LessWrong experience on Alcohol

I am probably something close to an alcoholic. I rather not use the term but in this case it may be helpful. It started around 17 when I was ashamed about having no social life so I went to dance club, but then I ended not really talking to a lot of people there either, just trying to approach a few pretty girls. Of course booze a lubricant and very often when I did not feel like approaching I just stood there drinking. Quickly associated the idea "going out and getting entertained" with standing somewhere sipping a drink. My parents have always drunk, moderately, and they were okay with me moderate pillaging their booze, like at 19 years old about 2 glasses of wine a day. This made me feel elevated (I never drunk to drunkenness), bubbly, light, and I liked that. It felt good to back to videogames or whatever I was doing (usually videogames) in that state.

Prety quickly it grew on me into a daily habit. However what made me different from the typical AA type alcoholic is that I never drunk to drunkenness, just elevation. So there were no problems caused by it when I was 20 or 30. I could go through an alcoholism checklist, listing questions like any relationship problems (lol wut), any work problems (no) and so on, and nothing.

By 37 I started to see issues, being fat, some gut inflammation, bleeding hemorrhoids, it was better to stop. And by some weird magic (or rather, because not only men can be introverted) I managed to fall in love, get married, have a child, and I guess I need to be a better role model. Also, because now I need to live longer. Formerly I figured dying at 55 from liver failure would be okay as my parents would be dead by then and I owe nobody else to live, but now I owe my wife and daughter to live, so better take care.

Actually quite recently, around March I did a 30 day stop via using three methods, non-a beer, martial arts training and associating with my lower, impulsive self, shaping my higher self (superego or what) into an external voice I called The Boss. 30 days dry went down without many problems.

Then about two weeks ago I started again because I was in bed with cold/flu and I was thinking like, fucking hell, if I must be here being bored all day (I got tired of reading after reading 10 books, had no other ideas to do), I may at least be drunk! The cold/flu went away a few days ago and now I am considering stopping again, although it is a hard time to, my wife and daughter went to visit grandparents, so I am here in an empty prison like apartment during the evenings after work with nothing to do, just browse the web and get sloshed. Today evening would be martial arts, but I am a bit hung over, and angry at me about that, so yes, I think a second round of month-long or several months long stoppage is coming just about now, as it is stupid that I have at least one non-boring activity and it is interfering with it. If you suspect it is a sign of deeper problems, probably it is. It is largely the lack of passions, goals, so life feels very big and empty and hard to fill out. I think every parent and school tries to instill a do-your-duties-first value system into kids, and I guess it was simply too succesful for me, basically I unlearned how to want things personally, so ever after I felt empty when I had no duties or tasks imposed and had to choose what to do myself. This made life feel big and empty and sort of it felt normal to fill with some booze because all the adults I know was doing it. I think all my childhood and teenagerhood, I did not know any adults who had anything in their lives but work, home-family stuff, and some drinks. I guess it would have been useful to have role models who have hobbies or aspirations or goals or whatnot.

On to flavour: as I tended to drink cheap (not stupid enough to waste both my health and wallet), yes, most things like common beers or wines have a cheap booze burn taste. It is not too bad, the taste the day after, that is bad. Esp. if it was cheap red wine the day before. I think at some level my taste changed. Unlike my childhood, I no longer like chocolate and things like that, sweet stuff. Correction: during my 30 day dry spell I did. Just not together with alcohol, the simple acidic taste of cheap booze does not mix with that. I simply got used to that acidic taste.It does not mix well with sweets. I just ate normal homecooked food or simple things, bacon, sausage.

I drink moderately, largely as a social lubricant. My preference leans toward dark beer, heavier red wines and some unoaked whites, gin, scotch, and the dryer end of the spectrum of dessert wines and cocktails, and I find all of the above quite tasty -- though I didn't always. Like a lot of people, I started out drinking in college, for effect and to signal maturity, and an appreciation for the flavors of alcoholic drinks only came after a fair amount of experience with them. Hard to say how much of that's acquiring taste and how much is the fact that you can't afford good booze on a college student's budget, but I expect both are involved.

Food-wise, I like hot, spicy and heavily umami flavors. I'm not sensitive to the bitter notes in coffee or brassica vegetables, though I do add a little sugar to the oversteeped coffee common to Starbucks and its imitators, and I don't have much of a sweet tooth. Wouldn't surprise me if this was linked to my taste in alcohol.

