[rescue] mind-altered sbus ethernet

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Wednesday, August 22, 2001 at 22:57:57 (-0400), joshua d boyd wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [rescue] sbus ethernet
>
> I've only done Caffiene.  Never anything harder.

I'm not sure whether achohol or caffeine is worse at least from my
perspective as someone who's apparently not usually as susceptible to
addictive things.

I am quite seriously hooked on caffeine -- I usually cannot get
functioning properly after I wake without a coffee (or tea) and I suffer
physically later in the day if I don't have any cafeine.  (It's much
better now I work at home than when I worked in an office with lots of
free coffee and few other interesting things to drink -- now I drink
only 1/2 a pot per day, and I prefer dark roasts which generally have
less caffeine too.  Before I'd get the shakes on Sunday afternoons even
though I'd already had a half pot that day!)

My wife's right off caffeine, on doctor's orders -- she was quite a
coffee freak before too, but she seems to be taking it rather well.  She
says a latte made with decaf esspresso isn't all that bad....  :-)  (and
she's currently on meds that can't mix with much alchohol!)

I can, and often do, have "just one beer" though.  My AA-attending
friends are always very stunned at my ability to have such restraint
(one friend celebrated her 20'th AA "birthday" today!).  I've learned
from them that alcoholics will amost always drink until they are drunk
once they have even one drink.  Their thirst for the drink is just too
overpowering I guess.

However I like the taste of good beer so much I find it hard to stop
drinking it sometimes unless I have something else like a good strong
coffee or a sweet drink of some sort (Tai ice tea, or even pop).  But
even if I keep drinking beer I will only have 3-4 over an entire long
evening (unless I'm out with friends for the purpose of drinking :-).

What I really don't like (any more) is getting too drunk -- I like that
mild buzz that comes from one or two beers on an empty stomach, but
that's it.  That's when I slow way down.  In my last year of high school
and into early university I would drink like a fish when out drinking
(which in those days was more often than not!), but after about three
years of that I got to the point where I'd have 3-4 drinks max. at the
beginning of the evening (with a meal too) and then I'd drink soda water
for the rest of the night.  These day's I'll have 4-5 pints on
"beer-drinking with the buddies" nights, about twice or three times a
month, which does get me rather drunk, but other than that I just have a
beer with my supper at home, and then maybe one or two over the span of
the rest of the evening.  I've probably do get really drunk more often
than I should, but it's a rare enough event that my friends are usually
quite surprised when it "happens".

I've found a really nice rasberry wheat beer made by a small brewery,
Kawartha Lakes Brewing Co., www.klb.on.ca, in Peterborough, Ont. that's
only 4.5% (regular Canadian beer is 5% alcohol by volume and that 1/2%
does make a difference, especially if you have only two or three, for
you southerners it means it's still stronger than many commercial
American beers which are supposedly only 3.5% by volume![*]) and which
has a very nice light thirst-quenching taste, and most importantly for
me is a pure beer -- no additives other than the rasberry juice which is
so subtle as to just barely be there.  If you're in Ontario any time I'd
reccommend stopping by any larger "The Beer Store" ("Brewers Retail")
and getting some to try.  There are, I think, still lots of Beer Stores
with coolers that you can buy just a single bottle from.  It's not in
any pubs I've been to yet, though it might be in the L.C.B.O. stores
too.  You might try a bottle of Creemore Springs too (they still only
come in the larger 500ml bottles).

I cannot drink any commercial beers though -- i.e. the ones with 147 or
more additives.  I get an almost instant headache even after just one.
Many commercial hard liquors, and red wines, do the same to me.  Only
single malt Scotch whiskey for me if it's not premimum all-natural beer!


[*] other sources suggest non-lite Budweiser, for example, is 4.7% ABV.
For more fun and info about measuring alcohol in drinks see:
http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/gkitz/beer/chap18.html

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

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