Society's attitude to sobriety

[ellie09]

I went alcohol free after New Year. Decided that alcohol was no longer for me.

I wasnt an alcoholic but I was on a slippery slope. I live alone with DS and would have spent evenings drinking secretly and many mornings feeling hungover, groggy etc. I also had horrible drunk experiences with alcohol.

It has been going really well. I found an AF red wine I really enjoy and have substituted having this a couple nights a week. My energy, mental health, everything has improved.

Its everybody else's attitude I am struggling with. For example:

1. Its somebodys leaving do at work on Friday and this person has begged and begged me to "please have a drink". I have consistently told them no as I am driving, but in the end had to make up some BS about being on antibiotics

1. Friends have planned a get together at a spa. I said I would be driving so can take us all up. Theyve also tried to poke and prod me into having a drink because "why not" and even arranged alternative lift with one of their DP so I can "have a drink and enjoy myself"

1. My own mother said it would spoil a prosecco tour that everybody wants to do on a group holiday in Budapest in April and that a couple would do me "no harm"

I havent told ANYBODY about the secret drinking (I was maybe having a bottle of wine 3-4 times a week) and they maybe thought it was just at the weekend. I do however, have a hard time stopping once I have had one, so I want to avoid being in that situation.

But why on earth is it anybodys business to try and persuade someone to change their mind?

This is the most difficult part for me in this journey. Everybody who isn't AF just cant fathom how somebody cant drink at events etc.

What a totally unnecessary, unkind and nasty post.

I don't drink as my brother is a raging alcoholic in denile, my dad's ex wife is a dying alcoholic with cancer and one of my childhood friends recently lost the battle with addiction with alcohol aged 32.
I totally get where the OP is coming from. I don't mind the people around me having a drink but when I say "no thanks, I'm good with a Pepsi max" it means no. It doesn't mean I'm thinking about it or can be easily swayed. It means I don't fucking want it in my body.

I rest my case. What about if we just don't like the stuff? My husband doesn't like coriander. Is he self righteous/woke/dull? What's so special about booze?

And people who don't like the taste?

Or people who just don't want too with no further deep and meaningful insightful thoughts other than.....I am not a sheep?

Those who are most negative and concerned about your drinking habits are likely to have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol themselves.

That’s been my experience. 7 months not drinking and although avoid anything social at firsts, we’ve been on holiday, had parties, birthdays, races, trips away etc and it’s been utterly brilliant.

Certain members of our families just won’t let it go. “But you’ll have a drink on Christmas Day”. Nope, plenty of other options and I don’t miss it. Too many positives about not drinking (none of which feature in the 7 reasons list!).

I think people like JohnMytton clearly have a problem with alcohol if people who don't drink make them so angry.

And I think to a lesser extent that's what drives the people who try and persuade people like the op to drink. They know they probably drink a bit much or have unhealthy habits around alcohol so it makes them uncomfortable when someone doesn't drink.

I had one friend who was like this and it was particularly shitty as he knew full well I had a problematic relationship with alcohol.

They'd cancel plans if I said I wasn't intending to drink and say "let's wait to go out till we can both have a lovely drink in the sun". A couple of times when I'd said I wasn't drinking for a while, he actually brought alcohol round and did the "a couple won't hurt" routine when he knew full well I couldn't stop at a couple.

I ended the 20 year friendship for that and many other reasons because it was obvious they didn't really want to see me but wanted a messy drinking buddy.

Everyone else in my life has been great. I had my 1st alcohol free Christmas last year and my family are heavy drinkers at 'special occasions' but no-one offered me a drink and they understood when I went home early before everyone got pissed.

I do wonder if it's my age though (late 40s) as lots of friends have given up the booze or just don't go out to get wankered anymore. I think if I'd done it in my 20s or 30s maybe more people would have thought I was a party-pooper.

This is a really good example of the sort of thing the thread is about so thanks, John.

Responses like this are often defensiveness. It serves people who drink too much (I was one) to characterise sobriety as abnormal and undesirable, because it’s a way of not looking clearly at their own consumption. Lots of us will have encountered this person but some of us will also have been this person, and I don’t just mean recovering alcoholics but anyone who has started to feel uncomfortable with their relationship with alcohol.

When people are defensive, they often take someone else’s choices as a commentary on their own choices (you see this all the time, not just in relation to alcohol but in any area of life where people feel uncertain of themselves- pregnancy and parenting are other examples). It’s a good lesson in striving for clarity into which feelings are yours and which are somebody else’s.

I'm 34, and people are often surprised when i reveal i have never been drunk in my life, and spent the majority of it completely teetotal.
Simple reason being because i have had severe OCD since i was 5 years old and have never lived a "normal" life. Became so bad i became housebound before i even finished highschool and had to drop out, so never went to college/uni, never had a night out, didn't have friends or go to any house parties etc. My issues are around toilets, needing to use them, everything about using them, only being able to use the one in my own home, my utlimate worst fear being wetting myself, and i used to avoid drinking anything, even water, until i was so thirsty and dehydrated i was nauseous and sometimes delerious, just so i could avoid needing and ultimately having to use the toilet. Alcohol terrified me because it is diuretic and would make me need to wee more often, and i just couldn't understand the idea of drinking anything for fun, and not just out of necessity to be alive.