You may be a supertaster -- it'd fit your reported experience with food. The etiology isn't fully understood, but it's probably linked to the PAV/PAV variant of TAS2R38, which 23andMe maps. That doesn't seem to be the whole story, though; I'm PAV/PAV myself but I don't have the supertaster phenotype.

I like alcohol of different types, considerably more for the taste/flavour than for the buzz. Usually I drink wine (red more than white) and beer (that is, beer, not Bud Light and such), but I also have periods when I regularly drink neat hard liquor (e.g. scotch or cognac). I rarely drink cocktails.

My tastes slowly change and my consumption of alcohol adjusts accordingly. Some months I would drink almost entirely wine, some -- mostly beer. With beer, for example, I started by liking sweetish doppelbocks and Belgian trippels, then went to porters and stouts, then to British-style ales with an occasional IPA, and currently I am back to porters and Scottish ales.

I went to a party school for college (a top school in the US though) and was a pretty big partier, so hopefully I can offer the "general population perspective" as I think my early alcohol experiences are closer to that of an average person than to a typical LessWronger.

If you average all my years in college, I probably drank 3.5 or 4 days a week with about a quarter of those sessions to nearly blackout-level intoxication. In my experience, college-aged kids who are relatively new to drinking only care about the intoxicating effects. Since they're not acclimated to the taste of alcohol yet, NO alcoholic drinks really taste good, which is why high school kids and college 1st years drink so much plastic-bottle vodka, usually mixed with or followed by something sugary like soda or a sports drink. Some kinds of alcohol will taste especially bad to new drinkers though, and some types require you to drink more volume to get the desired effect, which is a related selection factor, so there is some taste preference going on.

Fast forward a few years to late-college where people have been drinking socially for 2+ years and you start to see a lot less plastic vodka/Coors Light (except for beer games) and a lot more craft beer and more diverse liquors. Part of that is probably a signaling thing ("look at me, I have a more refined palette than you") but I know that a lot of it is not. When I first started drinking, I didn't like beer at all, and beers with more flavor tasted worse than "piss-water" beer for exactly that reason—they had more flavor. But after a couple of years, I really did enjoy nicer bottled beers a lot more than cheap cans of beer. I would never sit down and drink a Coors Light while watching a movie with a couple friends, but we would often buy a 12 pack of something nicer and drink that, and that decision was purely based on taste (even though the nicer beers are often more bitter than the Coors. They have a more complex taste profile which makes it more enjoyable.) Eventually, the ethanol in the beverage is not really tasted as much (at least for beverages in the 4 to 15% ABV range) and people come to appreciate the other flavors present and develop preferences around those.

Now I want to pose a related question to people who claim to enjoy the taste of certain alcohols that I think may be enlightening: Would you still drink your favorite alcohol if it tasted exactly the same, but didn't have any inebriating effects whatsoever? Personally, I would not, and I would guess that the majority of people would agree with me. However, non-alcoholic beer and wine is sold and I know people (like my mother) who drink one or the other, and often a lot of it. However, many of them are former alcoholics (again, like my mother) so there is probably a more complex addiction- and reward-mechanism-related explanation, at least for my few datapoints.

To answer the other question though, I don't really drink anymore personally—less than 10 times in the past year. I stopped because my hangovers started getting unbearable (really bad "physical" anxiety, like all the symptoms of a panic attack except that I know there's nothing wrong and am not actually worrying about anything, just feeling miserable—headaches/shakiness/photosensitivity/rebound-hyperexcitation/the works). I'll even get hangover symptoms an hour or two after having a single beer if I don't keep drinking, so my only option is to binge drink so I sleep through the night. So these days, I NEVER drink alone and only drink when I'm in a social situation where everyone else is drinking and it would be really unpleasant to be the only sober person (drunk people are less annoying when you're drunk too). I have to weigh the costs and ask myself "is it worth the hangover?" The answer is usually "No," but after enough time of feeling like I'm missing out on all the fun, the answer will become "Yes" and then the timer resets after the hangover the next day. On those occasions where I do drink though, taste is definitely a factor and I like to get the most out of it and have a variety of really nice beers, which I enjoy thoroughly (though now, some of it may be scarcity effects, but I don't think that's a major factor).

Hope this was helpful to someone.

(Made minor edit for accuracy)

I don't drink (or do drugs or smoke). I've never tried drugs or cigarettes, and I've only tasted alcohol, never had a full drink.

I don't enjoy the taste of alcohol at all. The "alcohol aftertaste" is pretty unpleasant to me. And the one time I had a moderate amount of some type of harder alcohol (I lost a bet) I did not enjoy that warm/burning feeling in my stomach at all.

