Observations on Americans, Part ... 4?

[tealin]

Americans cannot hold their liquor.

Going out for drinks and having a selection of alcoholic drinks available at social gatherings is a standard part of life in Canada, so I thought I was familiar with its effect on people. But HOLY CRAP. I went to a party last night and was one of the first people there, so I got to see most everyone come in, and they went from jolly sober to smashed drunk in about fifteen minutes, apparently on wimpy American beer.* I am used to comrades downing six or seven pints and a couple of shooters still being able to walk straight and hold a decent conversation, but after what could only have been two or three bottles these people were finding stairs a challenge. There were some people who by the end of the evening had the cognitive powers of a slow five-year-old. How can this be? Is it because the higher drinking age prevents gaining a tolerance of the stuff in developing years? Do you seriously expect me to believe none of these people drank before they were 21?

And then this morning I was auditory witness to one of our new downstairs neighbours making comically exaggerated offerings to the porcelain throne. Lovely.

At any rate, I can understand, now, the attitudes towards alcohol of some of my more puritanical acquaintances, if this is the sort of context they have.

*American beer is 4% alcohol, as opposed to 7% in Canada and, what, 73% in Europe?

Comments

[last-archangel.livejournal.com]

It's all our stupid federal government's fault. If we were allowed to drink with our families in our own homes without fear of punishment, we'd be more mature about alcohol and less likely to binge when our bodies are not used to it.

[paruretic-kitty.livejournal.com]

How true that is. Whenever something is forbidden, it becomes that much more appealing. The government always talks about teenage drunk drivers without ever even considering that it could have something to do with the fact that alcohol is treated like some great "forbidden fruit", if you will. Obviously, we don't want little kids getting drunk at bars or anything, but shouldn't it be the family's job, not the government's, to teach kids about alcohol and responsible drinking?

[heidi-wiggin.livejournal.com]

People do drink before they're 21, but because it's illegal and done quickly (in back alleys!) and taboo, they tend to get smashed asap. That's their goal; stumbling-inebriation. If the drinking age were lowered more people's first brush with alcohol would be while they were in high school, at home, they WOULDN'T be in college going crazy. And by the time they got to college the novelty would've worn off.

Yes, American beer sucks.

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with my learned friends' comments above. When I was in HS, I liked hangin' with the foreign exchange kids we had from Europe...and they all said they found American kids' attitude toward the watery beer that was all we could get horribly babyish. Their idea of fun didn't include just obtaining a six pack of Milwaukee's Best or some other low-octane beer, and swilling it down as fast as they could before they were caught; most of them had been drinking beer and wine with their families for years.

[poisonedwriter.livejournal.com]

Above drinking comments are true.

But I have to point out that the toilet praising humor is most certainly not exclusive to American culture. I point most seriously to James Joyce's Ulysses. See? Some people make talking to the bathroom appliances high literature. :P

[jesskat.livejournal.com]

I sometimes hear stories of teenagers desperate to be cool being offered "alcohol" (really just apple cider) by big brothers or sisters and later claiming to be "sooooo wasted". Some of them may think they've drank so much they should logically be drunk by now even if they don't feel like it, so they act like they think one should act when drunk, but I don't think all of them are faking it. I think some of it may have to do with the power of suggestion. People think they should be drunk, so their brain convinces them they are drunk. It may work the other way around, too. People in Europe are used to harder stuff. They tell themselves a few bottles can't possibly be enough to get properly drunk even if there's ten times more alcohol in them than in American beer. So they're able to keep themselves sober longer, by convincing themselves they're not drunk yet.

[mellifluous-ink.livejournal.com]

I do get 'contact drunk' if I'm in a group where everyone is drunk and I'm only a little bit buzzed or not at all. So I support that theory, yeah. The human mind is amazing--we know this already.

As a side note--I find the hyper-pronunciation some people do when they're drunk entertaining, though in what way I don't quite know.

[the-moons-a-nut.livejournal.com]

I really agree with what you said. I actually remember seeing a study on drinking in colleges where the test subjects were given non-alcoholic beer (but they were told it was alcoholic), and in a matter of moments they started showing signs of drunkenness, even though they weren't.

[mincot.livejournal.com]

LOL, Poisonedwriter.

