Dear bison... June 2005.

[bisonbison]

Dear Gus,

scholar-support@google.com

[bisonbison]

What is my purpose in life?

Apparently it's not guitar-based.

[mason55]

Dear Bison,

I think I'm an alcoholic. it doesn't affect my job or reltionships with friends or girls. when I go out drinking I can't stop until I'm too drunk to move. the problem is i enjoy it. it's sunday night and i'm wasted. I've always seen the caricature of an alcoholic being a bum and having no job but i have a great job and a very fulfilling life. i just like to get drunk every night. what should I do? maybe this is too personal for ask bison?

[ClaytonN]

Dear bison,

Currently I have been getting a good deal of money from rakeback, (27%) and I am unsure as to whether I should stick to my Party skin and make lots of rakeback or spread my money around a lot of sites and bonus whore.

[Transference]

Dear Bison:

I'm 25 and have been in school virtually my whole life. I was removed from a phd program for making an ass of myself and am instead getting a masters degree in general psychology once I finish my thesis. I am disilusioned with the field in general. I have only found 2 options for employment a)take a job for which I am overqualified for and will be underpaid or b) teach as an adjunct professor. Both ideas are moderatly repulsive to me. I still owe 40 grand in student loans and I feel like all that money got me zilch.

What do I do with my wasted life?

[bisonbison]

Dear Mason,

It's not too personal. If someone's got a real personal question, I assume they can always make a gimmick account to post it with.

Forget about the label 'alcoholic'. I don't know your habits or your story or whatever. We can just accept that you're worried that your relationship with alcohol is unhealthy. The best and simplest thing to do (though not the easiest) is to stop drinking for a while.

Just remember, why you're drinking so often is more important than how often and how much you're drinking.* So set aside a month for not drinking and see how you feel.

*This weekend I went to Vegas, and as some people can attest, got pretty hammered two nights in a row. I tend to get caught up in the flow of things and lose track of how drunk I am, and then I drink even more. I don't get violent or argumentative or touchy, I just get real drunk and real sleepy and dumb.

I feel okay about it, cause it was a designated donk-fest, and I didn't do anything worse than spill a tray of drinks. But if I'd gotten that drunk at home, especially two nights in a row, with friends I see every week, I'd be worried about it, because the experience of being really drunk interferes with actually being fully present with people you know. And I like my friends, so if I'm feeling the need to get hammered, what the hell is going on?

[bisonbison]

Dear Clayton,

Do the math. Evaluate the effort. Make a choice.

[bisonbison]

Dear Transference,

You're 25. You do not have a wasted life. Trust me on this.

Take a sabbatical from school. Get a 9 to 5 that you are over/under qualified/paid for and figure out what you want to do.

[mason55]

Dear Bison,

My problem is that I don't feel I have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. It doesn't affect my life in a negative way. Maybe I just have my head buried in the sand but I enjoy my relationship with alcohol. The problem is that I feel my relationship is unacceptable to society, sort of like a hot girl dating a M2F transsexual. They're happy but society isn't happy with them. Maybe I just need to not worry what people think because I am happy with my life. I just know that most people would consider our relationship unhealthy while I see it as a way to kill time and boredom. I guess this isn't a question, so, who's going to win the NBA finals?

[bishopstrt]

Dear Bison

How do you make a really good steak like the kind they sell at restaurants? Mine never taste all that good. I cook them on my oven's broiler. Should I flavor them with something? I like rib eye and new york strip but am usually disappointed with the way they turn out. Just not that much flavor. I think I'm a failure or something...

And another thing...
Do you think that being stoned can make a person better in bed? I think it does but I can't really trust my own judgement when I'm in that state as I'm sort of high and I'm too embarrassed to ask my partner if I'm better that way or not but it sort of seems like I must be better judging from my partners reaction. Maybe I'm kidding myself. Have you ever read anything on this before?