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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ok well I feel like my takeaway from this is totally different from other posters, perhaps because of my family.

But OP, you have been dating this guy for three years and sounds like you think you would marry him. Your parents sat you down to have a 'serious talk' about your SO. But here's the thing, when you get married, you and your SO are on a team. And they become your primary nuclear family. And you can't allow anyone to be able to poison you against one another.

Relevant things about your boyfriend:

1) You didn't think anything was wrong before
2) Even upon examination, you can't think of any event where he mistreated you because of his drinking, you can't think of him making poor decisions because of his drinking
3) In his 20s, which I think probably is not that long ago?, he quit for years with no issue
4) You acknowledge that you instigate many of the drinking events ie happy hours and brunch
5) It is VERY normal to be drunk at a sporting event and have a few drinks at an extended dinner, especially if you were not in the know about the family

Relevant things about you and your parents 
1) Your parents bring up a criticism and your takeaway is not to wonder if there is a problem, but to accept that there is a problem and move towards fixing it
2) Your parents are citing behavior at two events, one of which is a dinner the THIRD time they met him but you have been dating for three years, so I assume this was a long time ago. So your parents are keeping some serious score here

If you are considering ending this relationship, I think you should, but not because of your boyfriends drinking. But because you are showing you are the kind of person where a little whisper in your ear about something sprouts legs where there were none, and causes you to doubt him and yourself so dramatically.

If you want to drink less, do dry January (or dry July), and sure talk to your BF about this and be like, 'man do you think we have an issue?' But make it something that the two of you discuss together, not something where your parents gave you a disapproving word and suddenly you're rethinking your entire life plan.

I drank a lot in my 20s, now I'm 36 and have three kids and hardly drink at all. The phase of life you are in right now, is a heavy drinking phase. Young, childless, partying etc. I think I would cut him some slack, cut your parents a lot less slack and tell them to MYOB, and do a serious self examination about why the word of outsiders is, for some reason, more powerful than your own opinion on your choice of life partner. [/quote]

This is really, really good advice about OP's relationship with her parents.  This poster has perceptively and unemotionally identified key aspects about this situation that might not have occurred to you (and I am speaking from experience).  I didn't read further in the thread, so apologies if I repeat any advice.

This topic is so difficult because people who don't really drink themselves, or who don't come from families where drinking at celebratory dinners, holidays, sporting events, parties is considered pretty normal, think 4-5 drinks is a huge deal -- because for their community and level of alcohol tolerance, it would be -- and people who come from partying families wouldn't even blink at this level of alcohol consumption.  I don't want to give stereotyped examples but there definitely are certain cultural/religious aspects associated with the various views.  I feel like I have had this conversation over and over with someone wondering if a certain person has a drinking problem because they had 3 drinks at the work happy hour, and they don't seem to get that there is a different world in which this is socially acceptable.  I've encountered this type of issue quite a bit as half of my family does not drink, ever, and thinks alcohol is the devil; half does drink, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the occasion; and pretty much everyone in my husband's family is a big drinker -- so we deal with the entire spectrum.

There also is a meaningful difference between drinking 4-5 Rolling Rock beers vs 4-5 8% double IPAs vs 4-5 glasses of wine vs 4-5 cocktails.  I am a small woman and could easily drink 4 standard American beers and still be able to have a normal conversation, but after 2 double IPAs I might not be able to drive.  With cocktails, some are weak and some are strong, so it really depends.  Give this, I couldn't say the effect that 4-5 drinks would have on OP's boyfriend, because we don't know his size, alcohol tolerance, and the nature of the drinks, and this is why OP's parents counting the number of drinks he had is pretty meaningless.  Not to mention that eating dampens the effects of alcohol, and they observed this at a dinner.

A few more thoughts:

--OP, if you are not drinking at the events with your parents, this will highlight your boyfriend's drinking even more.  Consider having 2-3 drinks along with him. You are grown and it is OK to drink in front of your parents, even if they disapprove.  It occurs to me that they might not know that you drink as well, maybe even heavily on occasion, and that you enjoy it and do not intend to stop.  Just be prepared that it might take a bit for everyone to understand this approach-- when I first did this, my non-drinking parent kept staring at me as I sipped this giant glass of red wine, and it was pretty weird and uncomfortable.

--Another thing to consider is whether OPs parents might also care about the cost of the drinks if they are paying for the dinner -- if so, one idea is to offer to pay for all of the alcohol.  We have done this when out with the non-drinking family members from my side and it is clear they appreciate it, the first time we asked the waiter to put the alcoholic drinks on a separate tab and they discreetly brought it to us, and later my parent thanked me.  It clicked that they wanted to pay for the dinner for everyone, but out of principle they didn't want to pay for the alcohol for us (although were too polite I guess to tell me), so we have done this from then on.

--If OP intends to stay with this boyfriend for the long haul, consider putting a hard stop to drinking and driving.  It's better to set the expectation early that if you both will be drinking at this level when out, you will use Uber/Lyft to get home.

Good luck OP!
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