I happen to know that some well respected members that used to be regulars here have spent a number of years serving drinks in bars. I've been drinking scotch and a few other straight whiskeys for a few years and I've found that when it comes to the straight whiskey varieties there always seems to be a drip running down the bottle when I pick it back up. It's a minor inconvenience. I've never been in a situation where I'm sharing or even in the company of non-family so I just lick the neck of the bottle. Nevertheless, if there's a trick to eliminate that drip I'd sure love to perfect it.

I've tried what I can think of and nothing ever seems to work. My brother did give me some plastic "pourers" that fit in the mouth of the bottle and poor more smoothly. I guess sort of like they'd use in a bar. They work pretty well. Thing is, I cannot afford to drink 1/4 bottle a night so most nights I might only pour a glass or two. It's a lot of hassle to install a pourer, pour a glass, and then put it all away again. On a side note, the "missus" seems to have "hidden" my pourers so there's a chance they're all in the garbage.

Last time I did that I drank about 21 oz of tequila in a few of hours. I'd be standing there talking to somebody, lose my balance (we were outside), and fall straight like a board flat onto my back. One second I'm looking at eye level, the next I'm staring at the stars. Then I'd get up and do it again. I was scary drunk. I don't intend to do that ever again.

Not scary like threatening. Scary like it's lucky I didn't die. Hell, nevermind the risk of alcohol poisoning. I could have easily cracked my skull open on a rock one of the times I got laid out on the ground in the woods!

That is indeed stupid drunk, or at least, drinking and then attempting things you should not (like being on a parade float). Albeit, neither of those sounds all that bad (though could have been worse).

I know somebody that [allegedly] fell on the corner of a coffee table while drunk. The end result ended up being 3 broken ribs, which was bad enough, but he put off going to the hospital for a few days, and when he finally did go they misdiagnosed him and sent him home. A day later he was driving to work and something just didn't feel right so he drove to the emergency room. They checked him and I think a rib had punctured something and he was bleeding internally. I think he was practically at the point of passing out from it. They immediately rushed him into surgery, as I recall. The doctors said if he hadn't gotten there when he did he could have died from it.

I try to maintain a controlled drunkiness since once you're drunk it doesn't get any better the more smashed you get. Once you're drunk you just want to maintain that level. Slow down and you'll sober up. Any more and you could lose control and potentially do something you regret, like puking, lashing out at people for no reason, or hurting yourself.

That post started out so positive and then took a nose dive.

Define a "drunk". Strictly speaking, the definition of a drunk is an intoxicated person. Everybody is "a drunk (noun)" while they're drinking, and not a drunk while they're sober. That's pretty useless.

If you mean an "alcoholic" i.e., somebody addicted to alcohol then you'd probably got me, albeit I'm a functioning alcoholic, and even more than that, I'm capable of not drinking for a period of time greater than a week, but thus far not proven more than a month. I technically can stop, but I "suffer" from various conditions if I do. Some of them related to alcohol dependence, and some of them, I argue, conditions that are treated by the alcohol explaining the routine consumption and therefore addiction. For example, "social anxiety" may be one such explanation. I the health care system was better maybe I could find a satisfactory alternative, but I do not see that as a possibility at this time.

On to your points:

• Waste of time: not entirely, I enjoy it, most of my family and friends enjoy it, and certainly not all time is wasted (and I doubt there's anybody capable of wasting zero time).

• Money: there is certainly an argument here, particularly in Ontario where booze is highly taxed, but I have begun buying some of my beer in Michigan to save a few bucks. Again, the money is a worthwhile nay necessary investment until I can figure out a better way to "treat" symptoms. Also, it's fun so there's some budget for entertainment routed for this.

• Health: yes, that's hard to argue with. Albeit, it remains to be seen if it'll matter in the end. I think that rather than quitting drinking, what I really need is routine exercise, and maybe that would help to motivate a cut back in consumption of alcohol or help to treat symptoms in itself, but it's also really hard to do. In addition to exercise, you need a healthy diet, which is also hard to do, not to mention generally expensive. It's a real crime that eating healthy tends to be more expensive than eating unhealthy. We don't do too bad these days, but there's still a lot of grounds for improvement.