As for my palate, I'd rate my tolerance for spice at about a 3/10 and my tolerance for sour/bitter at about a 6/10. The sour/bitter is harder to judge - I love lemon and lime, but I don't like coffee at all. Well, I actually sort of like the taste of coffee, but only when it's part of one of those milk shake things. Any type of regular coffee with cream and sugar had been too strong for me.

As for the drinking/drugs thing though, another big reason why I don't do it is social/personal.

Social

The "alcohol environments" I've been exposed to have largely been American high school and college. People in this environment tend to be stupid and wild when they drink, and I don't find that fun.

Furthermore, they also seem to start acting immorally. For example, my freshman year of college, all the guys on my dorm floor were pretty close and really friendly with one another. They were a fun and relatively interesting group of people, and I enjoyed their company. When they drank, I actually still often had fun around them, but not always. One time some guys came back from some party with a huge wooden table, and were laughing and bragging that they stole it. Everyone around me was drunk and found it hilarious, seemingly because it was so random and weird. I was appalled. I don't find theft to be funny.

Also, a lot of drinking seems to happen in party/dancing environments, which I find myself moderately uncomfortable in. I also don't find those environments fun because of the noise and crowdedness (I'm a bit claustrophobic). Tim Urban does a good job explaining why these environments are so unpleasant, and I share his feelings.

Personal

There do exist more relaxed and sensible environments where people drink, so my complaints above don't explain why I don't drink in these environments (other than the fact that I don't like the taste, but let's put that aside for now).

The reason why people drink in these environments seems to be because it's a "social lubricant". Ie. it makes them uninhibited, and they could have more fun when they're uninhibited. But what does this actually mean?

Well, it means that a) there are thoughts they enjoy expressing that they're too afraid to express when they're sober. And/or b) there are behaviors they enjoy performing that they're too afraid to perform when they're sober. In other words, if you diff "things I say when I'm sober" with "things I say when I'm drunk", it returns something. And if you diff "things I do when I'm sober" with "things I do when I'm drunk", it also returns something.

Some of the things that turn up in the diffs are desirable. For example, it's probably a good thing that being drunk makes you silly, because being silly is fun (for some people; not me). But you don't want to be silly at work or when you go to the super market.

However, I think that a lot of the things that turn up in the diff are a result of you not being comfortable with yourself, and I think that this is undesirable. For example, people generally are uncomfortable talking to new people, especially when you have to do the initiating. Alcohol, being a social lubricant, can facilitate this and lead to a good time.

But to me, this feels very much like admitting defeat. The way I see it, if I'm afraid or ashamed to do something, there are two possible reasons why:

1) I'm ashamed about something that I should be ashamed about.

2) I'm irrationally afraid/ashamed to do something.

In case 1, I think I should fix it. I don't think it makes sense to be ashamed about anything you can't fix. From that it follows that the things I'd be ashamed about are fixable, and it's my feeling that "thus I should fix them".

In case 2, I think I should overcome these irrational feelings.

I don't think this philosophy of how to handle cases 1 and 2 is perfect though. I used to take it pretty literally, but I've since realized that it's unreasonable to think you could fix all the irrational feelings your brain produces. So as far as drinking goes, I'll give it a fair shot some time, but so far I haven't been motivated enough to do so.

Also, this approach to handling cases 1 and 2 is something I apply to life in general, not just to drinking. I try to never hide anything (that's why I use my real name everywhere on the internet) and I'm comfortable answering pretty much any sort of personal question (so AMA!). And even when I'm not comfortable, I try to do it anyway. It's my way of facing the truth. After all:

What is true is already so.

Owning up to it doesn't make it worse.

Not being open about it doesn't make it go away.

And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with.

Anything untrue isn't there to be lived.

People can stand what is true,

for they are already enduring it.

Update: After reading Eliezer's Facebook post on doing things to make sure you're not falling victim to the bias towards self-consistency, I decided to go out and drink a beer. I thought it tasted awful and I had to force myself through it. I think I experienced some sort of buzz though. But definitely not nearly enough to outweigh the bad taste.

I have a strong tolerance for, and enjoyment of , spicy and bitter flavours. I drink for much needed disinhibition ... drinking moves me towards normal, rather than drunk. My favourite nipples are IPA and Belgian Ales (used to live there). The lack of a sweet tooth corresponding to a fondness for bitter flavours seems to be doing good things for my weight.

