Augie and Merissa have been going out for seven-and-a-half years. They met while taking the same English composition class at a relatively small, country, liberal arts college located in the Southern part of the U.S. While they were mostly good friends at first, they finally began dating when they were in their first year of college.
Because both of them came from very conventional backgrounds, neither one of them drank very much beyond the testing stage when they first began dating. As the time progressed, however, they began to go to more sorority and fraternity parties, football bashes, keg parties, and happy hours. Consequently, they little by little began to drink more as they proceeded in their relationship.
Their Social Life Typically Consisted of Going to Professional Sporting Events, Going to Happy Hour With Their Friends, Going to Parties With Their Friends, Going to Restaurants Three or Four Nights Per Week, and Going With Their Friends to the Local Nightclub on the Weekends
After they graduated from college, they both found employment in a large city that was nearly eighty miles from their undergraduate college. Then they at long last made up their mind to move into the same apartment with one another.
Since they were far removed from the college drinking scene, nonetheless, their social life regularly consisted of going to professional sporting events, going to restaurants three or four nights per week, going to happy hour with their friends, going to parties with their friends, and going to the local pub with their buddies on the weekends. Stated more explicitly, Augie and Merissa began drinking in a hazardous manner.
Now that they were living in the same apartment together and beginning to get more unwavering about their relationship, nevertheless, they began to think about getting married, becoming more responsible, buying a house, and having children.
With any noteworthy adjustment in a person’s life there is commonly something that activates the specific adjustment in question. For Augie and Merissa the idea of buying a new house and having children was this “change agent.” In short, for the first time in their lives, Merissa and Augie started to critically review their hazardous and irresponsible drinking and the long term alcohol effects on their health.
How Would Their Abusive and Heavy Drinking Affect Their Ability to Have Children, Their Relationship With One Another, Their Mental Health, Their Finances, and Their Relationship With Their Parents?
Would their hazardous and abusive 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 accountable would they be if they had children and continued to drink in an abusive and excessive manner? How would they be able to face their parents and tell them about their long term aspirations, dreams, and hopes while they still drank in an excessive and abusive manner while having fun as they did when they were in college? What would their abusive and hazardous drinking do to their relationship? How would their abusive and irresponsible drinking affect their mental health?
From a different viewpoint, although neither one of them ever suffered from alcohol poisoning, received a DUI, or experienced alcohol withdrawals, they realized that their hazardous and abusive drinking was becoming an issue that they could not close their eyes to anymore.
After Giving Their State of Affairs Considerable Thought, Augie and Merissa Finally Understood That Their Dreams, Aspirations, and Hopes Would not be Accomplished if They Continued Their Drinking Behavior
All of these inquiries plainly pointed to the same conclusion: Merissa and Augie needed to identify more completely with the fact that they couldn’t continue their irresponsible and abusive drinking if their aspirations, dreams, and hopes were to be met.
Once they got to this conclusion, they notified their drinking pals 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 friends that they still wanted to pal around with them but that they would be drinking responsibly from this moment forward so that they could start realizing their future dreams, aspirations, and hopes.
Unpredictably, all of their pals expressed relief because they too had been reassessing their lives and concluded that their life-styles were much too often centered around drinking. They also believed that they would have to change notably if they were to become more mature and manifest more forethought for their careers, their health, and for their goals in the next fifteen or twenty years.
After their candid discussion with their buddies about their aspirations, dreams, and goals, Merissa and Augie in actual fact started to have more meaningful relationships with all of their pals. The main reason for this was the fact that all of them had a similar way of thinking regarding their irresponsible and hazardous drinking and their relatively short and long-term plans, aspirations, and goals.