No Stupid Questions

Still do.

I've been alcohol free since 7th April 2023 but it's a stop on the way home to see mates that don't game online.

UK pub that's part of the community. We organise canal cleans / litter picks / quiz nights / charity events etc..

Pubs can be good and you don't HAVE to drink booze. Bars now..... They are a different story I feel.

On a side note I feel the ability to 'legally' drink (without a meal) from the age of 18 stops a lot of the idiotic drinking stuff I always hear about from over the pond.

I live in England, but maybe twenty years ago I'd go to my regular pub most days, have a couple of pints and maybe some food, socialise with people I'd got to know there.

Obviously that doesn't happen anymore, it's way too expensive now. Going to the pub or out for a meal is a rare treat these days.

Pub culture is definitely a thing in the UK though and I wish we had some of these neighborhood meeting places in the US too. They aren't necessarily a place to get shitfaced but to get a simple meal and a beer.

Fraternal/Sororal organizations used to be a big thing up to the 60s with the Elks clubs, Odd Fellows, Shriners, etc. We've lost a lot of that community glue.

I was raised in a bar. My mother owned it for 40 years. Yes, same customers every day. They were all alcoholist but some of them stopped functioning. My mother Fed them, did their taxes, cut their hair. It's terrible and sad. The functioning alcoholists had a family to turn home to. I used to be an alcoholist until 10 years ago. My wife had to make me realise that drinking every day, even just one beer a day, is alcoholism.

Depends on the person. I think it was more common 20-30 years ago than now in some places.

Still is common, most bars have their regulars

Yes, but bear in mind a lot of factory, construction, and industrial jobs are 7-3 or 8-4. So a working class laborer could go catch a happy hour with the coworkers or neighbors and be home by 5.

Also in the age of single income households men were often not expected to pull as much weight at home.

me and my friends used to be regulars in a shitty pub where there was a group of older people who would be in there all day every day.

he was probably double my age but it didn't stop him coming over to our table and pestering me and some of the other women.

we didn't go in too frequently but the staff recognised us as regulars. we had to stop because some nasty people would come in on a specific day and one of our group wqs afraid of running into them.

Idk how common it was but it's a good example of a "third place". A spot that isn't work or home where you can meet and socialize

Remember, no internet before this millenium, 3 to 7 television channels before cable, no TV before the 50s...

I mean, people still do that.

A lot of blue collar workers went straight to the bar after work 3-4 days a week.

I did sheet metal back in the 90's for a year. Typical day... start at 6, off at 2:30, bar from 3-5. Pretty much everyday.

For référence, there is an ancient in my village of 300 inhabitants that isbsaying that in the 60's, there were SIX bars in the village. For 300 inhabitants.

So I guess so.

Also for reference we only have a bread machine now, no shops of any kind.

Used to be? This is still common in many industries and localities.

These neighborhood bars in Boston were real. I had a GF who worked in a university lab where they would go to a bar after hours and she would bring me along. It was an old school Irish bar (even had pics of Sinn Féin members on the walls). I kept going after we broke up and ended up dating one of the woman who bartended. She would pass me free drinks. I was always a light drinker though, I just nursed them. This was mostly in my 20s. I did visit another Irish pub after night class in a different part of the city and the guy working there remembered what my usual meal order was. lol

Such a vague question merits the default It Depends™.

My uncle was a factory worker and a daily regular at his favorite local bar for more than 30 years.

My mom wouldn't allow me to go inside the bar (because drinking alcohol is a sin, you know). But in the '80s and '90s, before cell phones, I knew exactly where to find him after school if I needed anything.

Unfortunately, 30+ years of excessive drinking caused a lot of really serious health problems that caught up to him when he was in his 50s. The owners and staff sent a huge flower arrangement and all came to his funeral.

It used to be a place for the working stiffs to gather and was priced accordingly. Nowadays capitalization has been overused to the point where a lot of businesses are pricing themselves out of customers.

Worked in a pub in the UK.

Yes, we had regulars. They'd be there nearly every night after work for a quick pint before heading home.

Very few of them would stay for more than one or two though

Yes, even in countries like Austria. Saddest thing was that many men that were 'great pals' while drinking turned into abusers when coming home, making their families co-dependents and their lives hell.

It still is. There's bars like that in every town.

I try to go to a local spot once a week or so for the sake of community. It's kinda fun.

My problem drinking happens mostly at home.

It depends on (sub)culture, but mainly yes.

Bars were often cheap too, so going to the bar multiple times per week was not expensive. The reason these bars were cheap:

• Outside of touristic areas ground is cheap.
• If the local government allows it, the bar can on the owners property.
• The owner and customers were often friends, so friend pricing would be standard.
• Health and safety regulations used to be less strict. Allowing for lower prices.
• The bar was open whenever the owner wanted, instead of on a fixed schedule, making it more easy to combine with a second job.
• Bars rarely had a menu, they just sold whatever they had in stock. Today customers would be upset if an item on the menu was not in stock.

Also,

• Parks used to be less safe and less well maintained, so buying drinks in the supermarket and consuming them in the park wasn't really an option.
• The internet wasn't a thing, so people who wanted to spend the evening gaming had to do so in the bar.

Sir Patrick Stewart's autobiography has a heartbreaking account of his father's nightly bar visits, and it sounds like he didn't drink alone.

Bartender from the US here. Im one of the few people i know in the industry that doesnt go out drinking almost every single night

Yes, my dad was one of them. I haven't gone to a bar for years but it used to be most smaller bars had at least a few regulars that basically lived there. I remember one old vet that used to show up every day as soon as the bar would open for his daily fix... It got to the point the bar refused to serve him, so he would try and get unsuspecting customers to buy them for him. (This was in the 70's and 80's, there were (or at least seemed to be) a lot more alcoholics back then.)

Also booze used to be a LOT cheaper, so it wasn't nearly as expensive as it would be now.

I watched a documentary about "bar culture" in the 60es and 70es where i live. Shit was pretty wild. Dudes talked about going to the bar like people talk about video games these days. "Oh yeah, on a good week i'm here 40 to 48 hours" what doesn your wife think about it? "She's not excited, but you know..."

Did this (Mon-Sat) together with a few friends and colleagues in my late 20s. We were regulars to the point of the cook always making something off menu more fitting for regular dinner, as well as no need to settle the bill every night. Once a month everything was tallied up.

Good times. Had to stop though since I found myself going through the fridge on a Sunday once looking for some alcohol.

edit: This was the tail end of the 90s btw, small town in Sweden