How alcohol can help social networking

Alcohol and how it can help with social situations.

Discussing how alcohol can help with social networking and interacting with others is quite a slippery slope and can become tricky to properly advise on how to use alcohol as a social interaction aid.

There is a reason why many individuals choose to imbibe while socializing with others especially those they do not know yet. The main reason for drinking alcohol when with friends or in any social situation is to help one relax as they say that alcohol helps open the mind and loosen the tongue. In this regard, drinking some alcohol while socializing can help a person shake off anxieties about social interaction, feel more comfortable talking with others, and overall feel more confident in themselves and in their conversations.

However that is where alcohol as merely a social networking tool stops. The problem lies in the fact that some individuals while enjoying a few drinks to become socially adept either due to a desire to fit in with other's drinking or to become looser socially become addicted to the alcohol not only due to chemical dependency but more commonly in social situations due to a comfort in drinking while socializing. That is, some people will come to rely on drinking alcohol as the main tool through which to successfully network and interact socially.

Alcohol can become a social crutch for these individuals and they may either use the alcohol as a temporary fix to underlying psychological issues such as depression, anxiety, social fears or other psychological disorders and end up merely masking the problem and replacing it with an alcohol dependency problem.

Also some individuals may come to be unable to enjoy themselves or interact comfortably with others socially without the aid of alcohol and will come to associate drinking alcohol with socializing (This is a trend seen commonly on college campuses around America).

There is a fine line between enjoying alcohol socially (being a social drinker) as an enhancer of the social experience and becoming dependent on alcohol as a way to establish and maintain social interactions. Alcohol shouldn't be suggested as a way to become better at social networking, however it can if used responsibly enhance one's social experience with other's enjoying alcohol.

Choosing to drink should be a decision made based on one's own comfort level with social situations involving alcohol as well as one's own taste