Merissa and Augie have been dating one another for four years. They met while taking the same statistics class at a relatively large, countryside, Church affiliated liberal arts college located in the Southern part of the United States. While they were only good buddies at first, they eventually began dating when they were in their first year of college.

Since both of them came from very conventional backgrounds, neither one of them drank very much beyond the casual drinking stage when they first started to date. As the time progressed, then again, they began to go to more keg parties, football bashes, happy hours, and sorority and fraternity parties. As a consequence, they progressively began to drink more the longer they dated.

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

After they graduated from college, they both got jobs in a relatively large city that was located just about eighty miles from their undergraduate college. Then they finally made up their mind to move in with one another.

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

Now that they were living with each other and beginning to get more earnest about their relationship, then again, they began thinking about buying a house, becoming more responsible, having children, and getting married.

With any pivotal modification in an individual’s life there is regularly something that triggers the specific modification in question. For Merissa and Augie the thought of buying a new house and having children was this “method of change.” Stated simply, for the first time in their lives, Merissa and Augie began to critically assess their hazardous drinking and the long term effects of alcohol on their health.

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

Would their hazardous and abusive drinking unfavorably affect their ability to have children? How would they be able to continue spending nearly all of their money on drinking if they were to begin saving for a new house? How accountable would they be if they had children and continued to drink in an excessive and irresponsible manner? How would they be able to face their parents and tell them about their long term dreams, hopes, and aspirations while they still drank in an irresponsible and hazardous manner while having fun as they did when they were in college? What would their excessive and heavy drinking do to their relationship? How would their abusive 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 withdrawal symptoms, they realized that their excessive and irresponsible drinking was becoming a problem that they could not ”sweep under the rug” any longer.

After Giving Their State of Affairs Much Thought, Merissa and Augie Grasped the Fact That Their Goals, Aspirations, and Dreams Would not be Brought to Fruition if They Continued Their Hazardous and Excessive Drinking

All of these queries undeniably resulted in the same conclusion: Augie and Merissa needed to realize that they couldn’t continue their abusive and irresponsible drinking if their dreams, aspirations, and goals were to be completed.

Once they came to this conclusion, they informed their drinking friends 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 friends that they still wanted to associate with them but that they would be drinking responsibly from this time forward so that they could start to realize their future dreams, aspirations, and hopes.

Much to their astonishment, all of their friends expressed relief because they too had been taking into account the direction of their lives and concluded that their life-styles were too focused on drinking. They also realized that they would have to change drastically if they were to become more adult-like and exhibit more forethought for their plans, their careers, and for their health in the next ten or fifteen years.

After their candid chat with their friends about their dreams, aspirations, and hopes, Augie and Merissa in effect 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 mindset regarding their irresponsible and excessive drinking and their relatively short and long-term aspirations, goals, and plans.

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