So many people have judged me for it, like it's somehow a rite of passage of not being a kid anymore to get drunk for the first time, to get so drunk you lose your memory, to do something incredibly stupid/risky etc, and experience a serious hangover, like they're a tick off list of experiences everyone should/needs to acomplish. The number of times i've been treated like im not an adult, even by people whom i'm older than, is shocking. Both sides of my family are binge drinkers always gagging for an excuse to get together and drink, a couple are absolutely alcoholics and one nearly died and had to have a liver transplant, which the sick bastards get the whole family together for anually to have a birthday party for, including a birthday cake with the "age" of how many years they've had the new liver, where everyone gets drunk. They all treated me like an outcast for not being "normal" and acted like i didn't exist after my mum died, so i'm completely no contact with everyone bar my dad and my sister, who are coincidentally also almost completely none drinkers, and always have been.

Thankfully my partner is well past his college partying days, and has maybe one weak jack daniels (half a shot, one full shot maximum) in a pint of coke once every few months on special occasions. I wouldn't ever choose to be around a heavy drinker, just like i wouldn't choose to be around someone who was smoking.

I’m with you here! Me and hubby gave up alcohol after he began having issues of alcoholism. Friends and family are well aware and yet still try and persuade us, tell us ‘if I wanted alcohol free I would drink tea not af beer’ that it’s ‘weird’ and ‘silly’ and a ‘spoil sport’ and basically waft it under his nose, are you sure you don’t want one? It makes me rage, would you do it to a recovering drug addict?

Definitely agree that not everyone who drinks has a problem with alcohol. But I do think coming onto a harmless thread of people talking about not drinking to post something nasty suggests maybe your relationship with it is perhaps a complicated one.

Don't be ridiculous, of course it's possible for people to not like the taste of ANY alcohol. Doesn't matter if it's the cheapest cider in the shop, a top shelf aged whiskey, or any price range/quality wine/beer/spirit in between, the base alcohol itself has a certain taste, and it isn't pleasant to everyone. It's like saying nobody could possibly not like the taste of cheese, because they haven't tried every single type out there. It's all milk based, and if you don't like the taste of milk, you won't like any cheese.

I’ve never had this problem with people trying to get me to drink.

I rarely drink because I get drunk quickly and I’m scared of being sick. I’m surprised if you tell people you are driving that they still try and encourage you to drink.

Would probably shut them up if you said I’m a problem drinker so I’ve had to stop completely.

OP, I fully agree and understand. I haven't had a drink in 20 years and some people look at you like you are an exhibit in the zoo. I had a locum Dr and even they didn't believe me! For me, I wasn't drinking too much but when I did, even a small amount would make me feel truly dreadful- and it just became not worth it. Even now, alcohol makes me feel unpleasant and ill.

So now I just say that alcohol 'doesn't like me rather than me not liking it.' I think that seems to appease some people; if you say you don't drink, some people take that as some sort of weird judgement on them or that you are a killjoy. So now, if they think it's because I would actually like a drink but it makes me ill, that seems to be ok?!

Keep going OP- you know it's the right thing for you to do at this time of your life. Good for you.

Ppl telling you to "Just have a small one" is the weirdest response imo - "have such a small amount of alcohol that you'll barely feel the effects! " what on earth will that achieve?!

Dh and I gave up years ago. If I'm offered I just ask can I have a pop, water, juice, whatever. I have been asked I just say I don't drink alcohol, they say what never? I say yes. Most people just accept it.

But you weren’t defending drinking- you were attacking people who don’t drink. Big difference. That’s what comes across as defensive and strange. If you’d just posted about how you personally enjoy a drink I’d have thought nothing of it.

However as you’ve now made clear you were motivated by a noble desire to defend the traditional brewing industry, I shall leave this 😂

Those with the Asian gene/ who have an allergy to alcohol.
Those who find alcohol simply makes them ill.
Those who dislike the taste of alcohol.

What a narrow minded view.

I have friends who stopped drinking and alcohol (or the lack of it) suddenly seems to be the dominant feature of their personalities. They have approached it with the sort of zeal you would normally associate with born again Christians. Suddenly alcohol is just poison, and they feel they need to keep sharing how amazing they feel, with a side dose of pitying anyone who hasn’t yet seen the light.

Just like listening to people who think life is amazing because they found Jesus, I’m just really not that interested. “You do you” as they say, but don’t keep going on about it!

We don’t see them as much any more, they wouldn’t be my first choice to go out for dinner with - not because they stopped drinking but because they’ve made not drinking such a defining feature of how they now see themselves.

All sorts of life decisions can potentially make people start to feel less compatible than they once were - decisions around religion, politics, whether to have children, how to raise them - and I suppose this is just one of them.

So people who have quietly stopped or reduced their drinking wouldn't necessarily be on anyone's radar - by definition you're more aware of those who make you aware of it!

A pint of immaculately conditioned Harvey’s Sussex Best bitter will cure anyone of teetotalism

Really? If anything would drive me to teetotalism that drink would be it - it’s horrible!