8 Signs You're an American With Australian Drinking Habits

You’re unphased by ridiculous prices

So you’re going out in New York City for the first time. You’re having an absolute blast, trying out new craft beers and punnily-named cocktails like there’s no tomorrow. Meanwhile, all your friends are looking on in horror. How on Earth can you justify paying $10.50 for a pint of beer? How can you afford a $16 cocktail and still have money left over for food the next day? The answer, my friends, is you’re used to it. When you’re laying down a tenner for a pint of the worst beer an Australian bar has on tap, paying the same amount for a better taste is a complete non-issue. And better yet, the money you do have now is actually worth more than the paper it’s printed on. Who can blame you for getting a little excited?

Sundays are your best days for drinking

While the rest of your American friends are hitting the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights pretty hard, you’ve saved your energy. It’s Sunday. Sundays are for Sunday Seshes. Oh, your fellow Americans try, bless their hearts, with their boozy brunches. Sipping mimosas and chowing down on egg scrambles while moaning about their headaches and all the bad decisions they made the night before. Not you. It’s Sunday, and you’re going to start hitting the pints by three in the afternoon. You always say that you’re only going to have a few, that you’re going to be responsible, but somehow you always end up at a barbecue or another bar with a special on. Next thing you know, it’s three in the morning. You can show up to work with a hangover one more time.

You never learn to keep your beers hidden on the beach

It’s almost shameful how strict the open container laws in America can be. Sure, nobody wants a toddler to step on broken glass hidden in the sand, but at the same time, what’s the point of living in the Land of the Free if you can’t knock open a cold one on the beach while using another to cool off your forehead? In Australia, you grew accustomed to bringing a case of beers or ciders and polishing them off by sundown. Those were some of the best weekends of your life. Now that you’re in America, you can expect a fine of up to several hundred dollars just for bringing a bit of alcohol to the beach. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to stop trying.

You drink way more cider than your friends

For some reason, cider has never really taken off in America. Which is a shame, since a well-made cider can match any beer and is often even more refreshing. When you order them, your friends will occasionally make a snide comment and ask if how you like your apple juice. Yeah mate, it’s good. Let’s see how many of these 8% pints you can down and keep talking shit. Hope you’re enjoying your piss water macrobrew.

You’re rarely cohesive at a sporting event

Watching ladies in big hats stumble through security at the Melbourne Cup is a time-honored tradition. Looking up who won the AFL Grand Final the next morning, despite having watched the entirety of the game, happens most years. There’s a lot of booze involved whenever Australia plays a sporting match. Once you get back into America, you’ll find yourself being forced to reign yourself in more than you’re used to. You’ll need to dial it back just to hang with a crowd who’s already excited bout the amount of beer they’ve bought for the Super Bowl party. You’ll get used to it eventually. This tolerance break will, however, come back to bite you in the ass when you finally go to an Australian bar for State of Origin, only to be carried out by the rugby players halfway through.

You don’t find drinking from a shoe disgusting

Okay, so it’s pretty disgusting. Actually, it’s very, very disgusting. Your friends gag when you suggest it and straight up retch when you go through with it. But the shoey is a time-honored tradition, and on nights spent drinking far more than warranted, there’s a good chance it’s going to happen eventually. Occasionally, one of your friends will join in. You’ll all have a good laugh about it as you shamelessly put your soggy Chucks back on, and you’ll be blissfully unaware of the fact that pretty much everybody in the room is judging you pretty hardcore.

Just about everything deserves a drink

It started the moment you moved to Australia. And it started out innocent enough. The Triple J Hottest 100 was on, and you decided to go to a bar that had a listening party on. Then came the Sunday Seshes. Then you were splitting a six pack with your boss to celebrate the end of the work day. By the time you moved back to America, just about everything you did justified a cheers. But that’s not really the case anymore for your friends. They’ve mellowed out since you left, since college. When you moved back to America, you found that people enjoy going to the bar often enough, but not nearly as much as you. It’s not even that you drink too much – it just takes much more to have any effect. You drink like an Australian now. You don’t have a problem. You’re just ahead of the American curve.