Drinking Like a Man

"Going to an adult bar, far from having the dangerous effects that so many pillars and pillaresses of the community were prone to assume, altered this man's drinking habits for the better. He said:

"I also discovered how to drink at Schultie's. I already knew how to chug-a-lug. I knew how to get puking drunk and passed-out drunk but I didn't know how to drink a couple of enjoyable beers and go home clear-headed. My first couple of beers at Schultie's went down quick. I never let go of the bottle until it was drained. The older fellows would let their beers sit off to the side for several minutes at a time. When the talk was lively, they seemed to forget the beer altogether. They'd sip a little during the lulls and there weren't many lulls. Those guys taught me how to relax, or at least they tried. In the adult tavern, many a young man learned to detach himself physically from his bottle or glass with quickly diminishing separation anxiety--learned, that is, to drink less like an infant and more like an adult."

Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place