Merissa and Augie have been going out for seven years. They met while taking the same sports appreciation class at a medium size, countryside, Church affiliated liberal arts college located in the Eastern part of the U.S. While they were for the most part good friends at first, they at long last started to date when they were in their third year of college.

Due to the fact both of them came from very traditional backgrounds, neither one of them drank much beyond the testing stage when they first started to date. As the time passed by, nevertheless, they began to go to more sorority and fraternity parties, football bashes, happy hours, and keg parties. As a consequence, they in a step-by-step fashion began to drink more the longer they saw one another in a dating relationship.

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

After they graduated, they both landed jobs in a small city that was located nearly sixty-five miles from their undergraduate college. Then they at long last made up their mind to move in with each other.

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

Now that were living with one another and beginning to get more resolute about their relationship, then again, they began to think about becoming more responsible, having children, buying a house, and getting married.

With any major change in an individual’s life there is commonly something that produces the specific change in question. For Augie and Merissa the thought of buying a new house and having children was this “vehicle for change.” To come to the point, for the first time in their lives, Augie and Merissa started thinking about their irresponsible and excessive drinking and the long term effects of alcohol on their lives.

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

Would their 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 start saving for a new house? How responsible would they be if they had children and continued to drink in a hazardous and irresponsible manner? How would they be able to face their parents and tell them about their long term dreams, hopes, and plans while they still drank in a hazardous and excessive manner while having fun as they did when they were in college? What would their irresponsible and abusive drinking do to their relationship? How would their heavy and irresponsible drinking affect their mental health?

From a different line of reasoning, although neither one of them ever suffered from alcohol poisoning, received a DUI, or experienced alcohol withdrawals, they realized that their hazardous drinking was becoming a problem that they could not close their eyes to any longer.

After Giving Their Circumstances Considerable Deliberation, Augie and Merissa Finally Realized That Their Aspirations, Goals, and Dreams Would not be Accomplished if They Continued Their Hazardous and Excessive Drinking

All of these questions without a doubt pointed to the same conclusion: Merissa and Augie needed to realize more fully that they couldn’t continue their irresponsible and heavy drinking if their dreams, goals, and aspirations were to be fulfilled.

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

Surprisingly, all of their buddies expressed relief because they too had been deliberating on their lives and concluded that their life-styles were too focused on drinking. They also understood that they would have to change notably if they were to become more accountable and manifest more respect for their health, their plans, and for their careers in the next ten or fifteen years.

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