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RelentlessOblivion

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13 hours ago, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

When drinking alcohol does anyone have to  cover up the smell. The Mrs could always smell alcohol in the room and on my breath and she'd go nuts. What a pain.  Perfume in room and mouthwash and I've no issues. That big bottle of CK will be very useful. Perhaps just me who does this. 

Tbh, hiding your drinking from your wife doesn't sound like the best lifechoice in the long run. Seems indicative of larger issues,  but what do I know? I think feeling the need to hide your drinking in general is a red flag.

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7 hours ago, Sheol said:

I think feeling the need to hide your drinking in general is a red flag.

If you need to hide your drinking from someone, then it's the person that you're hiding it from that has the issues, not you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with drinking & I say that as someone who does not drink at all.

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I don't think it's as black and white as that.

If you're actually hiding the drinking, doing it whenever your partner's back is turned, taking the chances every time you're alone and then masking it so as not to get caught, the problem could just as easily be yours.

Simply masking the smell because other people don't like it is not much different to not farting at the family dinner table and doesn't automatically represent either side has an issue. Although if you hold farts in too long you'll eventually have a problem.

 

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23 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

I used to with my mother many years ago. It was the same as smoking, it was just easier to not to come home smelling of such and she wouldn't say anything. But these days my missus would only give me stink eye if I came home reeking of booze and I'd been driving.

The ones that used to really shit me were the women who bitched and moaned when the drivers came into the office to drop off paperwork smelling like smoke, or god forbid smelling like they hadn't showered for 5 days after being on the road away from home for 5 days. These women complained over and over like it was our choice to actually visit them, but because there was nothing they could really do about it they'd retaliate with perfume that you could smell a mile away, or the stinkiest room de-ponger that they could find in the shops.

At least it's not just me then. That's why some lucky blokes have man caves  like fraser from this forum 😁 I'm not a big boozer as I only drink one day a week now and I have less on this day, it's just the missus don't drink hardly at all and thinks I should do the same. 1/4 litre of beer per week is plenty apparently 😄any more and I get 🤬

Your Mrs sounds good re this.  The ladies in your old office oh dear. I suppose it be alright if whatever perfume/freshener they used smelled ok.  EAU de sewage might have been preferable. At least the smell would have got better when the drivers showed up😂  

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7 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

If you're actually hiding the drinking, doing it whenever your partner's back is turned, taking the chances every time you're alone and then masking it so as not to get caught, the problem could just as easily be yours.

Could be, in that specific situation then yeah you probably do have a problem. I had a problem with alcohol and used to hide my drinking because any time I tried to have a drink, I caught shit for it so then naturally I started hiding it and it turned into a problem.

What I'm talking about though, are partners who flip out over someone having one or two beers. I know a lady who got involved with some weird church and then she made her husband pour his beer down the toilet. That kind of behavior & sentiment toward alcohol is what I find to be kind of weird & puritanical.

But I live in America so there are a lot of puritanical people around here to be quite honest. Not as many as there used to be when I was growing up, but there are still people around who are weird in that way although if you ever had an alcohol problem and had to go to AA to deal with it, I kind of understand it to an extent because having a problem with any substance is no fun.

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2 hours ago, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

The ladies in your old office oh dear. I suppose it be alright if whatever perfume/freshener they used smelled ok.  EAU de sewage might have been preferable. At least the smell would have got better when the drivers showed up😂  

Perfume, when sprayed on by the gallon with an industrial pump never smells ok :)

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12 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

I don't think it's as black and white as that.

If you're actually hiding the drinking, doing it whenever your partner's back is turned, taking the chances every time you're alone and then masking it so as not to get caught, the problem could just as easily be yours.

Simply masking the smell because other people don't like it is not much different to not farting at the family dinner table and doesn't automatically represent either side has an issue. Although if you hold farts in too long you'll eventually have a problem.

 

Agreed. Context matters.

I think it's about your priorities. If you feel you need to hide your drinking, in order to continue doing it, so others won't complain, I think there's two things that should happen. 1. You reflecting on why drinking is that important to you. 2. A frank discussion with those opposed to it to resolve your differences. And also ask yourself what happens to you when you are denied your drink. How do you feel, emotionally and physically. If you get angry, irritated, restless and can't stopping thinking about that drink, then I absolutely say you have a problem on the horizon.

Masking the smell because others don't like it is another thing, but that wasn't the context I was getting from Blackdoom.

