Augie and Merissa have been dating for six years. They met while taking the same Latin class at a relatively large, rural, liberal arts college located in the Eastern part of the United States. While they were only good pals at first, they eventually started to date when they were in their first year of college.
Because both of them came from very ”old school” backgrounds, neither one of them drank very much beyond the casual drinking stage when they first started to date. As the time progressed, nevertheless, they started to go to more football bashes, keg parties, sorority and fraternity parties, and happy hours. As a result, they steadily began to drink increasingly more the longer they interacted with one another.
Their Social Life Regularly Consisted of Going to Parties With Their Friends, Going to Restaurants Three or Four Nights Per Week, Going to Professional Sporting Events, Going to Happy Hour With Their Friends, and Going With Their Friends to the Local Saloon on the Weekends
After they graduated, they both landed jobs in a large city located just about ninety-five miles from their undergraduate college. Then they decided to move into the same apartment together.
Since they were far removed from the college drinking scene, nonetheless, their social life commonly consisted of going to happy hour with their friends, going to restaurants three or four nights per week, going to professional sporting events, going to parties with their friends, and going to the local cabaret with their pals on the weekends. To put it simply, Augie and Merissa began drinking in an excessive manner.
Now that were living with one another and starting to get more earnest about their relationship, nevertheless, they began to think about getting married, having children, becoming more responsible, and buying a house.
With any significant change in an individual’s life there is normally a trigger the particular transformation in question. For Augie and Merissa the thought of having children and buying a new house was this “mechanism of change.” In brief, for the first time in their lives, Merissa and Augie began to critically assess their hazardous and abusive drinking and the long term alcohol effects on their health.
How Would Their Hazardous and Excessive Drinking Affect Their Ability to Have Children, Their Relationship With One Another, Their Relationship With Their Parents, Their Mental Health, and Their Finances?
Would their abusive and irresponsible drinking adversely 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 begin saving for a new house? How responsible would they be if they had children and continued to drink at their current pace? How would they be able to face their parents and tell them about their long term aspirations, dreams, and hopes while they still drank in an excessive manner while having fun as they did when they were in college? What would their excessive and hazardous 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 irresponsible and abusive drinking was becoming an issue that they could not ”sweep under the carpet” anymore.
After Giving Their State of Affairs Considerable Deliberation, Augie and Merissa Finally Understood That Their Dreams, Aspirations, and Hopes Would not be Completed if They Continued Their Irresponsible and Abusive Drinking
All of these uncertainties unmistakably resulted in the same conclusion: Augie and Merissa needed to discover that they couldn’t continue their irresponsible drinking if their hopes, dreams, and aspirations were to be made real.
Once they came to this conclusion, they informed their drinking friends about their plans to start a family, about their goal of buying or building a new house, and about their marital plans. 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 begin realizing their future goals, dreams, and aspirations.
Much to their surprise, all of their buddies expressed relief because they too had been contemplating their lives and concluded that their life-styles were much too frequently centered around drinking. They also understood that they would have to change radically if they were to become more adult-like and display more respect for their health, their plans, and for their careers in the next five or ten years.
After their candid discussion with their friends about their aspirations, dreams, and goals, Merissa and Augie essentially started to have more meaningful relationships with all of their buddies. The primary reason for this was the fact that all of them had the same outlook regarding their excessive and heavy drinking and their short and long-term plans, aspirations, and goals.
