UKPhil said:
Gave it up over 10 years ago having seen what this drug can do to others. Vile muck dressed up and marketed as necessary to have fun! It's a bit like smoking used to be, sadly you still get people who think you are odd for choosing a healthy lifestyle.
IMO by far the hardest thing I find about not drinking is occasionally having to deal with people who are drinking and in turn find issue with my not.
It might sound ridiculous but it does happen and it tends to be the least likely people too.
It was daunting in the early years of my not drinking having led a life and a career for fifteen years that revolved around social drinking.
There was a lot of tiresome explaining and moments of feeling like I was potentially becoming the dullest person on earth.
I realised some years later, in actuality someone sober is simply of little interest to those who are intent on drinking and just wanting to be in the company of other drinkers.
Here are a few points to remember as a new 'non drinker' in social drinking environments.
A: A person on their way to getting drunk, relaxed and in a place full of drink, suddenly presented with a very sober person, is often caught off guard.
He or she can become defensive (generally about their own drinking) as readily as they might show too much interest in your 'resolve' and ‘what brilliant will power you must have’ that they then bore you both to death wanting to discuss it.
Nothing is more boring than being at a party and having to explain, over again, why you’re choosing not to drink. Never try to explain anything of your choice or reasoning to a drunk person, you are wasting your breath and turn you really might as well be drunk yourself.
B: Not drinking can be viewed as not accepting hospitality or a social situation.
I turned down a glass of wine at a meal once and the host, who I’d only met that night, reacted as if I were a petulant teenager who had settled down to a family roast beef dinner only to declare I was, from that moment on, becoming a vegan.
‘But I don’t know what else we have to drink?’ She said sharply,
‘We didn’t get anything in for you.’
C: Drunk people can get very suspicious as to why you ‘won't’ drink.
This will be because even some very lovely and sensible ‘insensible’ people really can’t cope with the possibility of anyone having, or being any, ‘fun’ without drink and in their confusion cannot help but make assumptions as to why you don’t or how you can?
You see the thoughts flash across their minds in any combination of the following phrases;
‘Why doesn’t he drink?
What the hell is wrong with him?
Oh God! Is he a reformed alcoholic?
How do I ask? Do I ask?
Please don’t tell me your life story!
Is he going to go ’all weird’ because I offered him a drink?
Am I feeling sympathy or nothing?
How on earth can anyone not want beer on a Friday night?
Poor lad.
Oh Jeez, Please don’t let him be some keep fit happy clappy temperance man!
Am I talking to the most boring person in the world and if so, what is he doing at my party?’
Obviously these things don’t happen all that often but be on the lookout as it can be unsettling for everyone concerned when it does.
I get round this by pretty much limiting social situations and friendships based around drinking these days and I still have friends (fewer, but better) to show for it so the outlook is not at all bad.
What I can vouch for is waking up in my own head every morning, remembering the previous day in gory detail while not having to find the extra effort a hangover demands makes it all the more worthwhile.
I don’t miss the drink but sometimes I do miss the company it keeps.