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Maybe because I used to mask my drinking and smoking from my mother to keep the peace and stop her making comments I took his comment more along those lines. Even when I was 18 and legally allowed to drink (smoking was 12 back then I think) but still living at home, my mother would just make silly comments, offer looks, that sort of thing. She never stopped me doing it, it was just disapproval, so it was easier to not make a deal of it. But my mother has always been that sort of person, doesn't matter if it's drinking, smoking, running with scissors, anything she didn't do was wrong and those who did it got 'the look'.

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3 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

Maybe because I used to mask my drinking and smoking from my mother to keep the peace and stop her making comments I took his comment more along those lines. Even when I was 18 and legally allowed to drink (smoking was 12 back then I think) but still living at home, my mother would just make silly comments, offer looks, that sort of thing. She never stopped me doing it, it was just disapproval, so it was easier to not make a deal of it. But my mother has always been that sort of person, doesn't matter if it's drinking, smoking, running with scissors, anything she didn't do was wrong and those who did it got 'the look'.

It's more along these lines tbh. I'd get all the comments and its been easier recently with this far from perfect approach. 

15 hours ago, Sheol said:

Agreed. Context matters.

I think it's about your priorities. If you feel you need to hide your drinking, in order to continue doing it, so others won't complain, I think there's two things that should happen. 1. You reflecting on why drinking is that important to you. 2. A frank discussion with those opposed to it to resolve your differences. And also ask yourself what happens to you when you are denied your drink. How do you feel, emotionally and physically. If you get angry, irritated, restless and can't stopping thinking about that drink, then I absolutely say you have a problem on the horizon.

Masking the smell because others don't like it is another thing, but that wasn't the context I was getting from Blackdoom.

Thanks for your response Sheol. It's challenging but in a positive way.will  have another discussion and hopefully find the middle ground with the Mrs. 

 

 

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On 11/18/2021 at 12:42 AM, NokturnalBoredom said:

Could be, in that specific situation then yeah you probably do have a problem. I had a problem with alcohol and used to hide my drinking because any time I tried to have a drink, I caught shit for it so then naturally I started hiding it and it turned into a problem.

What I'm talking about though, are partners who flip out over someone having one or two beers. I know a lady who got involved with some weird church and then she made her husband pour his beer down the toilet. That kind of behavior & sentiment toward alcohol is what I find to be kind of weird & puritanical.

But I live in America so there are a lot of puritanical people around here to be quite honest. Not as many as there used to be when I was growing up, but there are still people around who are weird in that way although if you ever had an alcohol problem and had to go to AA to deal with it, I kind of understand it to an extent because having a problem with any substance is no fun.

I only drink once per week so it's not issue. I pace myself more and I've even set myself a max limit of drinks per night as I'm fed up with hangovers the next day, it's not like I was  drinking everyday before but I did occasionally overdo it. I still use the perfume a bit when drinking some stuff like wild turkey 101 as even when I have one shot all night I get so much negative comments and moaning from the Mrs. It does not help that the Mrs family are really low drinkers. Some of them either don't drink period or one bottle of beer per night is plenty. Theyve never made me tip my stuff down the drain or neither has my wife so that's good.thanks though for your message. My cousin drank himself to death at 46. That was sad and it's easy to do if you don't see alcohol for what it is. It's POISON in nice fancy bottles in my mind. Don't smoke anymore and never did drugs but giving up alcohol. Nah not yet😁 

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I don't remember when I started getting hang overs but it was somewhere in my late 30's. I'd never had them before and I used to drink until I was paralytic but a few hangovers was more than enough for me to say it was time to cut down. Since then it's just been a natural progression to almost nothing. I remember when I was younger the first thing I wanted after a hard days work was a beer, these days it's the last thing I want. I'm not sure whether getting old sucks or being young sucks. :)

My mum has always been similar to your wife, grew up in a family of almost non drinkers and therefore she never really drank. Her youngest brother became a surfing bum when he left home and died in his 60's due to alcoholism. Her eldest brother became an office worker in the city and couldn't spend the night at home without at least two bottles of red wine. Thankfully she spent more years telling her brothers off for drinking than she ever did me :)

My wife also lost her father to alcoholism about 25 years ago, then her uncle did the same to himself in his 50, about 10 years ago. It can be a vicious disease, I have no doubt in my 20's I was the dictionary definition of an alcoholic, as well as drugs and cigarettes, and I wouldn't dare suggest I was something special to survive the shit I did relatively unscathed, I was lucky. I was probably also lucky that my life of excess ended before I met my wife and had kids. I've never made a secret of it to them but I'm glad they never had to see some of it. Now days I'm generally just glad I don't have a reliance on booze and smokes because of the price of it in this country!!

