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Goodbye Jesus

Deconversion And Drinking


J.W.

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Anyone else develop a sudden affinity for drinking when they deconvert? I went from one drink a couple of months to 2-3 a day.. not sure if it is a phase

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Not I.

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Did I ever! I didn't drink at all as a christian, but now I have discovered a new found love for alcohol. I usually have a 1-3 beers a day, and get drunk about once a week, depending on if I go out to party. For me, it may be just a phase, but I really do enjoy the taste of beer, so I can see myself drinking in some capacity for quite a while. :beer:

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Pretty consistent on the drinking front. I enjoy my alcohol, but I rarely drink to excess.

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I consume on average one to two drinks per night. I do enjoy drunkenness, though.

 

Actually, studies suggest that men who consume two drinks per day lower their risk of cardiovascular disease. Increase that number and you increase your risk, however.

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Not much has changed. I'll have a drink or two about 3 nights a week. Very occasionally at a get-together I have more. I rarely get drunk. I like a slight buzz, but I just don't enjoy being drunk very much.

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at first I didn't change my drinking habits very much, I continued with the odd glass of wine with a meal every now and then and the occasional whiskey but over the past 6 months or so I have definitely increased my drinking! I have also got rather drunk a few times which had never happened when I was a xian, as soon as I got tipsy I'd stop but now I let myself go.

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I think it depends on how much drinking was condemned when you were a "True Christian."

 

I binged a bit when I was going through the anger and depression which came after I realized my faith was gone. Plus it was kind of fun and exciting to do things that had been taboo for so many years. But now I enjoy one or two drinks three or four nights a week, nothing major.

 

I still haven't gotten as drunk as I have when I was a Christian, though! In fact, I don't think I've been drunk since I deconverted.

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I think it depends on how much drinking was condemned when you were a "True Christian."

 

I binged a bit when I was going through the anger and depression which came after I realized my faith was gone. Plus it was kind of fun and exciting to do things that had been taboo for so many years. But now I enjoy one or two drinks three or four nights a week, nothing major.

 

I still haven't gotten as drunk as I have when I was a Christian, though! In fact, I don't think I've been drunk since I deconverted.

 

Same here. I kinda stopped drinking around the time of deconversion. Maybe there was no retribution to make it fun anymore. I do remember thinking, "I can do just about anything, now."

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Thankfully I discovered that limiting one's fluid intake entirely to alcohol is not altogether healthy.

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I'm with Jabbrwokk (sp?) that it's easy to go a bit overboard at first just because it's new and exciting and formerly forbidden (or at least frowned upon - I have one christian friend who has to go to restaurants out of town with her hubby if she wants to drink, b/c she doesn't want to risk a church member seeing her :shrug: ). I went from beer now and then to whiskey and then to other stuff, just really trying to test my limits and see how much I could handle before I got drunk. Now that I can play with other kids who like to drink, I didn't want to get caught in a bad situation. ;) Apparently, I can handle quite a bit, so I've never actually been drunk. And now I'm having health issues that keep me from drinking much at all. Depends on who you are, I guess, but I imagine the fun will wear off sometime. I come from a long line of alcoholics, though, so my perspective might be a bit different. I drink when I want to relax, not when I want to party. And since I don't want to be like my dad or my brother or many others around me, drinking b/c my life is depressing, I make sure I don't use it as a source of comfort when I'm down.

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It was quite a learning curve for me. For example, I puked in my friend's car after downing too much free booze at a nightclub party. He screamed and yelled at me: "you're not 17 anymore! What the fuck is wrong with you!?!!?" I had to explain to him that I never got drunk until I was 25 and that I had been a fundamentalist until age 27 and was well behind the learning curve. He understood me after that.

 

You see, I'm enough of a spazz as it is when I'm sober. As an inexperienced drinker you can multiply that tenfold!

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It was quite a learning curve for me. For example, I puked in my friend's car after downing too much free booze at a nightclub party. He screamed and yelled at me: "you're not 17 anymore! What the fuck is wrong with you!?!!?" I had to explain to him that I never got drunk until I was 25 and that I had been a fundamentalist until age 27 and was well behind the learning curve. He understood me after that.

 

You see, I'm enough of a spazz as it is when I'm sober. As an inexperienced drinker you can multiply that tenfold!

 

 

That learning curve also applies to knowing what doesn't agree with you. I don't care how experienced of a drinker I become....jager will always do exactly what you just described to me.

 

As a christian I could have been part of the temperance movement. Now I enjoy a couple drinks on the weekend when spending time with friends.