• Steals your memory: not generally, no. I can probably count the occasions that I've lost short-term memories from drinking on one hand. It's a relatively rare occurrence. I've even recovered memories after a day or two that I thought were lost. Long-term, I seem to remember the things that matter to me just fine so I don't think that alcohol is really interfering with that too much. Even before I started drinking I didn't bother to remember the things that weren't important. As a side note, whether related to the consumption of alcohol or not, I tend not to store TV shows or movies long term so it allows me to rewatch the ones I enjoy after some time has passed without knowing every move and being bored of it. I can forget what happens and rewatch it. Which is great because there's slim pickings for new media.

• Bad decisions: on occasion, usually when you've had an excessive amount, or most often when combined with other symptoms, such as exhaustion, you can make bad decisions. There are certainly times I regret, but I can probably count those on one hand (maybe two) also. Considering the times I've been drunk it's negligible. It is certainly something you need to be aware of though. Lots of people seem to make bad decisions while drunk, but I don't seem to have that problem in general. A lot of people think they'll get me talking if they get me drunk, but it's harder than you'd think. Maybe it's just my personality or brain (probably helps that I mostly drink alone instead of with groups), but I don't seem to so easily tainted. My own experience tells me that maybe other people make bad decisions whether they're drunk or not. Again, or maybe I just have a more rare brain type or something. I don't know. I can be pretty fucking drunk and still pretty conscious of my actions.

  In fact, one of my more embarrassing moments happened a few months back. I believe we were out with the missus's friends. I prefer to drink alone at home. Instead, I got dragged out into a social situation which I struggle with and drink more at. First to a restaurant/bar, then to a sports event where booze was stronger, and finally to a bar. I was fairly conscious of my actions all night and generally well behaved, but the next morning I had a blank spot in my memory and my finacee was furious with me. She said I scared her the previous night and was generally out of control. At first, I felt terrible and couldn't apologize more. It took about a day before I started to remember the scenes she described, and they were nowhere near as bad as she made them seem. That's from my perspective. We don't have video so maybe I remember it wrong, but I don't think so.

  In general, I am very much in control. However, I am also human. I try to control my emotions at all times, but eventually the bubble bursts as it does for most of us I think, and I have been known to do or say things I regret on relatively rare occasions. I'm usually not ashamed to fess up to them once I've realized my errors and try to make amends where necessary.

• Doesn't solve real problems: agreed, drinking doesn't solve my problems. Albeit, I enjoy it, and drinking does certainly treat certain problems and make them less of a problem. They don't go away entirely, but I guess in the moment are solved. It's an ongoing process. I think that drinking is more positive than negative, albeit, there may be better solutions available. I haven't found them yet, and in the meantime I think that drinking is the better option than not.

  A lot of people drink and relatively few cause problems. Drinking isn't usually the problem. It's usually the idiot blaming the alcohol that's the problem, and I think they'd still be a problem even if they were sober.

All things in moderation. But whatever you do, please try to be safe when you drink. One bad slip up is all it takes to hit your head and die.

When pouring milk from a glass bottle, I sometimes give the neck a solid tap to break the final drop's polar bond on the bottle lip. This is easier when the drop clings to a lip edge, as opposed to a side. Normally, however, I simply rest the pouring bottle's lip (not neck) firmly against the receiving glass's lip while pouring. Milk is better than whiskey, and I hope you drink more of the former--though Monkey Shoulder is as fine a mixed malt as you will ever taste.

The way we stop red wine from dripping and staining things in bars and restaurants is to give the bottle a twist at the end of the pour. I've never dripped whiskey before, but it should be the same.

See this video (from about 0:50):

Also, you can just leave the nip pourers on, unless it takes you more than a couple of months to get through a bottle. Unless you live in a ridiculously hot and arid climate, evaporation at ~40ABV isn't going to be an issue.

Do you have shaky hands?

Maybe. Seems a bit odd though. I've poured from a hell of a lot of bottles in my lifetime and I've never noticed that with a particular brand's bottle (there are some bottles that do not fit pourers as well as others though, which can lead to dripping. McKenna bourbon I'm looking straight at you!).