 

 

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I started getting really bad hangovers in my late twenties, but I kept on drinking because I had a problem. Around the age of 31, I completely quit drinking and messing around with drugs (even marijuana). I don't miss any of it at all, matter of fact? I'm way better off without any of that stuff.

I still use a nicotine vape though, that's the one thing I haven't been able to let go of. I actually just got a new one today to replace my old, beat up one. It's an improved model of the one I was using, nothing spectacular but easy to carry around in my pocket and conceal.

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I could be wrong because I haven't had a need to check the rules but I think vaping is illegal here. Either that or it's only allowed by prescription. Doesn't stop people doing it, but it's nowhere near as prominent here as in other countries. The government, who were probably shitty because they couldn't tax it effectively, cracked down on importing it so now it doesn't get allowed through customs if it is ordered. They have a reasonable excuse for banning imports given that it's basically an unregulated and untested market.

Like weed they could allow it and even regulate it, it wouldn't stop black markets but it would still be a wonderful little tax spinner for them, but they also don't want to regulate it because if it's proven to kill people down the track they essentially become responsible for it.

 

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Vaping isn't great for you, but it's harm reduction compared to cigarettes. I'm hoping that I'll be able to entirely quit someday, as my buddy just did when he got covid19, but I'm not terribly worried about it now because it did get me off of cigarettes which were having me coughing, etc.

I don't think I'd fare very well living in Oz, the more I hear about it. No offense intended, it just doesn't really seem like a place where I'd be able to thrive.

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I would never have quit smoking if I was still driving the truck. Just something about the hours and the lifestyle would not have let me. When I got out of the truck full time and took up the first farm full time I was in more control, it helped that the closet shop to buy them was 25 mins away, so I spaced out smokes making them last until my next trip into town. Not long before I quit I was down to something like one an hour, I refused make a special trip to get them, I refused to pay service station prices which were about 30% more than supermarkets, and I never bought more than two packets of 50 at a time. So in effect I was limiting myself, but it didn't feel like it, then one day I just didn't have any left, I wasn't planning on going anywhere for a few days so I just didn't have any. By the time I did go into town I didn't feel like buying any. That was about 14 years ago and I haven't wanted once since.

I did go through a stage of buying what they call chop chop, which is just the leaf cut up, unprocessed, buy by the weight, roll your own. I never for a second believed I was getting a healthier product but it was a heap cheaper. Even when prices went up it was cheaper, but it was also illegal to sell and buy. I was never a seller but in the truck the less you did that attracted attention of the cops when they pulled you over the better. I don't know anyone that got caught and fined for having unprocessed tobacco in 'personal' quantities, but it was just easier to buy tailor made rather than constantly rolling smokes and carting papers and bags of the cut leaf. A bag of cut leaf, even tobacco, always had cops look twice, a packet of branded smokes didn't.

Why could you not thrive here? Just because we have rules that are different doesn't mean people don't break them. It's not like China or Korea where they fart in public and then disappear. 90% of or rules and regs you wouldn't even notice are different, they would just become second nature as your country's rules did to you. The cost of living, even if higher than America (and I'm not sure it is), is offset by many different things and you wouldn't spend your day thinking about it. Just because we have rules that are different doesn't mean you wouldn't have thrived in different areas. You are just looking at it and thinking we have more rules so it must be hard, just like many Aussies look at America and think it's all anarchy and stupid rules therefore they couldn't live there. Humans fit in anywhere if they want to, but they have to want to.

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Only major differences I noticed while in Australia were the god damned horribly oppressive 100°+ heat & humidity in January and of course their delightfully funny accents. (I do prefer the sound of the Kiwi accent though)

And they drive on the wrong side of the road. Kept walking up to the wrong side of the car to get in and I found myself looking the wrong way first when stepping off the curb to cross the street.

