A Young Couple Evaluates Their Heavy and Irresponsible Drinking and Their Short and Long-Term Plans, Dreams, and Hopes

Merissa and Augie have been in a dating relationship for seven years. They met while taking the same information technology class at a small, rural, Church affiliated liberal arts college located in the far Western part of the United States. While they were in essence good buddies at first, they eventually started to date when they were in their second year of college.

Due to the fact both of them came from very old-fashioned backgrounds, neither one of them drank very much beyond the experimental stage when they first began dating. As the time advanced, however, they began to go to more football bashes, happy hours, keg parties, and sorority and fraternity parties. Consequently, they slowly but surely began to drink increasingly more the longer they dated.

Their Social Life Usually Consisted of Going to Happy Hour With Their Friends, Going to Parties With Their Friends, Going to Restaurants Three or Four Nights Per Week, Going to Professional Sporting Events, and Going With Their Friends to the Local Club on the Weekends

After they graduated, they both got jobs in a relatively small city located roughly sixty-five miles from their undergraduate college. Then they eventually decided to move into the same apartment together.

Because they were far removed from the college drinking scene, then again, their social life typically 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 to the local watering hole with their friends on the weekends. To come to the point, Augie and Merissa started to drink in an abusive and irresponsible manner.

Now that they were living in the same apartment with one another and starting to get more serious about their relationship, nonetheless, they began thinking about buying a house, having children, getting married, and becoming more responsible.

With any noteworthy change in an individual’s life there is normally something that triggers the specific modification in question. For Augie and Merissa the idea of having children and buying a new house was this “vehicle for change.” In a word, for the first time in their lives, Augie and Merissa began to reflect on their abusive and irresponsible drinking and the alcohol long term effects on their health.

How Would Their Heavy and Irresponsible Drinking Affect Their Finances, Their Ability to Have Children, Their Relationship With One Another, Their Mental Health, and Their Relationship With Their Parents?

Would their hazardous and irresponsible drinking negatively affect their ability to have children? How would they be able to continue spending so much 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 hazardous manner? How would they be able to face their parents and tell them about their long term plans, hopes, and dreams while they still drank in an irresponsible and excessive manner while having fun as they did when they were in college? What would their irresponsible and excessive drinking do to their relationship? How would their excessive drinking affect their mental health?

From a different line of reasoning, although neither one of them ever suffered from alcohol poisoning, received a DUI, or experienced alcohol withdrawal symptoms, they realized that their hazardous and excessive drinking was becoming a thorny issue that they could not ignore anymore.

After Giving Their Situation Much Thought, Merissa and Augie Finally Realized That Their Goals, Aspirations, and Dreams Would not be Brought to Fruition if They Continued Their Hazardous and Irresponsible Drinking

All of these inquiries unmistakably indicated the same conclusion: Augie and Merissa needed to understand more fully that they couldn’t continue their abusive and hazardous drinking if their aspirations, hopes, and dreams were to be attained.

Once they came to this conclusion, they informed their drinking buddies about their marital plans, about their plans to start a family, and about their goal of buying or building a new house. They also told their drinking friends that they still wanted to pal around with them but that they would be drinking in strict moderation from this point forward so that they could start to realize their future hopes, aspirations, and dreams.

Amazingly, all of their pals expressed relief because they too had been reflecting on their lives and concluded that their life-styles were totally focused on drinking. They also realized that they would have to change radically if they were to become more mature and display more care for their health, their goals, and for their careers in the next five or ten years.

After their heart-to-heart chat with their buddies about their dreams, goals, and aspirations, Augie and Merissa in reality started to have more meaningful relationships with all of their pals. The primary reason for this was the fact that all of them had the same outlook regarding their drinking behavior and their relatively short and long-term aspirations, goals, and plans.