Personally I haven't come into contact with alcohol too much, mostly because of the circles I grew up in. I didn't drink for years because my friends didn't drink, and later on because I was running competitively and conscientious about my caloric intake.

Now, I drink socially, but I have a high tolerance for alcohol and rarely experience lowered inhibitions. I actually like the taste of many drinks, and so I've never really put much thought into the fact that I drink (but I do go through some mental distress about the opportunity cost, i.e. "this isn't healthy, and if I'm going to consume something unhealthy, ice cream tastes better!") I've been borderline drunk (in friendly environments) only a handful of times, and always enjoyed it at least for the novelty of the experience. But if I were told I could never have another drink, I'd be totally fine with it.

As for my palate, I like everything except horseradish, whatever that's worth.

Some of my favorite drinks are various mojitos (when going out) and kahlua with milk (hanging out at someone's house). Beer and wine taste okay/good too, but honestly, if I'm having only 1-2 drinks, I'd probably rather just have lemonade or something.

I turn expensive apple juice into cheap cider at home using powdered champagne yeast to consume during movie nights with friends and whatnot, and enjoy mild quantities of dark beer when eating out at restaurants.

I find cider and other fruit-derived alcohols more enjoyable than light-colored beers, but like dark beer over all else. I prefer the fruit-derived forms without sugar, hence me using a very alcohol tolerant yeast in my own brewing to completely break down all the sugar into alcohol and acetic acid. Many people tell me that the bitter beers I find most superior are disgusting. The same people usually say the same about dark chocolate, which I love, making me suspect there's a difference in how we taste bitter substances. I've also been known to eat bunches of parsley like a carrot, bolstering this idea. I like it for its taste even without the effects of alcohol, which I am a bit of a lightweight for - I start to feel a little dissociated (like I'm watching myself act rather than acting) for a short time after only one strong high-alcohol beer or a large-coffee-mug of my homemade cider, with the sensation getting stronger with more.

Course this means that on the rare occasions I have 3+ beers I have a tendency to say to someone "This is funny I feel like I'm watching myself rather than causing myself to act right now which is of course impossible since I'm telling you about that sensation, but it also feels like I'm just watching that happen, which leads to this infinite regress which can't actually happen and tells me its just my perception that is being altered -" etc etc followed either by more geekouts with certain friends, laughter with certain other friends, and odd looks from many others.

Only ever had enough to be hung over twice in my life, once explicitly as an experiment. When you titrate yourself carefully on the other hand it can be used to interesting effect for internal icebreaking.

High end liquor is very tasty, imo. I am partial to good cognac and scotch. We have a poor vocabulary for flavor distinctions for these things. I read some professional taster stuff and have a hard time mapping those things to what I experience.

I really don't like the taste of alcohol, but that doesn't mean there aren't any alcoholic beverages I like - I go for the ones that are sugary enough to mask the taste, and/or shots of spirits that go down quickly and don't so much have a "taste" as cause a burning sensation along with the taste of whatever's in with the alcohol. That burning sensation can seem to be rounding off the flavour somehow, like I expect sambuca wouldn't be as good as simply the sweet liquoricey taste, but I don't think that really qualifies as liking alcohol, notwithstanding how weird people find it that I can tell them "I don't like the taste of alcohol" between sips of a double sambuca.

When I drink, I'm getting drunk with other students, so it's both "drinking to get drunk" and "drinking socially", and I don't think I'd do either of those things individually. I'm not sure if I'd even go along with "let's all go out and get drunk" half as enthusiastically outside of the context of student drinking culture.

To me, alcohol itself has no taste. There is a certain mouthfeel common to alcoholic drinks, the stronger the higher the alcohol content, but not a taste as such. As far as taste is concerned, beer, wine, and whisky are completely different things. Rhubarb vodka tastes only of rhubarb, orange liqueur tastes only of oranges, etc.

I have never experienced the stereotypical "disinhibition". Alcohol does not make me any more talkative, or moved to sing raucously, or dance, or pick fights, or anything of that sort. I just get a certain sense of detachment from my surroundings.

am very sensitive to bitter flavours.

There's a common SNP variation for that. If you have it, you're particularly sensitive to bitter tastes while young, but that sensitivity turns to unsensitivity when you get older. All of a sudden, bitter things start to taste ok. I like Brussel Sprouts now.

I used to like the sweet drinks too, particularly port. Still do, but the harder stuff tastes better now.

