Bruce and Sherry have been dating one another for six years. They met while taking the same small systems computer applications class at a medium size private liberal arts college located in eastern Pennsylvania. While they were basically classmates the first semester at school, the second semester of their first year they because friends and just before the start of their second year, they began dating.
Due to the fact that Bruce and Sherry came from extremely conservative, highly religious families, neither one of them drank much beyond the experimental phase. As their dating relationship deepened, however, they started to attend more spur-of-the-moment keg parties, basketball pep rallies, sorority and fraternity parties, and they routinely went to happy hour with their buddies. Since alcohol was so available at these functions, they began drinking increasingly more as time progressed.
After they graduated with a BA degree, Sherry and Bruce decided to move to the big city that was located roughly seventy-five from their college and find an apartment that they could share. A few weeks after they moved in with one another, they were fortunate to find fairly good jobs in the same medium-size company.
After working at their jobs for about four or five months, Sherry and Bruce started to develop friendships with a few other couples. Not unlike their college days, moreover, most of the activities and events they attended with their friends somehow, someway centered around drinking. As a result, the more they associated with their friends the more they engaged in hazardous and irresponsible drinking.
As unbelievable as it sounds, in spite of the fact that they continued drinking and partying with their friends, their relationship somehow, someway began deepening. Now, rather than discussing the next happy hour or drinking party they would attend, however, Bruce and Sherry found themselves talking about getting married, moving into a house, and having a family. In sum, Sherry and Bruce started thinking about how they could be making a more beneficial contribution to society as they started living their lives as more responsible adults.
With most noteworthy changes in an individuals life there is frequently something that serves as a trigger for the change. For Sherry and Bruce, thinking about moving into a new house, getting married, and starting a family was this trigger. What is more, for the first time in their young relationship, they started to challenge their party mentality and also began speculating how their abusive drinking might negatively affect their health down the road.
As Sherry and Bruce began to question their party mentality and their drinking behavior, quite a few additional questions quickly materialized. As an illustration, how would they be able to face their parents and tell them about their long-term aspirations, hopes, and dreams while they still drank in an immature and careless manner as they had done while they were in college? How responsible would they be if they had children and continued to drink in a hazardous manner? What would their irresponsible drinking do to their relationship? How would their abusive drinking affect their mental health? Would their careless and excessive drinking negatively affect their ability to have children? And finally, how would they be able to continue spending most of their money on drinking if they were to begin saving for a new house?
Looking at things a little differently, although Sherry and Bruce never experienced alcohol withdrawal symptoms, got arrested for driving under the influence, or suffered from an alcohol overdose, they understood the fact that their hazardous and abusive drinking was becoming a serious problem that they could not afford to disregard any longer.
The more that Bruce and Sherry questioned their party lifestyle and their drinking, the more they came to the same conclusion: if they were to reach their goals, hopes, and aspirations, they would have to stop drinking in a careless and immature manner.
Once Sherry and Bruce came to this conclusion, they had a discussion with their drinking buddies and informed them that they had determined that they were going to quit their partying and abusive drinking because they had plans to move into a house, get married, and start a family. Much to their amazement, their friends voiced a similar sentiment because they also had been pondering their future and came to the conclusion that their irresponsible drinking was adversely affecting their ability to achieve their dreams and their plans.
After opening up to their friends about their future aspirations, hopes, and plans, Bruce and Sherry were happy to find out that they began having even better and more sound relationships with all of their drinking buddies. The primary reason for this was the fact that all of them now maintained a similar viewpoint regarding their party mentality and how their irresponsible and abusive drinking was negatively affecting their short and long-range goals, hopes, and aspirations.
