Why Do So Many On The Spectrum Not Drink Alcohol?

Post Reply New Topic

Alcohol's a poison and opens a gateway for evil to enter into our world. If AS folk do avoid it, so much the better for us.

1. I can’t stand the smell or the taste.

2. I’m a type II diabetic.

3. My maternal grandfather was the town drunk. When he got drunk, he got vicious. He usually took out everything on mom. She was abused verbally, physically, and mentally. The only reason she got pregnant with me 62 years ago was to get away from him. Grandpa was of the opinion that would should be kept ignorant, pregnant and not allowed out of the kitchen. Needless to say, she was pretty much an unwanted child. While she was never diagnosed (her parents, and dad’s parents believed Louis B. Mayer’s dictum about psychiatrists (Anyone who sees a psychiatrist ought to have their head examined!), I think she may have been bipolar, especially since you had to walk on eggshells around her, as she had a hairpin trigger on her temper. It didn’t take much to set her off.

My dad is an alcoholic from a long line of alcoholics. My mum isn't but her dad was, too. The addiction is strong in my family and I'd rather have nothing to do with it.

I do like the occasional sweet champagne though. That usually happens once every couple of years, heh.

Just about everyone in my family outside of my parents and my grandmother is a heavy drinker to the point I refused an open bar at my wedding because I knew they would all get smashed. They did but it was on their $$$. I honestly would consider it a form of torture to force me to drink more than two beers at a time.

My father let me taste beer from a very young age (only a shotglass full) and I wonder if that didn't turn me away from alcohol: there was no mystery except why do adults drink so much of that gross stuff? I spent about a half our on my 19th birthday getting beer and going to the casino before I said "what a waste of time and money!" and never returned for many years.

I've often wondered that. I got very interested in the stuff when I was a schoolboy and for a few years afterwards, and I think mostly it was because it had been forbidden and it made me feel grown up and one of the successful rebels, then I made some friends who were into it so I did it to fit in as well, I suppose. I eventually stopped because it ceased to be much of a novelty and it wasn't making me happy, just ill, and nobody I knew and respected judged me for stopping. I've also noticed that it can be a social lubricant in moderation, and that it helped me not to shut down in public, but as time went by I realised that it was also making me act like a jerk, and although people tend to make allowances for drunken behaviour, it wasn't really who I wanted to be, and my jerkiness when on alcohol sometimes clearly annoyed people.

So I guess people drink for those reasons - the young ones feel they're being rebellious and cool, and drinkers like the social lubricant effect. Then there's its addictive properties once they've started, and the peer group pressure (some people really judge non-drinkers), and the other thing I've heard is that life is pretty horrible for a lot of people, and alcohol helps them to blot out anxiety and depression for a while - it usually makes things worse eventually but the human race has never been all that great at prioritising long-term benefits at the expense of short-term relief, so they drink too much, eat too much, spend too much, borrow too much, etc.

When my peers began drinking, I didn't want to break the law.
It is often out of my budget range.
It tastes bad.
It could get me in trouble.
I don't like being impaired - as Feynman noted, thinking is more fun.
I really don't like being with drunks.
I like to think I'm "smarter than the average bear."

alky is fire water. it burns like fire all the way down to the exit. i can taste trace amounts of alky based on that burning sensation. but i love to cook with it just the same, the burn cooks off, leaving something indescribably rich. i can handle swigs of a weak wine as long as it is ice-cold. no more than about a 1/4 cup, total. and always with food. on an empty stomach it is not pleasant.

I happily use alcohol.
If I'm out with people I'll have a couple of quick drinks to loosen up a bit. But I stop after two because my tolerance is low nowadays.
At home by myself I might still have a glass with dinner some nights (mainly Friday or at the weekend). Helps me wind down.

When I can't gracefully avoid it, my limit is two. My mother had two sets of glasses that looked the same, but one set was "seconds" - they had warped a little bit. If anyone asked for a third drink, they got their "refill" in a misshapen glass.

I hate the taste of alcohol. I drink very rarely but the few times I do drink a year, I drink expressly to get as drunk as possible. I was always more of a stoner. My therapist in high school supported me doing drugs and drinking because it got me socialising and making friends when I otherwise wouldn't

Alcohol makes me cranky and tense. I've never felt any good feelings after drinking so why bother to spend money on it? My husband (who isn't autistic) is the same. Drinking doesn't do anything for him, so we never buy any. Sometimes people would gift us a bottle or two, we do drink them as we don't want to waste them. Sometimes I wish it would have some good effect on me, like making me sleepy or something, but it just doesn't work.

