AIBU to worry about the hold alcohol has on the UK?

[whyhere]

Prompted by a thread about an alcohol-free wedding, and some of the comments therein ('boring.... wouldn't go.... take a hip-flask....'), it seems to me that the need for/expectation of alcohol has really taken a grip in this country. Can people really not enjoy anything without alcohol? Is it really impossible to create a soap scene without alcohol being involved (yes, EE, I'm looking at you!)?

Anyone doing dry January? (Full disclosure - come from a family of alcoholics and have been sober for around fifteen years.)

It's on a scale. you like a glass of wine from time to time? Why? Would it be ok to have some coke from time to time? If not why not? They're both mind altering addictive substances. Some would say if you like a glass of wine from time to time alcohol had a grip on you. If it didn't you wouldn't touch it.

Does coke taste nice and go well with food?

I’m not a big drinker, wouldn’t be upset if told I could never drink alcohol again tbh, but equating it with cocaine is a bit silly.

It really isn’t

the point I think the PP is making is that cocaine and alcohol are both addictive drugs that can cause a lot of individual and societal harms. Yet one is socially acceptable and indeed its use is encouraged and applauded in society.

Wine matching with food is yet another loaf of old wank you can see for the emperor’s new clothes bollocks it is when you don’t drink.

Never tried coke so I don’t know, but I assume people take it for its effects rather than the taste?

Lots of people take alcohol because they like the taste (look at the growing 0% alcohol market, although they’ve yet to get a wine that tastes properly “right”). If someone is using alcohol purely for its effects I agree that’s an issue.

Coke tastes absolutely delicious to those that like it and can be a great after dinner sharpener. Can also confirm food is delicious without alcohol - in fact without the brain fuzz it's more tasty.

Ironically my alcohol consumption has gone up recently thanks to the sugar tax....

I am one of the many people who can taste/are intolerant of artificial sweeteners, and most venues now sell nothing but. I've always hated colas and that is often my only choice. I've had to switch away from ciders altogether as some brands now use sweeteners and the bar staff don't know what's in them as alcohol does not have to carry ingredient labels.

I now carry a can or two of Cawston Press or Fevertree in my bag when going out for the evening just so I have something I can drink that isn't alcohol.

Old wank to you but I love a glass of red wine with a steak or a beer with a curry.

Alcoholics and non religious teetotalers are the 2 types of people with an unreasonable interest in alcohol, generally

Alcohol and drinking to excess has never been less popular. I'm more worried about what new-puritanism is going to look like

For clarity I was teetotal for approx 20 years but I gave it up

I'm doing dry January and even though I will probably have few here and there throughout the year at social events. I don't want to drink like I did last year. Have just separated from my children's dad and have drunk more this December then I did all the other months put together so it is worrying. I've obviously used it as a coping mechanism which is not great and a really slippery slope. Agree that everyone is all about the booze which is sad really.

I would assume that a dry wedding was to protect someone who had an alcohol problem.

I would also expect it to trigger people who are in denial about their own alcohol problem.

I agree with all this. Alcohol doesn’t have a hold over the UK and the UK isn’t the worst country for problem drinking.
We in the UK do however have a tendency towards excessive self-criticism that other nationalities don’t have. So it’s not surprising that we perceive that we do have an exceptional alcohol problem.

Wine matching with food is yet another loaf of old wank you can see for the emperor’s new clothes bollocks it is when you don’t drink.

Haha, I'm sure the French would be very happy to have their millennia-old traditions of viticulture and wine-food pairing dismissed as a load of old wank!

On the cocaine analogy - it's not really the same because one glass of wine will get you slightly tipsy, not even that if you drink it slowly over a meal. A line will get you high immediately and you'll be high for about 45 min then come down. Different effects, lasting and displaying differently, different symptoms.

