Make Love Work

Merissa and Augie have been dating for six-and-a-half years. They met while taking the same photo editing class at a medium size, rural, liberal arts college located in the Eastern part of the U.S. While they were mostly good pals at first, they finally started dating when they were in their second year of college.

Since both of them came from very ”old school” backgrounds, neither one of them drank very much beyond the experimental stage when they first started to date. As the time proceeded, nonetheless, they started to go to more keg parties, sorority and fraternity parties, football bashes, and happy hours. As a result, they progressively began to drink increasingly more the longer they interacted with one another.

Their Social Life As a Rule 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 With Their Friends to the Local Disco on the Weekends

After they graduated, they both landed jobs in a medium size city that was located about ninety miles from their undergraduate college. Then they at long last made up their mind to move in with each other.

Since they were far removed from the college drinking scene, then again, their social life generally 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 to the local cabaret with their pals on the weekends. Stated more forcefully, Merissa and Augie began drinking in an abusive and irresponsible manner.

Now that they were living with each other and starting to get more committed to their relationship, however, they started thinking about becoming more responsible, buying a house, getting married, and having children.

With any noteworthy alteration in a person’s life there is commonly something that produces the specific transformation in question. For Augie and Merissa the notion of buying a new house and having children was this “trigger.” In short, for the first time in their lives, Augie and Merissa began to critically assess their drinking and the alcohol long term effects on their lives.

How Would Their Heavy and Hazardous 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 hazardous and heavy 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 begin saving for a new house? How mature 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, dreams, and aspirations while they still drank in an excessive and irresponsible manner while having fun as they did when they were in college? What would their irresponsible and heavy drinking do to their relationship? How would their irresponsible and heavy 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 irresponsible drinking was becoming a reality that they could not discount anymore.

After Giving Their State of Affairs Much Thought, Augie and Merissa Finally Comprehended That Their Aspirations, Dreams, and Goals Would not be Completed if They Continued Their Drinking Behavior

All of these uncertainties plainly pointed to the same conclusion: Augie and Merissa needed to get a more complete picture of the fact that they couldn’t continue their irresponsible and excessive drinking if their aspirations, dreams, and goals were to be brought to fruition.

Once they arrived at this conclusion, they advised their drinking friends 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 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 aspirations, dreams, and hopes.

Surprisingly, all of their buddies expressed relief because they too had been deliberating on their lives and concluded that their life-styles were much too frequently focused on drinking. They also realized that they would have to change drastically if they were to become more mature and exhibit more respect for their careers, their health, and for their plans in the next fifteen or twenty years.

After their heart-to-heart discussion with their buddies about their plans, hopes, and dreams, Augie and Merissa in actual fact 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 frame of mind regarding their heavy and excessive drinking and their short and long-term plans, aspirations, and goals.

Tags: alcohol abuse, alcohol long term effects, alcohol poisoning, alcohol withdrawal symptoms, alcohol withdrawals, long term alcohol effects, long term effects of alcohol, mental health, relationships, self improvement

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 20th, 2009 at 1:59 pm and is filed under make love work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.