I went to a birthday party this past weekend for a friend, one of those milestone "surprise" affairs.  Probably 75 people in attendance from age 10 to 85, but the median age was high enough that at 52, I was one of the "young-uns" there.

There was a bar and drinks were being meted out in the form of drink tickets, a number of which were pre-paid and once you ran out of tickets, you had to pay cash for the drinks.  Originally there were supposed to be two tickets per person.  The bartender probably figured she'd be doing well on the cash sales after a bit.

Well you can see where this is going.  When the party was over, there were at least 30 *unused* drink tickets, not one single person had paid cash, and the bar lady had to lug multiple cases of beer back to her truck.   The one person who seemed to be drinking "a lot" didn't really drink as much as she bragged she would, although there was more than willingness to keep handing her tickets.

Not one single obnoxious drunk.  The wasn't a church affair or anything like that.  Largely retired folks who could pretty much drink as much as they wanted.

I'm used to this by now, but I remember the first few times I went to big parties sober, and usually there were one or two or three drunks, but the vast majority didn't drink much or even get silly.  I think about what it would have been like if I had attended that party and was drinking, but playing tape means rewinding it back to my life when I was still drinking and projecting it forward.  If I were even still alive, and still functioning, and even had one friend much less 75, I wouldn't have even been *invited* to such an event.  Instead, I went to this event where I didn't know anybody at all beyond the guest of honor, and had a great time, met some nice people, and I didn't either make an ass of myself nor check out to outer space in total boredom.

I still chuckle at the term "social drinking".  I don't know exactly what I was when I was drinking, but it certainly wasn't "social".  I can no more drink socially than I can get pregnant.  But interestingly, I was able to enjoy myself at an even where people were "drinking socially" and did not feel uncomfortable, judgmental, or in any form of self pity.  Actually when the one lady who was hoarding tickets asked me why I didn't drink, I told her I'd already had enough for one lifetime.  She said "Well I haven't!!" and off she went.  The thing is, the other folks really don't notice or care if I'm drinking or not.  The one person who was curious just said "Oh, all the more for me" and that was that.

Barisax