Also everything seemed crazy fucking expensive but that's partly the exchange rate. $20 AUD is only $14.50 USD. But part of it is they have to ship everything 10k miles to get there so that adds to the price. For instance I paid I believe $86 for a 750 ml bottle of Knob Creek bourbon at their local bottle-O that would've only been about $35-$38 here. A pack of Marlboros is $26 - $30 there while here in the US the average is $7. (they're a lot more than that in NY though because here they are taxed very highly, they were $15 a pack back in 2007 when I quit smoking or about $125 a carton)

Anything actually made in Australia will be expensive because their labor and power costs are much higher than ours. Dime store paperback books that cost $10-$12 here are $30 to $40 over there. My wife said a typical pair of jeans cost over $100 there while here in the US they average $35. Electricity apparently costs way more over there, when I was in Australia and NZ we stayed with several different rellies of hers and absolutely not one of them ever used clothes dryers. They all had clothes dryers but they all hung their clothes out to dry because power costs so much there. Here no one even thinks twice about running the clothes dryer. Havent seen anyone in America hanging their clothes on the line to dry since the 1970's maybe, except for "delicates" that might get destroyed in the dryer like handmade sweaters 'n shit. My electric bill is like $75 - $80 a month, less than my internet. USA average 12 cents per kilowatt hour while Aussies pay on average 34 cents, nearly 3 times as much. Oh yeah and their internet is slow, their broadband download speed averages about 56 Mbps and over here it's higher, averaging 99Mbps. I have 200 Mbps down 30 Mbps up myself, could get 300 if I wanted to pay a bit more but I don't know if you could even get that down under there.

Housing costs way more over there too. My mother in law said their rent was like $950 a week over there for a modest 3 bedroom apt in an Olympic Park (Sydney) high rise. Found it really strange to me that they state their rents weekly there because over here of course we do them monthly. By contrast, at the time of our visit Jan '17 I was renting my whole 2,700 sq foot (250 sq meters) 4 bedroom house back in Denver for $2,150 per month. Median house price in Aus in 2021 is $645k ($477k US) while in the states its $375k ($518k AUD) Now I don't know about down under but over here in the states Covid has really affected home prices drastically. Back in January 2020 before the shut-downs the median home price here in US was only $299k.

 

Alright so I guess there are quite a good manyt differences after all.  Not to mention just anecdotally I kept hearing about knife and axe attacks on the news over there which I can only assume must be because almost no one has firearms? But I guess where there's a will there's a way. 

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Kiwis do speak better than us, they count to sex rather than six!

We drive on the wrong side of the road? But we drive in the left side, which is the right side, you lot drive on the other side, which is obviously the wrong side!

Oh, and a packet of Marlboros 25's would be closer to $45 a packet now days, the cheapest smokes are still more than a dollar a stick. it's something like 75% government taxes on smokes now.

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20 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

Why could you not thrive here? Just because we have rules that are different doesn't mean people don't break them.

The cost of living, the fact that it's like a 22 hour flight to the USA and I can't handle being on a plane that long, and the way that it appears to me in the US that your government is acting regarding covid19 (locking down states over 1 or 2 cases, unless that's propaganda from my media which I am willing to admit it could be). I've also heard that Oz government are like fundamentalist Christians or something and ban a lot of metal music and fun video games and I can't deal with a society that tries to tell me what media I am allowed to possess and consume.

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They are just excuses. It's okay that you don't want to live in another country but to say you can't is not giving yourself credit. Things being dearer, things being different, they are just excuses you don't want to live with because you prefer what you've got. There is nothing wrong with that, people like what they have but there is little substance to such excuses because adapting is the easy part of life.

Also you need to stop reading if you're only going to read the bullshit and not look for the truth. Multiple times you've mentioned that you've read something about Australia that is complete shit. Fundamentalist Christian government, banned music, banned videos games. Geezus we've never had a government like that bans metal even if our current leader thinks Hillsong is a fine Sunday morning.

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12 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

Kiwis do speak better than us, they count to sex rather than six!

We drive on the wrong side of the road? But we drive in the left side, which is the right side, you lot drive on the other side, which is obviously the wrong side!

Oh, and a packet of Marlboros 25's would be closer to $45 a packet now days, the cheapest smokes are still more than a dollar a stick. it's something like 75% government taxes on smokes now.

Clearly, if you're not on the right side then you must be on the wrong side. Simple deductive reasoning mate 😄

And I think Kiwis count to something closer to "seeks" & "teen" not sex and ten. But they deffo do eat fush and chups even though they'll deny it to their dying breaths.