I'm kind of opposite from you, I have a fairly low-resolution sense of taste. I sometimes genuinely can't tell the difference between two foods that everyone else assures me are of very different quality. I don't mind the taste of alcohol at all. I've actually drunk a bit of 99% pure alcohol once or twice, and while it certainly wasn't a pleasant taste, it was my brain, and the instant numbness in my throat, that told me this was a really stupid idea, not the taste.

I do drink small amounts on occasion, and for me types of alcoholic beverages are hugely different, in ways that are obviously cultural not physiological. Sparkling wine, for example, is for celebration, the sensation of drinking it reminds me of a hundred different other happy occasions and makes me happy even if this particular occasion isn't really one I particularly care about. Beer, wine, cocktails all have their roles as signifiers of particular situations.

The main benefit of alcohol, it seems to me, is a particular kind of closeness between people at similar levels of alcoholic intoxication. People call it reduced inhibitions, but I don't think that's very accurate. I suspect it is more about imagining each other less complexly, which builds trust somehow. (Maybe intoxication makes you vulnerable and shared vulnerability builds intimacy. Or maybe you just know on a visceral level, that insincerity is just too hard for the both of you right now. I don't know, I don't claim to understand the mechanism, but the resulting effect seems solid.)

I have precisely the same problem with bitter flavors. I avoid olives, beer, and coffee.

I have tried alcohol twice in an attempt to break my reputation for being a loner who doesn't drink. Both times I felt very drowsy afterwards, had to go to bed early and slept about ten hours. Sleepiness was the only discernible effect.

Currently a student in my last year, I get drunk 2 or 3 nights a week, sometimes higher and sometimes lower. I usually don't have any alcohol unless I've got night plans and am trying to get buzzed/drunk - a single beer or glass of wine to unwind is very rare for me. My relationship to alcohol is pretty much completely social. When everyone has lower inhibitions, the potential for novel shared experiences is much higher and conversation flows much more easily. My friend groups in college have similarly been partial to alcohol - I started a social fraternity, and most of the people I spend time with outside of class have come from extensions of that network. I don't think I can name a single person in my social friend group (as opposed to my engineering classmate groups) that doesn't drink.

I'm not worried about addiction, because over the summers when I'm not around my frequently-drinking friends I don't have an impetus to drink and won't buy any booze unless it's wine to cook with. I also have SNPs that put me at lower-risk for alcohol dependency, but I don't weigh that as heavily as observing my patterns of behavior.

As for taste, pure alcohol doesn't really have a taste (at least, it didn't when I tried a shot of 95% alcohol). The 95% alcohol didn't burn at all (it just felt very very dry and warm), but that was oddly uncharacteristic. I usually feel the alcohol burn when I take shots, but chasing them counters that. Mixed drinks, wine, and beer taste good on their own and while I can tell there is alcohol in the drink, in a good drink it fades into the background behind the other flavors. Shots of hard alcohol can taste good, but I suspect this is more because of the association these flavors have with fun experiences than the actual taste. For reference, I have an unrestricted food pallet, barring a few things like tripe.

I prefer stronger alcohol in very small doses (20-30g or so), just for the taste and for unwinding after a hard day. I don't like feeling 'buzzed', let alone drunk, so I don't usually drink more than that: a normal-sized bottle of good scotch can last for several months.

Taste-wise, I like higher-end scotch whisky (mostly various single malts, peated or otherwise, including cask strength ones) and plain simple bourbon, but I can't stomach any dose of vodka - I find its taste disgusting. I also enjoy good wine, no matter white or red. I don't drink beer, though I can definitely enjoy it.

I don't much like the taste alcohol; I wouldn't say I have a strong dislike, but I'm pretty ambivalent and will usually abstain when my friends drink. When I do drink, it's usually a single beer (amber ale's usually a safe bet; I don't generally enjoy IPA's) and I'd say I end up drunk on average less than once a year, which typically has happened when a heavy-handed friend has hosted parties and mixed the drinks. Regardless of how much I drink, I never really experience any pro-social effects, though drinking more I do tend to feel mentally sluggish and others have noted I can seem withdrawn and/or somewhat oblivious to the happenings around me. I read a post on Yvain's LiveJournal that suggested 3 drinks a week was probably good for one's health (not that the following applies to me, but I feel I should also note that later JohnMaxwellIV posted a link to a paper saying the average health gains for women were cancelled out by increased breast cancer risk), so I bought a 6-pack of beer and set alarms on my phone to remind me 3 nights a week to drink one, but the beer just sat in my fridge for months as, even with the alarms, I was never motivated to drink them.

