To hate the drinking culture in the UK?

[newjerseyp]

I despair of the drinking culture in the UK. Everything revolves around alcohol. I go to a dinner party - alcohol first, food plus alcohol, dessert plus alcohol, then more alcohol to finish. Sunny day? Let's go to a beer garden! Catch up with friends? Let's meet for a drink (usually alcohol). BBQs I see more people drinking alcohol than actually eating. Alcohol is used to celebrate (birthdays, graduations etc) and commiserate (funerals). It's very hard to avoid. Every occasion I go to I instantly get asked, 'are you having a drink?'

Yesterday (Sunday) about 75 percent of my friends were hungover. I was trying to make plans to go out a walk and most of the replies were 'had too much to drink last night'. Of course you could go to these things and just not drink but then you have to explain yourself and the temptation is there and it's also boring being surrounded by tipsy/drunk people when sober.

Alcohol is second to cigarettes as the biggest killer, even before illegal drugs yet it is so normalised and glamourised in society and there doesn't seem to be much incentive outlined by the government to change this.

AIBU to just hate it?

I get drunk on maybe 2-3 occasions a year. I don't like the hangxiety that inevitably follows.

I'm 29 and a lot of my friends seem to think liking wine, gin or whatever else is a personality type which I've always found a bit odd.

YANBU OP, you only have to read some of the ID threads on here when someone has fallen foul of a particularly robust licensing policy (or even the law in some cases) and been denied alcohol, to see how indignant some people are when they can't get it, even once, amid a lifetime of access.

I live somewhere where going out every weekend and getting pissed, staggering home and having the odd scrap is seen as a weekend well spent, and where every celebration (for anything, wedding, funeral, kids birthday party) is based around alcohol.
I've moved away from friendship groups like that because it doesn't appeal, I used alcohol as a crutch for a while and was definitely in a worse place for it.
Each to their own I guess, though I'm not fond of having to deal with the results of other people drinking to excess and the behaviour that goes with it at times.

my tolerance towards it is dwindling. I haven’t been drunk for over 21 years. I can go for a night out, have a few vodka and tonics then just soda water. Im happy with that. I love a glass of wine, but after one, i cant sleep. It keeps me awake.

ive just started HRT this week and im starting to dislike myself of how im feeling during it. And i feel i dont want a drink at all and i feel happy about that.

last week I went away with friends, and i had a few drinks but I didn’t get drunk. On the last night we went for a meal, few drinks consumed (me more water than wine) and i had a hot moment and felt overwhelmed and got a bit tearful (never happened before) and i went to bed after we got back the hotel, others stayed in the bar. Drank more. Sick the following morning.

yesterday i got talking about the trip with a colleague a d friend said everyone was sick the last day apart from me. Apparently i was boring for doing this.

thanks a fucking bunch.

so you’re right. The drinking culture is pathetic

It’s not as bad as it was. Yes socialising is still centred around a drink but the binge culture that defined the 90s isn’t as prevalent. None of the 30 somethings I know are getting wasted every weekend, and apparently drinking is way down in young people (hooray for stagnant wages).

I feel the same and I’m a similar age to you. Thankfully most of my closest friends don’t overdo it and most of the time we do things together that don’t involve alcohol or will only have 1 or 2 drinks occasionally when we do.

My OH drinks a lot more than I’d like him to. His family tend to drink quite a lot too so it’s probably what he grew up with. I encourage him to drink less and less often when I can. A lot of the time when we’re with our friends he doesn’t drink much because we’re not just sitting in pubs all weekend.

Again, they don’t sound like nice, supportive friends.

Yes, when my mum had an affair and left my dad, after a period of deep depression he ventured down to his local pub for some company. Honestly I think it saved his life. He now has a great group of friends, and always has somewhere to go when he’s feeling low.

I stopped drinking nearly 10 years ago as I completely fell out of love with alcohol and didn't like how important it had become to me being able to relax and enjoy myself.

The first year or two after stopping I felt like my blinkers had been well and truly removed. I couldn't believe how all pervasive the binge drinking/ mummy's little helper culture was. And I really hated what I saw and was quite passionately anti booze for a while.

Now I feel much less bothered by it. My friends are not massive drinkers and we are all 50 ish now and seem to socialise day time and early evening mostly. My DH and his family are very boozy. Family parties are riotous. I used to feel so awkward going to them sober but everyone is used to it now and if they think I'm boring I really don't care. I stay until about 11 when it all gets very tedious and repetitive. The best bit of the night has been and gone by then.

I hope my kids will choose a moderate path. At least they have an example of 1 non drinking parent to counter balance things. And to be fair to my DH he now doesn't drink Sun- Weds so my behaviour has changed his a bit.

The explosion in AF drinks gives me hope that things really are changing. When I stopped in 2013 there were hardly any AF options. I lived on fizzy water. Much better now.

One thing that stopping drinking has given me is a much more varied and interesting social life. When booze is not the focus you have to be a bit more creative and try new things. I've really enjoyed doing more gigs/ galleries/ comedy nights etc rather then just drinking a few too many in the local bar.

I do find it strange how protected alcohol is within our culture compared to other recreational drugs though. It seems to enjoy a free pass due to custom and practice I suppose.

I absolutely love being tee total though - highly recommended if you are falling out of love with booze.

On the ‘mummy’s little helper’, ‘mummy needs gin’ type thing, maybe we also need to consider why so many women are so stressed that they’re feeling reliant on alcohol to get them through the week rather than simply be disparaging about it.
Working, childcare, looking after the home, often expected to take on the ‘mental load’… maybe if they weren’t so exhausted and busy they’d be less likely to reach for a bottle of wine while sat on the sofa on a Friday night.

My DP is German though he's lived in the UK many years. We met in our 40s and his attitude to booze is just so different to your average British man in his 40s. He's just completely indifferent to it. He'll enjoy a beer or wine or G&T sometimes, but as he would a glass of coke, and he'll have one then stop. He'll drive quite happily on nights out and not think anything of it. He doesn't like being round drunk people because he finds them really dull. His attitude has definitely been a good influence on me.

Agree with this. I had a lovely couple of hours with a friend and her husband in their local last night. Tried an alcohol free cider then drove home. The proper British pub is worth keeping.

Ready to move it - I agree with you on both counts. I still love a good British pub and do enjoy using them even though I don't drink alcohol any more. Mostly for pub lunches after a walk but also early evening drinks with friends. In the market town my parents live in going to the pub is a sociable activity that gets older people Like them out of the house a couple of times a week. My parents wouldn't have more than 3 drinks. It really is social drinking.

The mummy's little helper thing I think you are spot on. The horrendous stress levels associated with being ' having it all' ( or should that be doing it all?!) in this day and age are making us ill. We self Medicate by drinking wine at home to soothe ourself as it is the only way to numb the feelings of overwhelm without abandoning our post. It's the equivalent of sticking a dummy in our mouth. I'm not talking about happy sociable drinking here, but the other darker kind which I think is quite common. Drinking to cope. To unwind . To stop feeling stressed. To stop feeling full stop.

I know lots of people have a good relationship with alcohol and I'm not saying this is true for everyone. But I do think it's pretty common amongst stressed out mums. And because the drinking culture is so ingrained it goes unnoticed.