A Young Couple Appraises Their Hazardous Drinking and Their Short and Long-Term Goals, Dreams, and Aspirations

Augie and Merissa have been in a dating relationship for seven years. They met while taking the same French history class at a relatively large, countryside, liberal arts college located in the Midwestern part of the U.S. While they were only good buddies at first, they at long last started to date when they were in their third year of college.

Because both of them came from very traditional backgrounds, neither one of them drank much beyond the experimental stage when they first started to date. As the time passed by, however, they began to go to more happy hours, keg parties, sorority and fraternity parties, and football bashes. Consequently, they in a step-by-step fashion began to drink more the more they interacted with one another.

Their Social Life Usually Consisted of Going to Parties With Their Friends, Going to Restaurants Three or Four Nights Per Week, Going to Happy Hour With Their Friends, Going to Professional Sporting Events, and Going With Their Friends to the Local Club on the Weekends

After they graduated, they both got jobs in a medium size city that was located nearly eighty miles from their undergraduate college. Then they at long last made up their mind to move in with one another.

Due to the fact they were far removed from the college drinking scene, nonetheless, their social life usually consisted of going to happy hour with their friends, going to parties with their friends, going to professional sporting events, going to restaurants three or four nights per week, and going to the local bar with their pals on the weekends. To come to the point, Merissa and Augie began drinking quite heavily.

Now that they were living in the same apartment with one another and starting to get more resolute about their relationship, nevertheless, they began thinking about becoming more responsible, having children, buying a house, and getting married.

With any pivotal change in a person’s life there is regularly something that forces the specific transformation in question. For Merissa and Augie the idea of having children and buying a new house was this “mechanism of change.” In short, for the first time in their lives, Merissa and Augie began to reflect on their abusive and excessive drinking and the alcohol long term effects on their health.

How Would Their Irresponsible and Abusive Drinking Affect Their Relationship With Their Parents, Their Ability to Have Children, Their Mental Health, Their Finances, and Their Relationship With One Another?

Would their heavy and excessive drinking negatively affect their ability to have children? How would they be able to continue spending almost all of their money on drinking if they were to begin saving for a new house? How mature would they be if they had children and continued to drink in an irresponsible manner? How would they be able to face their parents and tell them about their long term hopes, dreams, and aspirations while they still drank in a hazardous and excessive manner while having fun as they did when they were in college? What would their irresponsible and hazardous drinking do to their relationship? How would their abusive and irresponsible drinking affect their mental health?

From a different line of reasoning, although neither one of them ever suffered from alcohol poisoning, received a DUI, or experienced alcohol withdrawal symptoms, they realized that their drinking behavior was becoming a reality that they could not ”sweep under the rug” anymore.

After Giving Their Situation Considerable Thought, Merissa and Augie Concluded That Their Goals, Dreams, and Aspirations Would not be Realized if They Continued Their Heavy Drinking

All of these questions unmistakably pointed to the same conclusion: Augie and Merissa needed to understand more fully that they couldn’t continue their excessive drinking if their dreams, aspirations, and hopes were to be completed.

Once they got to this conclusion, they advised their drinking buddies 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 hang out with them but that they would be drinking in strict moderation from this time forward so that they could start realizing their future dreams, aspirations, and goals.

Shockingly, all of their friends expressed relief because they too had been reappraising their lives and concluded that their life-styles were much too often centered around drinking. They also thought that they would have to change fundamentally if they were to become more adult-like and manifest more forethought for their goals, their health, and for their careers in the next five or ten years.

After their heart-to-heart conversation with their friends about their dreams, goals, and aspirations, Merissa and Augie in essence started to have more meaningful relationships with all of their friends. The main reason for this was the fact that all of them had the same outlook regarding their abusive and heavy drinking and their relatively short and long-term plans, goals, and aspirations.