I decided not to drink again when I was fourteen [only having had a few sips before then, and several lager shandies, so never got more than a bit tipsy] due to the fact that at that time I was into a lot of bands whose members were alcoholics, and I didn't want to go that way. Made sense given that I know I have quite an obsessive personality [all or nothing] and my parents [not my mum in recent years due to her medication] have always been people who drank every night, even when home. They didn't need it like alcoholics to function, but my dad would get ratty if he couldn't for no good reason [i.e. to the point that when I was bad with asthma he would tell me to decide if I needed to go to the hospital before ten pm, because afterwards he would start drinking if we were still at home and then he wouldn't be able to drive me [hmmm]].
I am a control freak, and I know that. However, I also know just how spectacularly annoying I can be whilst sober, and imagining that alcohol disinhibits you, I can't imagine wanting to be around myself while drunk. And the amount of times I've been around people who told me things they wished they hadn't in the morning, because I'm usually the confidant anyway but when they're drunk their tongues loosen even more...there is a reason we learn to bite our tongues! Lucky for them I'm not the type to use information against them.
And yeah, the idea that I need to have a drink to be interesting enough to hang around with is really rather insulting. If you don't want to spend time with me, just don't, instead of spending half the night laughing and telling me, "One day, I'm gonna get you soooo drunk!" You know, you're really not. If I decide I want to drink, then I will, and it damn sure won't be because anyone else wants me to.
Agree with whoever said often people act more drunk than they are because it's expected, though. On a number of occasions I have been with drunk people and found myself actually acting like them, as in falling over, laughing at stupid things, tripping over words - and that's with the knowledge that I am stone cold sober, and I still have to work not to do that. I wonder if it is some sort of evolutionary mechanism to make you act like you're the same as the rest of the crowd so you're accepted and therefore safe or something. No matter what it is, I have found myself being told how pissed I clearly was at the time/the night before and people would not believe me when I said I actually don't drink at all. So I suppose proof I don't need to drink to act like a disinhibited giggling fool! 