 

And to Nokky: Flights to Australia from the west coast are in the 14/15 hour range. Don't think you can fly non-stop from the east coast. I don't like being in those cramped airplane seats either but it's really not as bad as it sounds, in my experience they generally give you a bigger wider plane with slightly more room than you'd have on typical domestic flights. These trans-pacific flights usually depart later in the evenings. They give you a shitty meal about two hours in and then they dim the lights and ask everyone to pull the shades down to give everyone at least a chance to try to sleep. I usually end up staying up all night watching movies and listening to metal. About 90 minutes before they land they simply start pretending we're all magically running on Aussie time (right now Sydney is 16 hours ahead of NY time, in the sumemr they're only 14 hours ahead because our daylight savings times are opposite one another) They come around opening all the shades and passing out some shitty breakfast giving you something to do which could hopefully distract you from the fact that you've been sitting in the damn seat for 13 hours. And then before you know it you're making your descent. The worst part of it for me is waiting on the stupid line for customs. A lot of international flights seem to land early in the morning and you can sometimes have a couple thousand cranky sleep deprived people being herded through the rope lines to get their passports checked.

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But we are on the right side, our fundamentalist Christian government says so :P

Don't forget as a part of our different speaking we also have different hearing. We are hear Kiwis say sex because we needed something to laugh at when we realised all those sheep shagging jokes we aimed at the Kiwis from this side of the 'dutch', were poorly aimed because we have more sheep per capita her in Oz than Noo Zuland ever did.

 

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Rusty's like Keith's missus, we only claim them as Aussies when they do something good. If they do something bad we remind people they were born elsewhere and it has nothing to do with us.  Rusty is a city boy who likes groups of men huddling together cuddling each others bums.

Keith was treated so badly by the Australia Music industry here before he left for 'merica, that he ought to renounce any connection. Keith might have had a hand in increasing sheep numbers, he grew up in the country where men are men and sheep are scared!

 

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On 11/20/2021 at 10:07 PM, KillaKukumba said:

I don't remember when I started getting hang overs but it was somewhere in my late 30's. I'd never had them before and I used to drink until I was paralytic but a few hangovers was more than enough for me to say it was time to cut down. Since then it's just been a natural progression to almost nothing. I remember when I was younger the first thing I wanted after a hard days work was a beer, these days it's the last thing I want. I'm not sure whether getting old sucks or being young sucks. :)

My mum has always been similar to your wife, grew up in a family of almost non drinkers and therefore she never really drank. Her youngest brother became a surfing bum when he left home and died in his 60's due to alcoholism. Her eldest brother became an office worker in the city and couldn't spend the night at home without at least two bottles of red wine. Thankfully she spent more years telling her brothers off for drinking than she ever did me :)

My wife also lost her father to alcoholism about 25 years ago, then her uncle did the same to himself in his 50, about 10 years ago. It can be a vicious disease, I have no doubt in my 20's I was the dictionary definition of an alcoholic, as well as drugs and cigarettes, and I wouldn't dare suggest I was something special to survive the shit I did relatively unscathed, I was lucky. I was probably also lucky that my life of excess ended before I met my wife and had kids. I've never made a secret of it to them but I'm glad they never had to see some of it. Now days I'm generally just glad I don't have a reliance on booze and smokes because of the price of it in this country!!

 

 

Lucky if you don't get hangovers till late 30s.Always had them.😁

It's only Fridays for me for drinks at moment. I get home after a long week and if I don't get a few drinks I will be bit disappointed. Plus this Friday is whisky night at friends house. People from all over town all bring a bottle. It can be good. My wife's given me warning not to overdo it. 😂

Yeah your mum and my wife have similar outlook on alcohol. Obviously having family members who have alcohol issues doesn't help. Your boozy uncles got you off the hook with your mum. 😉My cousin drank himself to death at 46. He was alot of fun  and I miss him. He kind of gave up when his grandmother died as she supported him alot. Working at a pub is not best environment for an alcoholic. 😁😣 Bad for your wife too. Losing her father to alcohol. My sister's husband's dad is bed bound as he overdid the booze big time. He's not in a good state. It's ruined fair few lives for sure. Your lucky to have made it through all your boozy years🍀

 

 

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Another thing that can cause issues is family members not seeing the problem, or flatly refusing to admit there is a problem. My mother-in-law watched her brother drink himself to death, he lived with her for about 8 years after his life started spiralling and she did all she could to help. None of her other five brothers and sisters helped a single bit, even down to two of them actually claiming he had no issues at all. It suited one of them down to a tee because she used the alcoholism she refused to admit he had to her own advantage and spent her time crying poor to him. He gave her tens of thousands of dollars and cashed in his government superannuation because he felt sorry for her. He died less than 12 months after cashing in his super with no trace of 90% of it.

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