asperger's and alcohol abstinence

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I used to drink.
At the end of the last year, without any clear reason, I reduced drinking, and now, drinking very few, I am feeling very well and planning to stop drinking definitelly.

Anyway, as I wrote at other threads, alcohol is a good NT emulator, and can easier our social contats, I wouldn't say for everyone to stop drinking, but perhaps it is really good to stop. I will probably do it soon.

Once asked why did he drink the man replied:
I drink because it is liquid; if it was solid I would eat it!

I would have to say that, no, I've never touched alcohol because luckily the taste has never really appealed to me, especially after seeing the movie "Ray" starring Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles, where he's shown going through heroin withdrawal and his life is flashing before his eyes.

I stopped drinking for the simple reason it damn near killed me!! !

I might have a glass of wine in a formal dinner setting. Which for me would be two or three times a year.

I have been drinking too often, I think I feel depressed or something. But for the most part, I only drink water, green tea and red wine.
I think Apsie's have such a strong sense of right and wrong that this could attribute to them drinking less or abstaining (from alcohol.) This is my own observation, but I find it to hold some validity.

Same here! I was always turned off by the odor of alcoholic drinks, as well as the taste. Beer especially. When you add in the price…forget it. The only alcoholic drinks I have ever found to taste decent were fruity mixed drinks like a Singapore Sling. Beer and Wine are nasty. In high school and college everyone wanted me to drink to "lighten me up". Now I have a good idea of why I was so anti-social! I'd fake it and take a bottle and pretend to drink to fit in. I was always told, “You have to keep drinking to numb your mouth to the taste!” Why would I want to do that when I have Mountain Dew, Milk, or Water to drink that taste great (to me)?

Who am I kidding? I was really just trying to meet girls back then. I quickly became the designated driver and was being invited out a lot to clubs on South Beach. I hate to call these people friends, since they were really using me, but nonetheless they knew they were in good hands and could get plastered and make it home. I was able to observe a lot about human behavior and quickly came to the conclusion that this kind of social drinking was ridiculous. The pressures put on others to join in is crazy. Some people really shouldn't drink. They used to give this one guy bottles, yes bottles, of Wild Turkey so he would get so drunk he would start spewing out Satanic Verses and puke. The guy was an alcoholic, but the others would just feed his addiction for their own amusement. It took myself and this girl from the floor below to save his life one night and ultimately get him some help. I always wondered what happened to him.

At one party in college, I met this girl. We were flirting and everything was cool. She kept drinking and got hammered. I took her back to her room and, with her roommates help, got her in bed. The next day, I ran into her in the hallway and she smacked me. She was offended that I hadn’t “made a move” on her. That messed me up for years, as I thought I was being a gentleman, and that we had made a connection that we would build on as a friendship and beyond. I was already messed up, I didn't need that kind of experience to further confuse me.

In my professional environment I still get pressured to drink. I work on a joint program with Germany and am over there several times a year for meetings. At the socials, which I’d rather not go to, but when I don’t everyone thinks I am an anti-social jerk, I get handed drinks for toasts and stuff. Everyone knows I don’t drink alcohol, but still they give me a glass. It’s frustrating.

Despite always being an outcast and having trouble fitting in, I resisted the lure of alcohol as a potential way to mellow me out and make me more social, even as a way to meet girls. As I matured, I am proud of this. I suppose if I liked alcohol, I wouldn’t have a problem occasionally drinking, like at those socials for work.

I don’t care if other people drink, so don’t take this as a high and mighty against alcohol. As long as those that want to partake are responsible, especially not driving when doing so, I say to each his own. I just don’t like that we live in a society where not drinking is still cause for making someone an outcast. I have a lot of memories from college and even today of people's actions that they aren't aware of. Bits of other people's lives stored in my brain, that they can't remember due to being drunk. Life is weird.

If you are younger and feeling that pressure, don't buy into it. Be yourself and stand up for what you believe in. In the long run you'll respect yourself more for being true to yourself.

Last edited by Trigger11 on 21 May 2007, 2:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I've been sober for about 18 months now. Getting over my obsession with
alcohol has been one of the most difficult things I've ever
done. As part of my recovery program, I landed in therapy. In therapy, I got
diagnosed with AS in February. So, to make a long story short, here I am.

I am having a somewhat hard time stopping my drinking. I used to drink a pint of liquor a day. Nobody ever said anything, I was the only one who realized I had a problem. I attended an AA meeting once however, and those people creeped me out. I happen to be aetheist as well and found the spiritual overtones suspicious of the program. What I really need is to have some friends who like to do things during the day other than drinking. I can't join sports because I suck at those and there's no amature teams or anything. None of the social groups at my college meet during the summer months. I guess what i'm saying is that I often drink to remind myself of being with friends, and finding it hard to forge new friendships, not based on drinking. To make matters worse, I fear that I might have caused myself a problem with drinking because the side of my gut feels a bit strange, and gets worse when I drink (sometimes painful). Drinking helps me forget things too. I have so many questions I need to ask of people right now that i'm unable to ask (basically self consious stuff). Drinking makes me forget whatever it is i'm frustrated about. I need to know how to quit and never think about it again like I do now. If I see someone drinking on tv it makes me want to drink. I wish I had never started.

I had a really hard time stopping. I'm atheist and I have a hard time with the social aspects of the
usual recovery programs. But I wasn't able to stop on my own, and I had to turn to others for help.

"Don't let anybody or anything turn you into no cripple."

I don't like alcohol. Wine coolers just taste like syrupy sodas which I don't like anyway, beer is nasty, and hard liquor burns too much going down. I have no desire to be intoxicated either. Cigarette smoke bothers me on many levels.

I didn't use to drink. But I'm getting a bit carried away with it over the last few months. Never could stand beer. Hard liquor just makes me sick if I drink enough to have fun with it. So a long stretch of time passed before I stumbled upon wine. Having had cheap convenience store wine like Thunderbird and MadDog with similar sickening results I was surprised. I still buy cheap supermarket brands but I developed a taste for several. Chardonnay is still my choice white and Merlot for red. About all I've drank the last few months is Chardonnay though.

Still doesn't change the fact that I wish I'd never found any of it. I'd be better off for it.

I hardly ever drink. My philosophy is that life is hard enough to make sense without being drunk/stoned on top!
We all have enough problems without adding a manmade one to our lives. I have come to realise that when I drank heavily at school maybe 8 years ago, I was not a good person. I was cheap and loud. It brought out the worst in me and uncontrollable rubbish would pour out of my mouth without me realising what was being said. I fell down some stairs in a wine bar and ran in front of a car because I was depressed and drunk. The thing women with AS should be aware is that being drunk is not wise because we could actually be at risk if we are out and about. It is bad enough making sense of things without some creep taking advantage because we are impaired by drink. I met some really dodgy people and at the time I did not appreciate that I might have been putting myself in danger.

Being British, I am happy with my cups of tea !

Do I drink? Well, yes and no.

Aside from testing new beverages, I drink almost exclusively at special occasions as a celebratory gesture, though I don't view this as bending to social pressure any more than smoking a peace pipe as part of a (soon-to-be broken) 19th century treaty ceremony.

And when I do drink, it's usually the really light stuff..."chick beer". Anything without a fruity flavoring is bound to make me gag it back up.