As for some other flavor preferences: I loved green olives as a kid and still quite like black olives on pizzas and submarine sandwiches. I don't drink coffee, though it's one of my favorite ice cream flavors. I also enjoy foods that are decently spicy (at asian restaurants, I've found that requesting the spiciness of dishes to be a 7 on a 10-point scale to usually be pretty safe bet).

I like the flavour of some alcoholic drinks, but I think that's partly because of anticipating the effect of the alcohol. In other words some drinks taste better than others to me and some I might even describe as delicious, but I wouldn't drink them if they had no psychoactive effect. (I was a somewhat picky eater growing up, less so now, though still a bit more than average.)

I drink fairly regularly. It makes social gatherings more fun. I have some rules for drinking: only drink at social gatherings and only drink an amount that does not impair my ability to operate the next day.

I drink the equivalent of 1-2 bottles of wine per week (purchasing 2-3 bottles, some will be consumed by my girlfriend), mostly medium reds (shiraz, merlot; zinfandel and chianti when I can get them), some white aromatics (riesling, gewürztraminer, pinot gris), mostly 1-2 glasses at a time in the evening, for the purposes of relaxation and gustatory pleasure.

Beer is not good on my digestion, and I almost totally avoid it except for particularly tasty ones (prototypically, something like a Trappistes Rochefort 10). Even the thought of swilling a six-pack is enough to cause me pain.

When drinking socially (~biweekly), it will be whisky (Scotch, neat, naturally), neat Jäger, or possibly G&T or white/black russians if I'm mixing for other people, most usually not to the point of inebriation, just to maintain a comfortable level of sociable buzz. To this end, I adopt an approach informed by control theory, and deliberately front-load my consumption to give something close to an ideal dead-beat response when convolved with my internal alcohol-processing dynamics.

My palate is fairly typical, I have a (probably conditioned) liking for the taste of alcohol, a sweet tooth that I have a System II response against, and as far as I can tell, average-to-low bitterness tolerance (the only coffee I will drink is strong espresso, but I am very sensitive to improper extraction and the associated bitterness.

I've liked beer since adulthood, chiefly because I love coarse, bitter breads and beer (I tend to stay away from the blander productions mass marketed by the largest brewing companies) has always seemed like a wonderful liquid take on bread.

Food is my primary source of hedons, and my beverage consumption developed as an extension of that. I have a love affair with mead, a recurring fling with whiskey, and an occasional one night stand with liquors at large. I appreciate cocktails, but I've found my tastes to require seeking bartenders that are near impossible to find in smaller towns.

I do not wish to spend the money (on liquor alone) required to learn the skills required to rival them, though I will mix a few drinks on very special (Thanksgiving, etc) occasions.

I spend about 5.5% of my income on alcohol.

I never drank exclusively for the purpose of getting drunk until I joined the military, but it's still a rare occurrence.

The sensation itself is akin to a combination of runner's high, fatigue, and, well, being a teenager again. It usually puts me in a good mood and makes it easier for me to enjoy social interactions, and essentially dulls any input my System 2 might have on System 1.

I drink every weekend, at an average of about six bottles of beer or a bottle of wine. Once every three months or so, I will drink more. I know that the equivalent of about 11 bottles of beer begins to stress my digestive system to unpleasant levels, so that's where I usually stop. I have gone over this limit less than a handful of times.

I know that I will not drink if the only thing available to me, was, say, Budweiser or a Cabernet. Even if I have been gifted with something like Mike's Hard Lemonade or Redd's cider, well, I won't really drink anything of that sort, either.

I will not sacrifice expenditures on living expenses, books, or luxury foods for most types of alcohol. While I'm not an alcoholic, I'm probably close to it.

There is ignorance in the bottle, and in that ignorance is a kind of peace.

That, coupled, with a strong appreciation of flavor and texture from anything I ingest is probably why I consume alcohol.

It is one more pit stop in the race against Akrasia.

I hypothesise a lower proportion of drinkers than the rest of the population. (subject of course to cultural norms where you come from)

Curiously, high SES in the United States is correlated with more frequent alcohol consumption.

High tolerance for bitter, love coffee, beer tends to taste good, but I don't drink much at all - not really into psychoactive substances; melatonin is pretty much my limit. Cause is mostly black swan health and mental risks, social risks (less control over behavior).

I don't drink, and don't much like the taste of alcohol in other things; I tend to avoid it.

When I drank, I didn't much like the taste of alcohol; my goal was partly to numb myself, and partly to fit in socially.

