Augie and Merissa have been in a dating relationship for four years. They met while taking the same Spanish history class at a relatively small, rural, Church affiliated liberal arts college located in the Southern part of the United States. While they were merely good pals at first, they finally started dating when they were in their first year of college.

Because both of them came from very traditional backgrounds, neither one of them drank much beyond the social drinking stage when they first started to date. As the time went by, nevertheless, they started to go to more keg parties, happy hours, football bashes, and sorority and fraternity parties. Consequently, they progressively began to drink more as they proceeded in their relationship.

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

After they graduated, they both found employment in a large city that was roughly eighty-five miles from their undergraduate college. Then they finally made up their mind to move into the same apartment together.

Since they were far removed from the college drinking scene, nonetheless, their social life typically consisted of going to happy hour with their friends, going to restaurants three or four nights per week, going to parties with their friends, going to professional sporting events, and going to the local disco with their friends on the weekends. In a word, Augie and Merissa started to drink in a hazardous and irresponsible manner.

Now that they were living in the same apartment with one another and beginning to get more earnest about their relationship, nonetheless, they began to think about buying a house, getting married, having children, and becoming more responsible.

With any important modification in a person’s life there is commonly something that forces the specific change in question. For Augie and Merissa the notion of buying a new house and having children was this “trigger.” Stated more precisely, for the first time in their lives, Augie and Merissa began to think about their hazardous and excessive drinking and the long term alcohol effects on their lives.

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

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

From a different slant on things, although neither one of them ever suffered from alcohol poisoning, received a DUI, or experienced alcohol withdrawals, they realized that their irresponsible and hazardous drinking was becoming a thorny issue that they could not overlook anymore.

After Giving Their Circumstances Some Serious Thought, Augie and Merissa Grasped the Fact That Their Goals, Dreams, and Aspirations Would not be Accomplished if They Continued Their Hazardous and Heavy Drinking

All of these inquiries without a doubt indicated the same conclusion: Augie and Merissa needed to realize more fully that they couldn’t continue their abusive drinking if their goals, aspirations, and dreams were to be met.

Once they came to this conclusion, they alerted their drinking pals about their plans to start a family, about their goal of buying or building a new house, and about their marital plans. They also told their drinking buddies that they still wanted to associate with them but that they would be drinking responsibly from this moment forward so that they could start to realize their future plans, hopes, and dreams.

Much to their disbelief, all of their friends expressed relief because they too had been contemplating their lives and concluded that their life-styles were too centered around drinking. They also understood that they would have to change notably if they were to become more accountable and manifest more care for their careers, their health, and for their aspirations in the next ten or fifteen years.

After their heart-to-heart discussion with their friends about their hopes, plans, and dreams, Merissa and Augie essentially started to have more meaningful relationships with all of their buddies. The key reason for this was the fact that all of them had the same mentality regarding their hazardous and abusive drinking and their relatively short and long-term plans, aspirations, and goals.