A Young Couple Assesses Their Hazardous Drinking and Their Short and Long-Term Aspirations, Dreams, and Hopes

Merissa and Augie have been in a dating relationship for six years. They met while taking the same organizational behavior class at a small, rural, Church affiliated liberal arts college located in the Midwestern part of the U.S. While they were basically good friends at first, they finally began dating when they were in their third year of college.

Due to the fact both of them came from very traditional backgrounds, neither one of them drank much beyond the testing stage when they first began dating. As the time progressed, nevertheless, they started to go to more happy hours, keg parties, sorority and fraternity parties, and football bashes. As a consequence, they over time began to drink more as they proceeded in their relationship.

Their Social Life Generally 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 Club on the Weekends

After they graduated, they both landed jobs in a relatively small city that was around fifty miles from their undergraduate college. Then they finally determined that they would move in with each other.

Because they were far removed from the college drinking scene, however, their social life usually 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 friends on the weekends. Stated more explicitly, Augie and Merissa started to drink in a hazardous manner.

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

With any substantial alteration in an individual’s life there is commonly something that initiates the specific modification in question. For Merissa and Augie the thought of buying a new house and having children was this “change agent.” In a word, for the first time in their lives, Augie and Merissa started to critically appraise their drinking behavior and the long term alcohol effects on their lives.

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

Would their abusive 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 adult-like 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 plans, dreams, and hopes while they still drank in an irresponsible and hazardous 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 hazardous and excessive 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 heavy and hazardous drinking was becoming a problem that they could not discount any longer.

After Giving Their Situation Considerable Deliberation, Merissa and Augie Finally Realized That Their Hopes, Plans, and Dreams Would not be Fulfilled if They Continued Their Abusive and Irresponsible Drinking

All of these uncertainties clearly pointed to the same conclusion: Merissa and Augie needed to understand that they couldn’t continue their heavy and abusive drinking if their aspirations, goals, and dreams were to be accomplished.

Once they arrived at this conclusion, they alerted their drinking buddies about their their goal of buying or building a new house, about their marital plans, and about their plans to start a family. 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 time forward so that they could start to realize their future dreams, goals, and aspirations.

Much to their wonder, all of their friends expressed relief because they too had been reappraising their lives and concluded that their life-styles were much too frequently centered around drinking. They also understood that they would have to change fundamentally if they were to become more responsible and show more respect for their aspirations, their careers, and for their health in the next fifteen or twenty years.

After their conversation with their friends about their dreams, hopes, and plans, Merissa and Augie basically started to have more meaningful relationships with all of their friends. The primary reason for this was the fact that all of them were on the same wave-length regarding their heavy and excessive drinking and their relatively short and long-term goals, aspirations, and plans.