There are some liquors that kind of taste OK despite the alcohol in them, and I suspect I would really enjoy a non-alcoholic beverage in the same family concocted with the same attention to detail, but by and large my culture doesn't devote that much attention to non-alcoholic beverages.

Ditto for food, though a lot there depends on the preparation; sometimes I don't taste the alcohol in food. That said, I know many people who swear by the indispensible flavor whatevers in beer, wine, etc. for cooking, and I've never been able to distinguish them from the flavors of (e.g.) good fruit juices.

I hate beer, but most other forms of alcohol are to me like "candy for adult people". If I have alcohol at home, I am tempted to drink it. Luckily, if I don't have it at home, I am not tempted to go buy one.

Explaining why I like the taste of alcohol would be like explaining why I like spicy food. It burns on the tongue but it still makes me feel warm and good.

I have a similar experience: my usual comment on tasting pretty much any alcoholic drink is "...well, it definitely tastes like ethanol?" I kind of figured that was the point and most people who drink regularly have got adapted to the burning-aftertaste-sensation enough that they a) get to like it, and b) can taste other things in the same mouthful. I can also manage to slowly drink small amounts of quite sweet drinks, but not really anything else (and I don't generally bother to do that; I'm just not interested, really). I also seem to be pretty hypersensitive to the alcohol: I get flushed with even a tiny amount and there's a joke that I can get drunk off "fumes". This has been fun on the odd occasion a few years ago but not something I would seek out.

However, it's not quite the same as what you're describing because I don't have the general sensitivity to bitter flavours. I do like sweet things, but I also really like olives, to take your example, and plenty of other bitter foods. Not coffee though (although I do suspect I could acquire a taste for that if I wanted to try, whereas that seems very unlikely in the case of alcohol).

I try to keep my sugar intake to a minimum for weight control, so I quite enjoy bitter foods, but I'm also picky. I drink black coffee daily prepared from a French Press. I dislike most people's poorly made drip coffee that seems to be available everywhere I go these days. When I drink socially, I'll usually either have a bold red wine, a Belgian white ale, or 6+ year aged whiskey on the rocks (hate most dark liquor wells). I find most candy to be too sweet. I avoid juice, soda, ice cream, etc. although I do enjoy them.

People on Less Wrong are, in my limited experience, much less interested in drinking than average for their demographic.

When I was in high school, I never drank with my friends, really, and I didn't see the appeal of it. When I went to college I joined a social group that enjoyed drinking and, though I didn't really enjoy it that much in the beginning, eventually I did come to enjoy it. Now I still enjoy drinking a reasonable amount, and even getting very drunk on rare occasions where it seems like it would be fun. I think people here underestimate how many times you have to drink in order to enjoy it. My brother decided that it would be beneficial to try enjoying alcohol while he was in his late 30s, and he really had to put in some effort, but eventually, after perhaps dozens of parties where he forced himself to drink, he started to enjoy it.

Given how seemingly objectively unfavorable the flavor of alcohol is, it's likely that the only reason people find beer, wine or liquor enjoyable is because they are conditioned to associate that flavor with the positive effects it has on their mood. Heroin addicts find the idea of injecting needles into their arms to be enjoyable, even thrilling, so the power of association is almost arbitrarily powerful if you have something satisfying enough to associate it with.

Drinking alcohol as a social activity is probably the most important one for me - our culture has a variety of social practices for drinking that can lead to fun results if followed (and some others that are less good). This often blurs with social lubrication (do I enjoy talking at the pub because the pub is a socially useful place devoted to providing a space for people to meet and talk? Or is it the booze? Probably some combination, but leaning towards the first one). My family drinks a lot more (where 'a lot more' means average 3 drinks over the course of the afternoon for a few days running) when we have big gatherings, and it's almost entirely as a social ritual and activity, as indulging in a tasty luxury, and then as a psychoactive drug, in decreasing order of importance (though all somewhat important).

Drinking just to relax is generally not worth it for me, I've done it only rarely. As for getting trashed, I recommend avoiding it altogether.

When I drink alcoholic drinks for the taste (the same way that I might drink fruit juice), it's usually beer or wine. Particularly if I'm cooking with wine - because hey, can't just put it all in the food without reserving some. I am absolutely okay with the bitter and herbal flavors - it's just one of those things I've become acclimated to over time that would be weird and bad if I had to try it without acclimation, like mushrooms or strong cheese or hot peppers. Now I perceive those elements as important parts of an interesting flavor.

