Rainy The Food Network does make drinking look so warm and cosy, and glamorous.
Yes yes, but it's an illusion... an advert for a life that doesn't exist. At least, it doesn't for some of us. For millions of people probably. Yes there is that snapshot of feeling relaxed, being nonchalant about the drink in front of you, having a giggle. But there's nothing fun about making a tit of yourself, breaking your ankle because you've fallen over drunk, overdoing it so much that you're next to useless when having to deal with your kids the next day.
The Food Network isn't selling you that, it's selling you the illusion of a perfect life and a perfect meal made in a perfect new oven with no build up from months of never being cleaned in a kitchen that doesn't exist because it's in a TV studio. (Is it? I've never watched The Food Network 
)
When I stopped drinking, I went to an Allen Carr seminar for the day, and that was my prompt to stop (I was nervous I'd never have enough impetus on my own). We were all asked at the start what we thought our issues would be with stopping, and I said mine was that I worry that I'm just naturally a bit rebellious, a bit naughty, and how would I get to flex my inner rebel if I stopped drinking? It's really helped me to read up loads on sobriety, particularly other women's experiences, until I realised that there are loads of 'inner rebels' treading exactly the same path. Life without booze isn't boring. Booze is boring. Feeling like shite is boring. Not being able to remember what you did last night is boring, as is being a shit parent, an unreliable friend, and someone whose life just feels so bloody stuck because every week is the same with patterns of drinking that just make you feel miserable about yourself.
The reality is that drinking is a loser's game, and we're the achingly cool rebels (
) by realising what a pup we've all been sold by thinking that it's the done thing to do, and that you need it to have fun. Do kids need alcohol to have fun? Of course they don't. We've all learnt that we need it to have fun, and all we need to do is relearn how to have fun without booze, just like we did as kids. It's all a load of bollocks, and it's endemic in society, and it's a huge problem.
OOps, bit of a rant there... 