Maybe it is my age, but I grew up seeing 1) the damaging effects of alcohol (my father was an alcoholic) and 2) complete demystification. We were given a thimble cup of wine with fancy meals from the time we were seven or eight. Whether it was illegal or not, it was in our home and the hell with anything else :)

Mind you, I don't drink much--the effect of antidepressants makes one drink have the effect of two or three--and I tend to get violent headaches when I do. But all those factors meant that I never felt the urge to go out and get falling down drunk. I'd seen what that was like and had no desire to experience it for myself. On the other hand, I also knew what alcohol was and what I could drink without having a problem.

[mellifluous-ink.livejournal.com]

See, I'm the same way about cannabis and addiction-to-anything-illegal. The damaging effects and demystification--er, though both were learned from observation and (shockingly) parental pressure to try it myself. I am now so disgusted with it that I know I'll never, ever try it ever.

My mother's family, though, is sort of passively cool about drinking. When I started asking about it, my grandmother explained how one eases into the idea of alcohol (with watered sweet wine) and then moves on to harsher things gradually. I've always been allowed to taste whatever my grandparents and uncle were drinking, and no one freaked out when I started asking about it. Pretty cool, really.

[ardys-the-ghoul.livejournal.com]

Alcohol is overrated.

Then again, I really don't like the taste, so I've never been a big drinker. Just one fancy tropical cocktail with a meal every now and then (you know, like once a month or less, or just on holidays).

I also take medication that can react with alcohol, so I have to be careful anyway.

And the idea of getting roaring drunk doesn't appeal to me. I like being in control of my own mind, thank you. I've never been drunk in my life, unless you want to count one or two times when I took too much cough syrup.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I completely agree – fun is a lot more fun when I am conscious enough to experience it. I am also rather a lightweight so I know my limit and stop well before it, though my pickiness with beverages usually prevents me from drinking anything at all. I just don't understand how woozy stupidity is 'fun.' Loosening up a bit, yes, but going that far?

[spence137.livejournal.com]

Observations on Canadians, Part 1:

They love to talk about how much better, smarter, more cultured (et cetera) they are than their American counterparts.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Um ... yup, I'd say you'd have that about right.

To be fair, when I moved up there I thought the rhetoric was a bit overblown. While some of it still is, I lived in Canada for long enough to come at the US with a foreigner's eyes, and I can definitely see their point. I am continually surprised at what I find down here.

[fani.livejournal.com]

Wait what...I thought you were American then Canadian then American again....SO CONFUSED!!

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Yup, born in the States to mixed parents so I grew up with a foot in both countries, moved up there for college, now down here for work. I still count myself a Canuck, though, as I've never felt really at home in the USA and so many of my values come from the Canadian side. If it wasn't for Disney I'd still be up there. Darn California studio. :P

[quesrah.livejournal.com]

So you live upstairs from me, then?

Oh, you are in Burbank. I'm somebody else's horribly inebriated sick-being neighbor then.

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

My dad is an engineer. He went to the University of waterloo.

Now, my dad is a sleepy drunk, I inherited that from him. However, he and some workmates went to Minneapolis on a work trip.

Their hosts invited them out for beer.

They had beer.

And they left because they were full. not because they were drunk.. FULL.

I taunt my american friends with that. American beer! Low alcohol, more filling!

[sydpad.livejournal.com]

At least in LA, which is most of my observation of Americans, they don't drink that often during the week-- like routinely having wine with dinner for example. For one thing you have to drive everywhere, for another it's a surprisingly puritanical, hard-working place. So they don't get the cast-iron livers that, say, oh, Londoners have; if you only drink on every third weekend I don't know if you'd ever develop a resistance. It's funny though, I wouldn't have said Angelinos drink less than Canadians, or is that just the prairie?

The British of course drink more than I would have thought possible... it takes a good 8 pints to get a small London female drunk, so they generally have about 32 on a night out, this being Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, with toilet-worshiping sessions evenly spread out between. And nice middle-class women's magazines caution that you shouldn't have more than a half-bottle of wine A NIGHT. o_O

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have said Angelinos drink less than Canadians, or is that just the prairie?

It's hard for me to say; I moved to Canada from Utah and anywhere is wetter than Utah. The people I know from the prairies or the North tend to drink more than the others, in my limited experience, possibly as a result of growing up with nothing to do. :) I haven't known any Maritimers, though, and I hear they have a bit of a reputation. There is 'happy hour' at work every Friday, here, with freely available bottles of beer, but I don't know how much people drink when this is not available to them.

But yeah, Canada ain't got nothin' on the UK. Holy smokes.