There's definitely also a burning sensation associated with spirits, and it can put fire in yer belly (in a bad way) if drinking on an empty stomach. But, similar to spiciness, there's a tolerance that is partly innate and partly built up through exposure. There's also an aromatic flavor/smell to alcohol that is another one of those things I've become acclimated to and now perceive as an important flavor element - this is also the part of tasting that detects non-ethanol organic solvents as bad booze.

Drink recommendations for someone who doesn't like bitter flavors or the taste of alcohol: try some non-hoppy beers like milk or oatmeal stouts (e.g. left hand milk stout), and wheat lager (weissbier) (e.g. hacker pschorr hefe weiss). There's also hard cider (tasty and with fewer complications than beer), and low-alcohol mixed drinks like shandy and wine coolers / spritzers.

I love the taste of bitter flavors - beer, coffee, olives, etc but not strong alcohol.

I also love spicy foods / curries - for those with low tolerance of bitter flavours, do you avoid these foods as well?

I like the taste of some alcoholic beverages; but, for some weird reason, being drunk makes me feel quite dizzy -- and that's it. There are no positive effects: no social disinhibition (as far as I can tell, anyway), no warm fuzzy feelings, just dizziness. For this reason, I tend to drink rarely, and little.

Edit: I love olives, FWIW.

I have much less tolerance for bitter flavors than most people, but more tolerance than the people who really hate it. I consider myself a sub-supertaster.

My tolerance for bitter flavors has increased to the point where I can enjoy the occasional olive, but I don't seek them out. I don't like grapefruit. I've given up on coffee because I have to doctor it with a lot of milk and sugar to make it palatable, and then I get an upset stomach, though there might be something else going on, since I love coffee ice cream.

Anyway, alcohol. I have a low tolerance for the taste, though some drinks are interesting enough that I'll sip small quantities. One time when I was stressed, I drank a whole glass of white wine as though it was water. That was a seriously weird experience, and I don't expect it to happen again.

I am a moderate but regular drinker. I have a substantial liquor collection and a strong interest in cocktails, as well as beer and wine.

The top conscious motivation for my drinking is exploration of taste, and I usually don't drink to substantial impairment. I suspect the unconscious motives are substantial, but that they have less to do with intoxication and much to do with signalling. That is, I've internalized the idea that appreciating the taste of alcoholic beverages is sophisticated to the point that it doesn't feel like signalling, it just feels pursuing something inherently interesting. (I also like tasting various teas and coffees.) I have no desire to break this habit, as a) light-to-moderate drinking appears neutral or positive for health and b) given my cultural position it's probably a cheaper hobby that anything I'm likely to replace it with.

There's also a sense of relaxation to drinking. It's not the literal intoxication, as I feel it before I even take a sip. I think it has to do with an association of drinking with recreation and relaxation--like a classic diminished-alertness-as-signal, but to myself.

Though I should say that I do sometimes enjoy the buzz--it can seem to put me in a more spontaneous, moment-focused mood, ideal for time devoted to fun. This does sometimes lead to snowballing where drinking more makes me want to drink more, until I've had quite a bit; this has occurred with diminishing frequency since the end of college. If you're wondering whether to count me as a heavy drinker, I've probably drank heavily like this once in the last six months.

I almost exclusively drink in social situations. It can range from having a few beers with friends to drinking heavily at a gathering. Every now and then (once a month or so) I'll get a bottle of wine, which I do drink by myself. I do have a tendency towards excess, especially when it comes to liquor (in the sense that I'll often drink far more than my friends). I have some heavy drinkers in the family and when I go to visit them I'll drink much more than I usually do.

In terms of frequency, I might have a few beers two or three times in a month and I'll maybe get thoroughly drunk four or five times in a year.

I enjoy the taste of a variety of beers, wines, and the occasional mixed drink (usually White Russians). Junior year of college I'd resolved that I'd rather not drink at all than drink cheap piss-water. I like to peruse the liquor store for drinks or brands I haven't tried yet and try those at casual social events. I find myself much more talkative and social after several drinks.

My experience is exactly the same as yours. I'm slowly training myself to be able to tolerate alcohol that's slightly less sweet/more concentrated, but it's very slow going.

I would immediately disbelieve what nerdy people say about social situations especially alcohol most people use proxy plausible excuses to hide social fear. Considering I have actually met a large quantity of people who participate in this sort of stuff I would favor my conclusion to a large degree and override any soft discussion on "bitterness" or "taste".

However if this isn't the case then carry on. I predict that a lot of people will just argue with me for no reason about this even though I am correct for probably the majority of participants in this discussion. If you are one of those people you need to break out of your shell, passivity is harmful for personality development.