1. It generally tastes terrible. I've tasted some of the more fruity drinks and a couple of those were 'okay'. Not enough to make me really want one though
2. It typically smells bad, especially beer
3. The price. Its pretty dumb for me to spend more on a beverage I don't like
4. When inebriated people can get (temporary) Nystagmus. I already have nystagmus, the prospect of it getting worse isn't something I wish to test.
5. I dislike the way it makes me feel. Its like all of sudden being able to feel your aeries and veins (or just like the blood moving through them). It's weird as hell and even the alcohol in things Nightquil can cause it
6. There's alcoholism in my family, so I always intended to avoid it a bit anyway
7. Technically you're not supposed to drink alcohol while taking the medication I am. I'm sure some people do though.
8. People act and say stupid things when drunk. Anything that would make someone that way is of no interest to me. 9 Even when people weren't exactly drunk, I always thought the adults drinking around me when I was a kid were ridiculous.
9. The idea that I might end up a bit less in control of my body is scary
10. It can make you vulnerable, I do not want to be such around other people. Nor is it particularity safe in some situations.
11. I was a Stay Safe/DARE kid. They succeeded in making me want to be a a good girl Lol

Honestly I could probably come up with more things that I dislike about it and thus why I keep away from it, but I think one can get the point already.

I do not like the taste of most alcoholic beverages including beer, wines, etc. However, I do like Seagrams flavored drinks and pina coladas. But I do not desire to drink them often. I may go a year or more without drinking an alcoholic beverage.

Im a yorkshireman, i grew up drinking a LOT of alcohol. However as ive got older, i just find other things to be more important. i still have a drink of tatratea, or whiskey every so often. But i havent been to the pub in a long time. I rarely buy alcohol in. Although every time family come to the UK they always bring more alcohol for me. I dont know why lol
Even when i drank a lot of alcohol i rarely got so drunk i wasnt in control, in fact i can only think of a couple of times that happened in my entire life. The one problem with being able to hold your drink is that you end up being the one who has to carry friends home and put them to bed, EVERY TIME

I must be unusual here as I have always liked alcohol and still do, although with age I find myself wanting it less often, and less of it.

When I was 16 I somehow happened to find myself at a high school party (the kind from which I was usually excluded) and there was alcohol, and I got drunk, and found myself having positive feelings toward all the other people there (which I'll assume weren't reciprocated in the slightest) and from that time on, most of my socializing involved alcohol. In contrast, I very seldom used cannabis and didn't get the same effect from it.

It was something of an adjustment for me, when I got into my 30s and had kids, and it was no longer thought normal to have more than perhaps one alcoholic drink (if any) at social gatherings, and I found I did not function well at those. The experience I described at age 16 notwithstanding, I did become fairly capable of participating in drinking parties on an equal basis with others, especially as a university student.

In particular, I was especially attracted to the pub culture in the UK in the early 70s, especially as how non-judgmental people there seemed to be regarding drinking for its own sake.

i could go into greater detail, but I think you get the idea. Like I said, I don't drink as much as I used to, but I don't plan on giving it up until I absolutely have to, and I don't seem to have suffered any significant medical consequences as a result.

I have ASD Level 1, and I drink beer every day. I work hard every day, with lots of physical exertion, then I come home and drink beer, which feels like a reward for having worked hard. It's a "work hard, then play hard" mentality, but not the boisterous gregarious NT-type you'd see on a stereotypical beer commercial, where all the burly construction workers get off work and drink Budweiser together down at the bar on the corner. For me, I just quietly get my work done, then quietly come home to enjoy drinking beer, sometimes while also doing other things, like working in my garden, listening to music, or anything else I may want to enjoy. I also like the occasional "going out" with my wife to get lunch or dinner, and having 2 or 3 drinks with a meal there, but I don't like to be out for long, as I get tired of being in a loud place, and also because I want us to get home safe.

Drinking is part of my daily routine, and I don't feel bad about it. It seems to calm the rough edges I might get from the workday or the drive home, and makes me ever so less likely to have a meltdown the rest of the day. On average, I'll probably drink 4 to 6 beers each day after work, and on non-workdays, maybe as many as 10. I once had 19 beers in one day, but yeah, I'm never doing that again

I enjoy the occasional peaty single-malt whisky too, like Talisker or Laphroaig, but any other hard liquor is of no real interest to me. Wine can taste very good, but I never crave it.