I don't understand why people drink alcohol

" @discost3w said:

So do I, If it wasn't for some month ago I would not have had a drink in pretty much 2 years, but I don't think it's something wrong. I love fucking around with drunk people and someone has to drive :) "

I can understand where you are coming from but from my experiences I've seen people drink for the reasons I said in my first post. Maybe its because all my friends and people I hang out with are in high school I dunno.     

" I have no idea either.  It tastes truly horrid - all of it.  I am yet to find a completely truthful person who loved alcohol from the first drink.  They just keep doing it to "fit in" and eventually acquire a taste for it.  You can acquire a like of just about anything if you keep doing it, but pure logic says to me that it is a stupid concept. "

" @discost3w said: 

"Because I like stuff that will be hot in my mouth."  

....  Sigh, I'm really immature.  "

" @discost3w: exactly. I was trying to make the point that some people eat/say/do things that others can't understand why. Some people don't like spicy food, some people don't like coffee and some people don't like alcohol. Sephiroth9997 -A.K.A. Mr. Conformity needed someone to point that out.  And yes, it's just as silly as arguing about favorite colors with a friend. Mine is blue, by the way  =) "

" @HS21 said:

" @discost3w said: 

"Because I like stuff that will be hot in my mouth."  

....  Sigh, I'm really immature.  "

If you read it that way you are the one that is immature because I had no intention of making it sound so dirty, I hope you took the time to read the end of my sentence. "

" @KimChi4U said:

" @discost3w: exactly. I was trying to make the point that some people eat/say/do things that others can't understand why. Some people don't like spicy food, some people don't like coffee and some people don't like alcohol. Sephiroth9997 -A.K.A. Mr. Conformity needed someone to point that out.  And yes, it's just as silly as arguing about favorite colors with a friend. Mine is blue, by the way  =) "

I understand 100%. I think the topic should have been called " Why do you drink / not drink alcohol?" "

I drink, because for the time being, it is amazing, but the next morning can somewhat suck.

I do not think it tastes good, and I do not enjoy being drunk.

"

I think beer tastes horrible, and see no reason why you'd drink the stuff. Other types of alcohol are pretty awesome though. 
 
A better question is why do people smoke cigarettes? There's no benefit at all, it's like paying to slowly kill yourself.

"

it's stupid.
/thread

" @Shirogane said:

"

I think beer tastes horrible, and see no reason why you'd drink the stuff. Other types of alcohol are pretty awesome though. 
 
A better question is why do people smoke cigarettes? There's no benefit at all, it's like paying to slowly kill yourself.

"

Do you even realise what you just wrote? "

" You find out how girls really are on the inside, so it helps when you're older and looking for a potentional wife.  >.>  EDIT:  Same works for guys who show their true side to women, I just picked the first way...becasue I'm a dude who is into girls. "

"  " I feel sorry for people who don't drink. They wake up in the morning and that's the best they're going to feel all day." Dean Martin    Nuff said. "

" I have no idea either.  It tastes truly horrid - all of it.  I am yet to find a completely truthful person who loved alcohol from the first drink.  They just keep doing it to "fit in" and eventually acquire a taste for it.  You can acquire a like of just about anything if you keep doing it, but pure logic says to me that it is a stupid concept. "

I waited till I was 21 to try beer and I'm glad I did because it tastes horrible. Before I drank a beer I would think "why do people like this crap", well after drinking it I know...people simply drink to get drunk or at least get a buzz feeling. I've tried probably a dozen types of beer since turning 21, they all still taste horrible. The most alcohol I've ever had was two beers, I didn't like how I felt, it was difficult for me to walk straight, and my vision was off...that doesn't sound like fun to me.

There are lots of different kinds of alcohol, it has a rich cultural history to it.  There is a huge variety of beers, wines, and liquors.  In which you can probably find something you like.  Heck, studies have shown that a glass of red wine or a beer a day (dark beer is better) is actually good for you.  The key is enjoying it responsibly and in moderation.  You can't really enjoy your drink of choice if you are drunk out of your mind. 
 
For people who say they don't like beer, I encourage you to try some microbrews.  Bud, Miller, and Coors really aren't all that good.  If you try a few microbrews you may find something that suits your taste.  There are tons of different flavors and styles.  Personally, I am a fan of Great Lakes Brewery (Ohio), Dogfish head (Delaware), and Ommegang (New York.)
 
A good beer or glass of wine with your meal can make the whole experience better.

Rjay, your drinking habits reminded me of one of my favorite Bender quotes from Futurama:
 
LEELA: "Bender, why did you jump in?"
BENDER: "Everyone was doing it... I just wanted to be popular."

" Why do people have sex? I mean aside from the fact that it feels really really really good you could get an STD or the girl could get pregnant. Almost everything good has a downside, if you judge a thing like alcohol based solely on the fact that it isn't good for you, than you are uneducated in the literal sense. "

lol at the teenagers in this thread.
 
 
Because it can be enjoyable.
I have 1-3 drinks a night on the weekend, And that's about it.  It has been years since I have gotten completely shit-faced, 
With age comes the knowledge that drinking is best when done to relax, Not simply to get drunk.

