Aspergers and alcohol

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Yes, referred to round here as 'Newcastle Brown Chemicals In A Bottle'...or since it's no longer made in Newcastle I believe it's now 'North Yorkshire Brown Chemicals In A Bottle'...and needless to say it's originally being moved to Gateshead saw a dramatic decline in popularity in Newcastle for a start, but changing brewery was what saw the taste change for the worst. It's because Geordies are awesome.

LOL ... we still don't have it here AFAIK. Plenty of other high-octane wines, but not with the caffeine. Would it help its image if it weren't always pictured on a sidewalk???

Last edited by RainingRoses on 20 May 2011, 5:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There is an enormous craft beer industry in the US that almost always produces far superior beer than Newcastle Brown.

If I may ask, in which US state do you reside?

Bloodheart: Yes, the Newcastle/Gateshead/Sunderland rivalry is almost unknown to the majority of people in the rest of the country.

Is it made at Tadcaster?

It's not really sold outside the UK, the Republic of Ireland and those resorts in Southern Europe most popular with alcoholic Glaswegians.

Spotted quite a few bottles in Magaluf, for instance. I even bought some.

I live in Colorado and we have a Coors factory here, their beer is pretty decent....but then in the U.S we also have Budweiser and even worse Bud Light the worst beer ever made.

You live in Colorado?! You have some of the best beers in the world being produced there by well over 100 microbreweries.

http://www.ratebeer.com/search.php

Enter:

Country: United States
State: Colorado

Highest rating.

Off you go.

I shall have to check that out, as I am getting too broke to continue with the expensive imports every time I want a beer.

I drink but not often and I say what I can handle, I can't do hard stuff like Vodka because it makes my mouth and tongue got completely numb for alittle bit and I don't like that sensory feeling

The American craft beer scene is hugely experimental in a way that just isn't the case in the UK. Almost every possible type of beer is produced in the American craft scene - you in Colorado have much more choice than I do in Britain, a nation renowned for its beer. Get to it.

I can imagine alcohol abuse being quite common among ASD people, if they live in countries where relatively cheap alcohol is available. In Australia, it is very easy to buy a "cleanskin" bottle of wine for $AU 5.

I used to do binge drinking at parties because I was too anxious from the noise (sensory overload), the crowds and also because I didn't know what to say to people beyond the initial pleasantries and asking questions about each other. I knew that if I were to talk on and on about my special interests, it would bore people easily and piss them off. I don't drink alcohol anymore.

Alcohol is a double-edged sword for ASD people imo. While it reduces the anxiety so you don't feel as guilty about what you say to people and your voice sounds smoother and less robotic and it stops the sensory overload (being a crude painkiller), it also impairs your executive functioning so it'll be harder to multitask in social situations and at work (if you drink at work), and it's also very toxic to the body compared to other substances which are much safer (toxicity wise) despite being illegal, such as Cannabis.

In fact, I imagine that alcohol is far more psychologically addicting than Cannabis for people with ASDs, because it has a much shorter half-life, and it hits you hard quickly (within 15 minutes) when you want to get tipsy/drunk to reduce your anxiety etc.

Be careful with your alcohol use because I predict you'll enter a negative spiral if you keep it up any longer.

People developing drink problems doesn't really have a huge relationship to how cheap or expensive drink is. In places like Norway, people just stop at home, get totally wrecked on very strong, homemade spirits (thus avoiding the punishingly high cost of drinking in a bar), then go out and have one beer in a bar at midnight, falling over in a coma in the middle of the pavement on the way home.

When a 50cl glass of lager in a bar is pushing £10 or £11 in some places, who can blame them?

When I've been abroad for an extensive period of time I drink quite a lot the first week, then I start drinking less than I would at home. Drinking eventually loses its appeal, even if it's a lot cheaper. Plus, in a lot of places abroad you're very limited beer-wise as to what you can drink, and if you're not especially keen on wine...

Also, if you have too much of a socially authoritarian, paternalist attitude to drinking you're encouraging it by not really inducing people to think for themselves.

I could sit at home and get extremely drunk for very little if I had the mind to. I don't, because I have other things I want to do with my life, thank you.

I said where "countries where cheap alcohol is available", Scandinavian countries are definitely not part of that! Of course people with ASDs can still get drunk on a constant basis in these countries, but the temptation is lower due to the prohibitive cost, unless they had access to the homemade stuff which may contain impurities.

I always found it ironic how cheap wine in Australia can be much cheaper than beer when you calculate the alcohol units.

I had no intention of being paternalistic if you were referring to me. I acknowledge that adults have a right to buy and drink as much alcohol as they want, providing they're not directly harming people and they're not going driving soon after. I got bored of drinking alcohol as well, even for self-medicating my anxiety. I do have a prescription for Valium which I get high/stoned on occasionally in response to sensory overload or when I'm having a panic attack.

People in the UK are forever going on about the 'cheap' booze in supermarkets. Only, if you don't like the sludge (which is sold as a loss-leader, and is cheap in most European countries and is usually cheaper in Continental Europe than in the UK) drinking from the supermarket isn't that cheap either, if you want a craft beer with taste. So I have been accused of having a drink problem in the past and the beer that I drank wasn't the cheap stuff.

I'm not familiar with beer as I found it hard to get drunk on in terms of volume. I'd have to be very bloated and drink it slowly over an hour to stop myself from accidentally vomiting from excessive bubbles.

I dunno about the UK and Continental Europe, but in Australia alcohol (including beer) is expensive coz of the high taxes. Obviously it is still cheaper than "illicit" drugs in terms of value for money simply because of the legality and competition between supermarkets and bottle stores etc.

However there is a strange exception of Cleanskin wines and "Goon" (cask-wines) where you can easily get pissed for $5.

I used to drink daily. I always had to go out to do it. It was a way for me to socialize and I was able to talk to anyone. The problem was I would piss them off somehow, get into a fight, and get kick out of wherever I was. I soon realized that drinking didn't make me any less annoying, actually worse.

As you're in Australia your main option will be heavily-carbonated beers like pale lagers or perhaps Tooheys Old. I know that there are a couple of very good microbreweries in Australia but they're few and far between.

British real ale is much less carbonated and, therefore, much easier to drink. It's true that the vast majority of people who go to British pubs want to drink in volume - so they'd rather have four pints at 4% than three pints at 5.3%, even though the effect is essentially the same if you're a bit slower drinking it.

The other point with beer is that beer isn't necessarily just of the 4-6% variety; the reality is that beer encompasses a huge range of styles and strengths. Alcohol strengths range from 0% to 55.7%, although beers much over 10% are a bit of a rarity and are usually limited to craft beer movements. When I have a bottle of my 18.2% imperial stout I only want one 330ml bottle, which is about the equivalent of two and a half pints of 4.2% beer.