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Alcohol has never been my choice of drink. Strangely, I drank more as a Christian, but even then, it was a short-lived teen phase. I drink only soda now. (However, if I want to drop the pounds, I should drop the pop.)

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I have no point of reference for this phenomenon, since I deconverted at 16, and never even wanted to drink until I was 18. By then, I was smoking pot (which the parents also did, and never hid from me), so aside from the regular college binges and a naughty night with vodka and gatorade with xanax, I don't really go much overboard anymore.

I might drink more than average, but I live in New Orleans. It's what we do, damn it. :grin:

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I drink less than I did when I was an xian, but that probably has more to do with age than deconversion. I got wasted on whiskey almost every night in my early twenties, and now, at 30, I only get wasted about once every week or two. I do drink whiskey or wine almost every night, but only one to three drinks, so I don't get tipsy or anything.

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I never drank. BUT I DID notice my use of swear words has increased! It's just so much fun to use them and I try to do so whenever the occasion warrents, and as a parent, that is quite often! I no longer have to feel guilty and feel slutty after. I think it's similar, something that we were told was so evil, and now we know we're not going to be judged by whatever we do by some spiritual dicator, we're just being free! Telling someone they can't do something makes them want to do it more. It's just human nature.

 

My last pastor even did a sermon on how saying gee whiz was some kind of afront to god! Same with golly, geez, something to do with jesus name. What's left Oh pooh?

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Too young to drink (18 now, even if that didn't stop a LOT of my classmates... even four years ago), but never felt the compulsion. That's likely part of my experience with alcohol though. I don't have many pleasant associations with alcohol at all because of my dad, who was an alcoholic.

 

I don't see anything wrong with it until it affects other aspects of your life negatively. I just don't do it myself. I don't smoke or do drugs, either. Although I could go for a Tylenol right now, my head hurts a bit.

 

BUT I am going to a college notorious for drinking. So that may change a bit. I don't think I'll get myself wasted everyday, even if I do start drinking. Actually, I signed up for a substance-free room, so... Hmm.

 

I'm sort of more along the lines of eveningmeadows. I do seem to swear a whole lot more in private and public. especially private. Fuckin' A. (and I actually got that SAME lecture about using Gee-whiz and geez, too!)

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No real changes for me - I don't have as many drunks as I once did, but I honestly think that's mostly a factor of age and not having the following day available to nurse the hangover, making hangovers miserable ordeals of self induced torture, and hence I find getting drunk far less fun.

 

I enjoy a good party, and wouldn't mind going to them more often, but my grad student budget doesn't allow much of that, either.

 

My worst drunk/hangover was when I was still a xian...the following day I had to work day 2 of the conference I was at, and was dying of thirst, but everytime I even took the tiniest sip of water I was hugging the porcelain throne again. I couldn't keep even a wet mouth down until 3:30 that afternoon when I finally managed to keep some 7-Up down. That was miserable. But I was away from home (and all the xian bullshit) and had a lot of fun that night!

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Thanks for the input everbody.

 

As an update, I pretty much came out and told everyone that I don't believe. "Let the chips fall where they may"

 

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I never drank. BUT I DID notice my use of swear words has increased! It's just so much fun to use them and I try to do so whenever the occasion warrents, and as a parent, that is quite often! I no longer have to feel guilty and feel slutty after. I think it's similar, something that we were told was so evil, and now we know we're not going to be judged by whatever we do by some spiritual dicator, we're just being free! Telling someone they can't do something makes them want to do it more. It's just human nature.

 

My last pastor even did a sermon on how saying gee whiz was some kind of afront to god! Same with golly, geez, something to do with jesus name. What's left Oh pooh?

 

I swear like a sailor when I'm alone, and then with friends I swear sometimes, but it rarely slips out, I kinda have to force myself to do it. But damn, yeah, it does feel good!

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maybe you went to my church!

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I've never been drunk, never even tipsy, really. I'll have maybe one or two drinks a year. It's just never appealed to me. I have a strong dislike of not being in control, and vomiting is a fate worse than death, so...an excess of alcohol just isn't for me!

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Pretty consistent on the drinking front. I enjoy my alcohol, but I rarely drink to excess.

 

Ditto. Though I do recall a brief 2 month phase of not getting wasted, but heavily buzzed, but not enough to blow my cover, still married to a robot at the time...

 

Now I've found something else even harder to detect, it expedited my dEconversion process, I mostly laugh these days.

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