Also worth remembering that different cultures use and have used different substances over different time periods in religious, spiritual and social rituals eg cannabis, opium, psylocybin, coca leaf, across many different cultures and societies for millennia. Just because cocaine or any other substance you can name is illegal or unacceptable in this current time and place does't mean it always has been, or that there's only one way to imbibe the coca leaf.

Humans have always used some kind of mood or perception altering substance in certain spirital and social rituals.

Totally agree with you

I rarely drink. I don’t drink for months on end and when I do, I have one or two glasses. However, there is no way in gods green ducking earth that I would tolerate a wedding without alcohol. No way. Weddings are long, incredibly boring social occasions. They usually involve wearing uncomfortable, impractical clothes and loads of small talk with family and /or strangers I.e people you aren’t actively choosing to spend your time with. I’m also not really into all of the overly emotional, sentimental stuff that happens at weddings - this tends to grate on me, so these are definitely the one circumstance in life where I would NEED a drink.

What absolute claptrap! No one who has ever taken coke would say it “tastes delicious”. It is taken for effect, it tastes revolting.

Old wank to you but I love a glass of red wine with a steak or a beer with a curry.

That's just a normal food & drink preference though. I love a cup of tea with a piece of cake. It's not the same as creating a whole complex and often snobbish culture around matching wines with specific foods.

I've been thinking about this. It's everywhere isn't it...so book a theatre ticket and you get an email asking if you want to upgrade to a prosecco package?

I think drinking has become very normalised. I don't think there's anything wrong with having a drink or alcohol being available. But I think I prefer a more European model where you can go to a cafe and get a coffee or a drink? In the evening as well.

Just come back from Japan, and they can drink! But it's usually with food, if you go to a viewpoint in a high rise - there isn't automatically a bar...

I think the balance isn't right in the UK.

Except if you mis-match wine with the food you are eating the wine might taste very mediocre, or even a bit unpleasant. Drink it with something different and suddenly it tastes amazing.

This shouldn’t be a surprise, winemakers are always experimenting and may well be heavily influenced by the food that they are eating themselves, in which case the wine might have been developed with a particular pairing in mind.

Plenty of cultures take the art of tea ceremony very seriously, with differently grown and matured varieties of tea for different occasions and utensils and consumption with different traditional foods. People train for years to perform the art. You might not happen to appreciate it, but it would rude and uninformed to call it snobbish, and the same goes for saying so of the culture behind wine and wine pairing.

I enjoy alcohol but wouldn’t mind a dry wedding. It’s just habit. I’ve done dry Jan and dry October and I find it breaks a habit and I don’t want a drink.

I think the main issue is the inability for people to feel comfortable without alcohol. Why can’t people relax and have fun without a liquid drug??

It's not only the UK. If you tried to hold a dry wedding in greece there'd be a riot.

Except if you mis-match wine with the food you are eating the wine might taste very mediocre, or even a bit unpleasant. Drink it with something different and suddenly it tastes amazing.

This shouldn’t be a surprise, winemakers are always experimenting and may well be heavily influenced by the food that they are eating themselves, in which case the wine might have been developed with a particular pairing in mind.

It's not a surprise. I used to belong to a wine society a long time ago. It was mostly an excuse to drink a lot, while pretending it was some kind of academic exercise!

A lot of what tastes good with what is simply personal preference, just as it is when matching foods, seasonings, sauces etc with each other. People are probably pretty capable of working that out for themselves, without taking it beyond 'A dry white tastes nice with fish and seafood' or whatever.

YANBU to worry about it, but don't try to stop me drinking or make it more difficult.
A wedding without alcohol would not interest me unless it was a really local one I could go to for just a bit.

Also, it's hardly just the UK where people drink at major events like weddings. We have a particularly bad binge drinking culture, but I don't know how many other European countries would have alcohol free weddings being popular.

Yes

we did a wine tasting thing for dh work same wine tasted very very different depending on what was eaten with it

some people said the food tasted different depending on the wine which was interesting

it also talked about wines from the older wine producing countries being made to drink with food and the newer countries made to drink by themselves