Designated Drivers

Benefits of marriage for me. My wife is not a big drinker, she has been drunk twice in the 3 years we have been married. I offer to be the sober one so she can drink but she rarely takes me up on it, so I typically have a reliable ride home. 

Maybe I'm asking the wrong crowd.  Triathlete don't drink...  Or is it old people like me that just drink at home....  alone... with the lights off....

But seriously, I meet people at the clubs once in a while and NO ONE talks/asks "who is the designated driver".  Just doesn't happen.  Granted, most don't get stupid drunk, but it never comes up.

If someone DOES get stupid, we do our best and NEVER let them drive and someone takes care of them.  There has been countless times the car gets left at the casino.  But it's never really planned for before the festivities commence.

My friends and I usually have a plan before going somewhere to drink. Usually one person will volunteer or agree to keep their drinking to a minimum so we can get home. 

I don't drink to get drunk unless I have a plan on how to get home or a place lined up to crash beforehand. If I don't have a way to get home I plan my drinking to be under the limit, such as 1 drink per hour and stop a while before it is time to leave.

Well, I've been hanging with the running/triathlete crowd for over 2-decades...there are some drinkers in this group.  Not as heave anymore, but I can remember after races hanging around at the beer tent with lots of other triathletes getting hammered...many of us driving home.  I'm smarter than that now and I think the beer is not as available as it used to be...but it still happens.

The only time that I am a designated driver is if my wife happens to want to drink at a party...which is rare.  I can't stand to be around a bunch of drunks if I am not drinking.  Tried it and I can't handle the stupity unless I can join in. 

Anyway, I really try to be responsible anymore.  Next month I'll be going to a concert with a friend and we both know we want to have a few.  We're making arrangements well in advance for transportation because I know neither one of us will be capable of making a good decision at the end of the night.

I'll fess up to drinking and going out on the town when everyone else is drinking too. We don't pick a designated driver and back in our younger 20's we just picked the least intoxicated person 1/2 way through the night and that person got told they needed to stop so they'd be OK to drive.

Now that we are smarter and better off, we carpool with a driver. The person with the biggest car (and there are several of us with suburbans/Yucons) hires a driver for the night and we split the cost between the couples in the car. We can all drink what we want and they chill in the car and make sure we get home safely. Way cheaper than a limo and way safer than "whoever is least drunk".

Where did you get this info?  I do tris so I CAN drink

And like some people above I have a spouse that does not drink much so I typically have a ride.

However if everyone wants to drink we take a cab.  No fun for one person who WANTS to drink to be left out.

Anyone that watches The League is thinking of Rafi right now

"I'm the designated driver so just let me know 30 minutes before we leave and I'll crap out all the booze"

Obviously you don't hang out with a lot of cyclist types they almost all drink to excess.  Cool crowd

Seriously.  Just about every group ride I do ends at the pub.  Noon, 8pm whatever.

And I grew up in a running family, and was on a running team for many years where we basically ran so we could drink. Most of the runners I know are also drinkers (not all...but most).

THIS.

Though, most crowds I end up with drop the pride and will take a ride to someone else's house, or accept it when someone calls them a cab.

No one where I am seems to plan for it, though. But, if I carpool or drive myself, I'll be responsible. Can't say the same for everyone else.