever suffered from alcohol poisoning, received a DUI, or experienced alcohol withdrawal symptoms, they realized that their abusive and heavy drinking was becoming a reality that they could not close their eyes to anymore.
After Giving Their Circumstances Much Thought, Augie and Merissa Finally Understood That Their Aspirations, Hopes, and Dreams Would not be Attained if They Continued Their Heavy and Irresponsible Drinking
All of these queries undoubtedly led to the same conclusion: Merissa and Augie needed to realize more fully that they couldn’t continue their hazardous and abusive drinking if their plans, dreams, and hopes were to be met.
Once they came to this conclusion, they told their drinking friends about their goal of buying or building a new house, about their plans to start a family, and about their marital plans. They also told their drinking pals that they still wanted to hang around with them but that they would be drinking responsibly from this point forward so that they could start to realize their future aspirations, dreams, and goals.
Surprisingly, all of their friends expressed relief because they too had been reflecting on their lives and concluded that their life-styles were much too often centered around drinking. They also realized that they would have to change drastically if they were to become more accountable and manifest more forethought for their plans, their careers, and for their health in the next twenty or twenty-five years.
After their heart-to-heart discussion with their pals about their dreams, hopes, and plans, Merissa and Augie actually started to have more meaningful relationships with all of their friends. The main reason for this was the fact that all of them had a similar attitude regarding their heavy and excessive drinking and their relatively short and long-term aspirations, goals, and plans.