" This thread is dumb.  Why does anyone do anything?  "

I have questions for the people who say that alcohol tastes like crap. 
 
What was your first drink? Was this the drink that you thought tasted bad? If you continued to try different kinds of drinks, what did you try after that? How much more did you drink? 
  
I'd be curious to know if maybe you didn't like the taste of alcohol because you were maybe drinking something that wasn't good to begin with. Or maybe your first beer was room temperature. I know for a fact I like beer a lot more when it's ice cold. I also know that there are certain brands of beer that don't sit well with me either. 
 
I'm not advocating going out and finding the one drink that you might like....if you don't like drinking that's your opinion. I'm simply saying that I love a cold beer on a hot day. I don't have self esteem issues, I don't try to fit in (it's hard for a white guy to fit in in Korea) and I don't drink to get hammered. What's so hard to understand about someone who likes the taste of an alcoholic beverage?

" I have no idea either.  It tastes truly horrid - all of it.  I am yet to find a completely truthful person who loved alcohol from the first drink.  They just keep doing it to "fit in" and eventually acquire a taste for it.  You can acquire a like of just about anything if you keep doing it, but pure logic says to me that it is a stupid concept. "

" Well in some sense I do.  "to have fun"  "to release inhibitions".  But if you need alcohol to do something, isn't there an underlying problem with you in the first place?  "I need poison to do this, or I can't do it." Is that the right logic to use?  The only reason I'd drink alcohol is if I was at a party (which I rarely am) just to not look different and strange.  But I wouldn't be enjoying it.  I'd just be sipping the cup in little amounts for as long as possible, to make it look like I was enjoying it, when really I'd only drink it to fit in.  "

" @oldschool said: 

"  @Jeffsekai said: 

"  @oldschool said: 

" I have no idea either.  It tastes truly horrid - all of it.  I am yet to find a completely truthful person who loved alcohol from the first drink.  They just keep doing it to "fit in" and eventually acquire a taste for it.  You can acquire a like of just about anything if you keep doing it, but pure logic says to me that it is a stupid concept. "

Yet people drink coffee so you must hate them too. "

What crawled up your arse?  Where did I say that I hate people who drink alcohol?  My partner drinks wine because she likes it, but even she admits she didn't like alcohol, but acquired the taste eventually, confirming it was about peer pressure and a desire to be an "adult".  And yes, I hate coffee.  I can't stand the smell either.  Same thing as alcohol, as in you acquire the taste with persistence.  However, with coffee, I have been involved in selling millions of dollars of it over the last 11 years, so it pays my bills. "

 Alcohol doesn't pay anybody's bill, I guess.  "

" @oldschool said:

" I have no idea either.  It tastes truly horrid - all of it.  I am yet to find a completely truthful person who loved alcohol from the first drink.  They just keep doing it to "fit in" and eventually acquire a taste for it.  You can acquire a like of just about anything if you keep doing it, but pure logic says to me that it is a stupid concept. "

 Honestly, I didn't like beer the first time I drank it, but I tried a different kind and enjoyed it.  My point is that the taste of alcohol can vary a great deal depending on how the alcoholic beverage is prepared.  If I'd drank the other beer first, I may have liked alcohol from the get go.  Also, I prefer certain types of liquor over beer.  For example, I'm a big fan of a Martguerita.  I didn't keep doing it to fit in, as I wasn't attempting to fit in.  I started consuming it just because I wanted to try it.  There was no one around that I was trying to impress.  It was just me and my wife.   Oh, and the concept of acquiring a  like by continuing to do it is not always a stupid concept.  For example, let's say that the thing that you are attempting to acquire a like for is healthy for you, such as vegetables, then that concept would be a great thing. "

"
Hey, my brother became a millionaire from producing beer, by running factories in Shanghai, Phnom Penh, Adelaide and Nandi, so I dispute that. "

" @oldschool said:

"
Hey, my brother became a millionaire from producing beer, by running factories in Shanghai, Phnom Penh, Adelaide and Nandi, so I dispute that. "

I was kidding of course, if there's is something that has to be good business at the moment it's alcohol. "

" @oldschool said:

" I have no idea either.  It tastes truly horrid - all of it.  I am yet to find a completely truthful person who loved alcohol from the first drink.  They just keep doing it to "fit in" and eventually acquire a taste for it.  You can acquire a like of just about anything if you keep doing it, but pure logic says to me that it is a stupid concept. "

 The first time I drank and the first time I got drunk were merely results of my curiosity. I wanted to know how it tasted and how it felt to be drunk. My first tasting wasn't satisfactory but the outcome was great. Being drunk makes me feel lighter and less restrained by depressing logic. With friends, being mindless is a very fun experience that exceeds many others.    Oh, and I used to hate broccoli and mustard with all my heart. Now I find broccoli rather enjoyable and I can't live without mustard on my sandwiches.    "

Considering the vodka taste and consumption I would say the taste of alcohol is not the cause of people drinking it. Consider tequila and the usual ritual to drink it (salt, lemon, ...), now consider what would happen if you had to do the same to drink lama milk, do you think lama milk would be as popular as tequila?
 
