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A Young Couple Appraises Their Heavy and Irresponsible Drinking and Their Short and Long-Term Dreams, Aspirations, and Hopes

Merissa and Augie have been dating one another for five-and-a-half years. They met while taking the same photo editing class at a small, rural, Church affiliated liberal arts college located in the Northern part of the United States. While they were only good buddies at first, they eventually started dating when they were in their first year of college.

Because both of them came from very conservative backgrounds, neither one of them drank much beyond the social drinking stage when they first began dating. As the time passed by, however, they started to go to more keg parties, sorority and fraternity parties, happy hours, and football bashes. As a consequence, they steadily began to drink increasingly more as time went by.

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

After they graduated from college, they both found employment in a large city that was around sixty miles from their undergraduate college. Then they at long last made up their mind to move in with each other.

Due to the fact they were far removed from the college drinking scene, however, their social life regularly consisted of going to restaurants three or four nights per week, going to professional sporting events, going to happy hour with their friends, going to parties with their friends, and going to the local tavern with their friends on the weekends. Stated another way, Augie and Merissa began drinking in an excessive and irresponsible manner.

Now that they were living in the same apartment together and starting to get more steadfast about their relationship, however, they began thinking about having children, becoming more responsible, buying a house, and getting married.

With any momentous change in a person???s life there is normally something that initiates the particular transformation in question. For Augie and Merissa the thought of having children and buying a new house was this ???method of change.??? Stated more precisely, for the first time in their lives, Merissa and Augie started to critically review their irresponsible and excessive drinking and the long term alcohol effects on their lives.

How Would Their Heavy and Abusive 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 excessive 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 adult-like would they be if they had children and continued to drink in an excessive and hazardous manner? How would they be able to face their parents and tell them about their long term hopes, aspirations, and dreams while they still drank in an excessive and abusive manner while having fun as they did when they were in college? What would their abusive and heavy drinking do to their relationship? How would their excessive and hazardous 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 heavy and hazardous drinking was becoming a troublesome issue that they could not disregard anymore.

After Giving Their Situation Considerable Deliberation, Merissa and Augie Finally Realized That Their Dreams, Aspirations, and Goals Would not be Reached if They Continued Their Irresponsible and Hazardous Drinking

All of these uncertainties undeniably pointed to the same conclusion: Augie and Merissa needed to identify more completely with the fact that they couldn???t continue their heavy and irresponsible drinking if their plans, hopes, and dreams were to be realized.

Once they arrived at this conclusion, they alerted their drinking pals 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 pals that they still wanted to hang out with them but that they would be drinking responsibly from this point forward so that they could start to realize their future hopes, plans, and dreams.

Surprisingly, all of their buddies expressed relief because they too had been mulling over their lives and concluded that their life-styles were too focused on drinking. They also felt that they would have to change drastically if they were to become more adult-like and show more forethought for their careers, their plans, and for their health in the next fifteen or twenty years.

After their candid discussion with their pals about their dreams, aspirations, and goals, Augie and Merissa in reality started to have more meaningful relationships with all of their friends. The main reason for this was the fact that all of them had the same mentality regarding their heavy and excessive drinking and their relatively short and long-term aspirations, goals, and plans.