[frabjous-mimes.livejournal.com]

Studies have shown that college students act more drunk than they really are. That's probably part of it. And plus, American kids are trained that drinking is for getting drunk as fast as possible, so they don't want to hold their liquor, really. I get extremely loopy and spinny from five beers, but then I'm really small and also a girl. And also unused to it.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

These weren't college students, and while I'm sure there was a fair amount of mob psychology involved, it certainly falls short of explaining some people...

Musings from an American

[mellifluous-ink.livejournal.com]

Yeeeeah, I have no idea how people a) stomach American beer piss-water and b) have such a low tolerance for something so weak in alcohol.

I started drinking when I was seventeen, a little. Well, sort of. I now have red wine when I can, but I enjoy the taste and the warmth more than the feeling of getting buzzed. I know I probably can't hold my liquor (for reasons other than being American, really), so I limit myself and water it down copiously with juice or water or ginger ale. Unless it's champagne. Champagne and pomegranite wine are probably very good ways to get me completely smashed. X3

I can't handle drunk people, though--this is why I could never be a bartender. :( I like the drink-mixing, but I can't deal with everything else. Sad is me.

Re: Musings from an American

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Red wine with ginger ale sounds REALLY GOOD.

[octaveleap.livejournal.com]

Three beers in fifteen minutes? I thought it was normal to catch a buzz from that. 15 minutes is a short time to drink that much, even wimpy American beer. (Especially if it's people not used to drinking.)

Unless it's something about all the high-fructose corn syrup they put in our food that lowers our tolerance...

[musemistress.livejournal.com]

Ok, view from the 'European/Australian' perspective. I suppose it doesn;t help I'm a native beer-raised auzzie where basically beer is the essance of life there and eneraly you can live off it. The truckie or bikie with a beer ut is quite common, and the legal drinking age is 18.
My sisters took me out on my 18th birthday and got me completely wasted and I threw up and knew where my limits were after that. But it still took hard liquer to do anything, beer is water to a LOT of Auzzies and I was actually sort of brought up from a young age to have a good taste sense for wines, whiskeys and beers.

Moving onto Europe. Moved here to the Netherlands about 8 months after my 18th, almost 6 years ago now, and didn't become a social drinker till I joined LARP. Now here's where the meads, various whiskeys from all corners of the Union, beers from only the BEST taps (not Heinieken, that stuff is poison) like Amstel, Grolsh or Bavaria and even this cute lil fruity thing called Flügel are consumed in LARGE quantities on a regular basis with people getting drunk but able to keep it oing or many hours into the early morning. Here the legal age is 16.
You see drunk people in bars here all the time, but it takes a WHILE and hardly any are so drunk they are passed out over the Throne.

I guess I should just go to America sometime and experiance the beer. Am a bonified whiskey purist, but beer goes down when I'm thirsty and if I remotely like it. Somehow it would be funny thouh to come home and say to me mates' "Oi, guys. I found something WORSE than Heinieken. And half of it isn't even beer!"

As I said, from an outside perspective that's not British. It can be odd thinking they even dare to water it down at all. SACRILIGE!!

(ps: sorry for jumping onto your lj like this. I just really really liked your artistic skills, and now I get to see outside life. Is mucho fun. Tootles)

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

No apologies required, that is a very interesting post! Thanks for contributing!

[beckychan.livejournal.com]

I didn't start drinking until I was 23, and even now, I drink rarely (maybe "have a drink" three to four times a year and I've only gotten plastered once - and it was on 18 jello shots). My tolerance is... meh. I call myself a middle weight. But I also sober up rather quickly. I remember a New Year's party where I'd gotten relatively tipsy, and I sat down and played video games until I felt sober again. It was actually a pretty odd sensation.

[meganphntmgrl.livejournal.com]

I'm 19 (on Thursday, anyway), and I can say completely honestly that I have NO. ALCOHOL TOLERANCE. AT. ALL.

How little, you say?

Well, the only alcohol I've ever had was a glass of champagne at a wedding once, and then a half-and-half mixture of champagne and sparkling cider at a family party.

My memory is seriously blank for about four hours after both incidents. As such, I'm hoping to go to England for my 21st, because between my lightweightedness and a medication I'm on, getting stinking drunk is NOT AN OPTION.

[veronikamg.livejournal.com]

He he, I live in Norway, the home of the drunk (No, seriosly. It's what we're known for in most of Europe, because we do the same on holiday), and it usually takes us about two hours to get drunk on vodka. If we are 20+ we usually also remain in vertical position and manage to walk home at 5 am. I've been quite drunk at times, but never to the point where I lost my moral compass or general control of the situation. Is it even possible to become drunk on 4% beer, or is it autosuggestion?