Aspies and Alcohol

Post Reply New Topic

I get pretty drunk but I always have a certain control that I don't notice among my other friends.

I used to drink a lot. I made an early discovery that alcohol made me feel more relaxed and outgoing. At the age of 12 me and a couple of guys from my class tricked a girl from our class to show us her dads private brewery in their basement. He made beer from grain, a well known tradition in the north-west of Norway, where I come from. It's a strong brew(10-12% alc) He allways made two barrels, 120 liters each. So we convinced her that her dad would not notice if we had a few sips. So, we put the hose in a barrel and drank till we started to feel the effect. Of cause we got quite drunk, but I remember it as great fun.
Since that i've been drinking most every weekend, sometimes much, other time less. I tend to take too much when I drink, so I'm careful when I drink in the week. That happens If I'm stressed, and for me it helps. My doc says it's common, it's called self treatment. But as many others here says; when I drink too much, I somtimes get some anxiety the day after. I try to limit my use(abuse) to about two sixpacks 0,5 liter 4,5% alc. a week, usually in the weekend. Got to mind the job.

In general, I like alcohol. I seem to be able to reciprocate emotions better when I have been drinking, and drunk people don't seem to care if I say something random.

As far as tolerance issues, I am unusually sensative to most drugs, when compared to NT friends. However, I am unsure when it comes to alcohol, since I have been drinking since I was a child (irish-canadian-hick cultural thing, I guess.)

I'm a talkative drunk. I do drink so I can talk to people more easily. People think I'm great fun even though I'm probably making no sense.
I also make less eye contact and often stare into space. My already poor motor skills get worse.

I discovered the hard way that I can't drink. The teeniest bit of alcohol and I'm too out of it to stand up and seeing triple. It's not remotely enjoyable.

I used to have a beer or glass of wine with dinner now and then. And tried some of the mixed drinks a few times. Found out early on that alcohol affects me more quickly than most (I'm on the small side) and I didn't like how it felt, so I had to stop at one (or one/half) can of beer or glass of wine. Then I found out that troubling symptoms I've had since childhood were caused by an intolerance to gluten grains. Beer is made from grains, so I quit that. Then I figured out the long years of undiagnosed celiac disease had damaged my ability to absorb nutrients from food, and any kind of alcohol makes that worse, so I stopped drinking even wine years ago. I have a bottle of kahlua I've kept around for medicinal purposes (girls, listen up: one shot of kahlua in a cup of warm milk works better than Midol. That's a recipe I passed on to my daughter.) But I don't need that any more. Funny thing is, sometimes I get the impression that people think I'm a closet alcoholic because I get clumsy. I think clumsy goes with being aspie, right?

well hmmm... drinking as I write this...

For me, this topic goes a little bit deeper.

See, my dad (whom I strongly suspect of having Asperger's himself) always drank. Never to excess. He just drank regularly. Glass of wine with dinner. Glass of brandy later if it was a cold night. Beer or two on hot summer days. Whiskey and good wine would appear at social occasions. But he never seemed inebriated at all. He just usually seemed to have a drink with him.

The only times I ever saw my dad show emotion or be sociable, he had been drinking. Otherwise he was his straightlaced, robotic, quiet self. I saw this plenty of times growing up, but never equated his ordinary behavior as having anything to do with AS. It all makes perfect sense now.
He drank to be "normal". He suffered the same variety of social anxiety that I do, and used alcohol to get by in social situations.

So, I myself was highly likely to follow in his footsteps, and I have, to an extent. I've lived on my own since I was 19, and drank regularly ever since, with the notable exception of a year after my son was born. In the early days, I lived with sympathetic addictive personalities, seeking to escape their own painful lives, and we wallowed in drugs and alcohol for a couple of years until it all collapsed and we went our own ways.

Currently, I drink about 5 days out of the week. Usually just beer and wine. I almost never get drunk. It seems to be the non-problematic, maintenance kind of alcoholism that my dad had, and I am carrying on. It calms down the persistent anxiety and makes me more talkative around people; probably the reasons that a lot of people drink. Alcohol has never exacerbated symptoms of AS. In fact it seems to relieve them, which is unfortunate. I would rather just be myself and feel exactly what it is that I feel, instead of the filtered version that I experience by drinking. I suppose this goes along with the desire that I get occasionally to live a more "pure" life... staying sober, eating nutritious food, and keeping healthy influences around me in general.
In a way, I think that this is inevitable... it just hasn't happened yet.

i drink cause thats the only way i can really talk to people.. on the off chance im actually out somewhere.

I'm pretty friendly and giggly atfer 2 pints and it's really easy for me to fall asleep, 4 pints is too much for me though, I can really panic with loud noises going on. I very rarely drink at all, only have like a drink 2 to 3 times a year.

i hate being an alcoholic! it was cool at first but now i cant seem to stop, the only way i can stop myself is if i spend all my money really fast. that way i wont have any money to buy beer god