It's not only peer pressure, alcohol has a lot of memes associated in our society, and that's logical if you consider the effects it has on neural (impulse transmission) inhibition, it has been part of the human culture for a while, so it is logical that there are many associated.
 
Consider the hedhehog's dilemma, the rite of drinking with other people just takes down the spines, people enjoy being drunk when they are surrounded by people that are drunk too. A lot of barriers go down, and for that you like to know the other person is doing the same, so there is a part of trust along with the social pressure.  Then, when the barriers come up again they may come with regret, think about the meme of someone waking up with other person and regretting whatever could happen.
 
It is a complex topic, because it is a drug, as a drug it could be good as the drugs a doctor may tell you to take or it could be bad as allegedly are illegal drugs, actually it has been illegal in some places during some time in history and it is forbidden by some religions, so probably it is illegal at some places nowadays. It also has a very important social aspect, and a lot of memes are related with it, and both things have a strong influence in the perception of alcohol and people who drink it.
 
 There is also some consumption (usually lonely) for kind of therapeutic effects, and the way it makes people feel, being lonely can lead to addiction slightly more easily than drinking in social environments. Consider it as aspirin, your head hurts and you take aspirin, you feel bad (nervous, whatever) and you take alcohol, alcohol is more addictive than aspirin and may have a better taste, though, but the taste is quite irrelevant in the whole thing.

In short, it is a social and cultural rite of drug consumption with a lot of memes associated and people like to be part of the flock. Some people also like the effects it has on them.
 
That's why people drink alcohol written in one line, replying to the topic. On a side note,  it's interesting that people drink voluntarily alcohol, while there is a strong resistance to take any drug that has effects on the brain, people usually reject those alleging they change their personality, and all that stuff.

If you would drink alcohol so you wouldn't look different, isn't there an underlying problem with you ?

" @oldschool: LOL He pissed on your clothes, awesome. "

" @Khann said:

" @Shirogane said:

"

I think beer tastes horrible, and see no reason why you'd drink the stuff. Other types of alcohol are pretty awesome though. 
 
A better question is why do people smoke cigarettes? There's no benefit at all, it's like paying to slowly kill yourself.

"

Do you even realise what you just wrote? "

Somewhat, but not fully? I do feel there is some kind of logic failure in there...there was something i was missing when i wrote that, but i couldn't remember so i just went with what i had. "

" @Cube said:

" @oldschool: LOL He pissed on your clothes, awesome. "

Not for me it wasn't.  It was 4 am and I had all my clothes laid out for the trip home.  Not for him it wasn't, he lost his job.  Pissing on the television didn't help as well.  I have to wait for 22.3 years before I can laugh about it  :/ "

" @Shirogane said:

" @Khann said:

" @Shirogane said:

"

I think beer tastes horrible, and see no reason why you'd drink the stuff. Other types of alcohol are pretty awesome though. 
 
A better question is why do people smoke cigarettes? There's no benefit at all, it's like paying to slowly kill yourself.

"

Do you even realise what you just wrote? "

Somewhat, but not fully? I do feel there is some kind of logic failure in there...there was something i was missing when i wrote that, but i couldn't remember so i just went with what i had. "

Just the fact that alcohol isn't good for you at all either.   People smoke for the same reasons people drink alcohol. Why do people drink alcohol? Well, that's what this topic is for ;) "

The speech begins at 5:30

" @oldschool said:

" @Cube said:

" @oldschool: LOL He pissed on your clothes, awesome. "

Not for me it wasn't.  It was 4 am and I had all my clothes laid out for the trip home.  Not for him it wasn't, he lost his job.  Pissing on the television didn't help as well.  I have to wait for 22.3 years before I can laugh about it  :/ "

You had to wait 22 years before you got over the fact that someone peed on your clothes you had laid out?  Man, that's a bit silly. "

Just had 2 shots of Whisky in tribute to this thread. 
 
:D

" I will never drink alcohol. I've seen what it did to my father and I don't want to end up like that.  "

I drink because I like the way some beers taste (yeah even shitty cheap beers) and It feels good. I was never peer pressured into drinking. I have never drank to "fit in". Some of the most fun I've had with friends and/or family have involved good music, good company and good beer.  
 
Different strokes for different folks. 

I can't help but notice the overwhelming percentage of people who are using the hasty generalization  fallacy in their arguments. Just because your experience with those who drink has been generally positive, or generally negative in no way implies that EVERY experience with drinking will be that same way. I feel stupid myself for even posting in this thread because lulz @ argument on intarwebz! Nonetheless I hope someone takes away the idea that YOUR experience is not necessarily the exact same experience of everyone else. Logic may dictate this conclusion to you, but if you read Immanuel Kant's epistemology perhaps you may concede at least a respect for, or acquiescence to, an opposing perspective.

Alcohol makes all of the bad things less bad, for a little while. This is why people become alcoholics.

In short, it is a social and cultural rite of drug consumption with a lot of memes associated and people like to be part of the flock. Some people also like the effects it has on them. That's why people drink alcohol written in one line, replying to the topic.