Boozing?
There has been a sea change in the boozing culture : When I arrived in the mob we were all wee baby boys determined to succeed, so heads in books. Can't do that with a hangover. Holidays were for chasing snatch and getting drunk.
By the time you'd been through the system and actually been posted off to an operational station the booze just flowed and flowed. It was silly really and I'm no prude. The longest serving officers were the worst offenders.
Into civvie aviation and a company with some senior pilots who were ex FAA - I'd say they all had a serious drink problem in today's terms. Sundays, if not on standby, all would meet up at a designated home / apartment at lunchtime. those guys would have started on the gin before the morning coffee and it showed by 1500.......Their wives, alas were in the habit of trying to keep up to the extent when hubby / bidie in' was on a night stop would do a bottle a night.
I personally knew two guys who arrived home to find their wives dead.
(It's the bleeding out from the stomach / throat due to continual alcohol abuse).
Another guy I knew, lost his medical due to alcohol problems, was being taken care of by his wife who was a pilot also - she drank and drank. Top lady and an excellent pilot. She ended up banged up for 3 years after killing a pedestrian whilst driving home from the pub..........they let her out after a year and she promptly got her job back. Didn't drink again, ever. Hubby had died when she was in pokey.
The problem with grog is that it so insidious in catching folks - I've been there after my divorce and getting it down to sensible levels is no easy task.
(Even as I speak Mrs TT2 is scoffing a bottle of Leo and me a Chang, but we are out for scoff in a few minutes and there won't be any more beer tonight. )
Coming from a trawling city, which became the Scottish Oil Klondike, the sheer havoc caused by folks hitting the beach and proceeding to get utterly smashed became a nuisance - whether fishers or offshore workers.
These days - if I decide to fly, then it is a full 24 hours alcohol free.
Mind you, if I'm down the back and not driving then keep the bacardis coming. One gets bored.........