I am probably an outsider, since I don't know if I have any Irish ancestry, but as a person who is familiar with being stereotyped, I want to say that it seems to me that this Irish=heavy alcoholic drinking seems like stereotyping to me.

I am also disturbed that it appears from this thread and others [particularly around St. Patrick's day' that alcoholic drinking=manliness and/or heavy drinking/gettingy drunk [on St. Patrick's Day or otherwise] is a positive.

As I said, I don't know if I have any Irish ancestors or not, but I think this is a people thing, not an Irish thing. And as a person whose twin sister died of alcholism, and as a person who rarely drinks alcoholic beverages because I probably inherited the gene for alcoholism, this "rah rah I'mma get drunk" talk [on St. Patrick's day or otherwise] doesn't sit well with me.

Somehow, since other people are often negatively affected family members and other individuals who drink hard liquor, I would hope that people recognize this stereotyping and are cautious about even social drinking {and driving and taking one's aggressions out on others etc etc etc].

It seems to me that it must be difficult to be an Irish person who has acknowledged that he or she is an alcoholic.

I pray that any alcoholic got through this most difficult of days without relapsing.