I never needed to say “no”. Anyone familiar with my personality would know that they wouldn’t want me around when they were using drugs recreationally, and that I wouldn’t be interested either. I haven’t had more than a sip of an alcoholic beverage in my life, enough to realize that I didn’t like it and wouldn’t drink any more.
I always thought it was very cowardly in terms of willpower to retreat to some altered state of mind instead of dealing with your problems in reality. The problems only go away temporarily, and now you have less ability to actually deal with them. I understand the appeal to most people, but it’s not a route that I would ever go down. If I lack willpower for avoiding something, it’s ice cream.
I’ve never really understood the trope of drinking to “make your problems go away”. Probably because I’ve never found alcohol to be particularly effective at “drowning my sorrows”. If I’m feeling shitty, the last thing I want is to drink. I might go for the social interaction, but to me there’s not much worse than being hung over and having some shitty problem I need to deal with.
I more a “drink to have fun” type. But there is danger in that as well as some people end up not being able to have fun without drinking (or drugs) or that becomes the sole focus of their entertainment.
Well, the closest I have ever seen to this is my wife, who’s painfully shy. If she gets a couple of drinks in her, the inhibitions go away and she starts to actually enjoy being in the presence of a lot of people while attending a party.
The problem is completely in her head, and alcohol actually does make the problem go away. But yeah, it’s only temporary, there’s no way she wants to live there all the time. She’s had therapy for that and other problems, and they have helped, but that’s not a ton of a replacement for an “easy button” for social interaction.
Cowardly? Maybe. It gets her through it without being traumatized further. We don’t all need to be heroes.
This is the thing that boggles my mind, and I guess it’s why some folks have pushed hard at me to have a drink. I don’t understand those whose attitude leads to: “I’ll never go to a dry wedding reception!!” Addiction? Insecurity? I dunno - it seems sad to me.
There are definitely people who can’t enjoy or it significantly impacts their joy if there’s no booze available. A couple of decades ago I was part of a regional on line group and we were going to all meet for the first time. It was a daytime Saturday catered lunch. A few of the members were newly in recovery by coincidence so the consensus was to have the event be dry. A couple of people were seriously pissed off that they couldn’t have a beer or two.
Other than one time recently, I haven’t had alcohol pushed on me since I was recently out of college and newly in my professional career. A couple of months ago I was at the after party of my cousin’s bat mitzvah. It was at a venue in Hollywood. The family is wealthy and they spared no expense and there was an open bar with premium liquor. I ordered a club soda and the bartender ask if I was sure I didn’t want to add something to it and then listed off the impressive brands of liquor he had. I was stunned. What if I was in recovery? I’ve ordered hundreds of sodas before and I’ve never had that happen.
The way I heard it, such drugs are meant to let you confront your problems in reality. That’s why there are psilocybin-therapy and ibogaine-therapy centers for therapy, for instance.
The whole point of such drugs is that they force you to take a stark, merciless, no-bias look at your problems. That’s why many smokers quit smoking after having done shrooms, why LSD makes many people lose weight or adopt healthy practices, etc. - they strip your normal self-defense excuses or rationalizations away.
Using drugs for therapy is not the same as using drugs recreationally. If you’re using drugs under guidance of a professional for specific effects, which I do, that’s not the same as going to a party and using whatever’s being passed around. Because of my aforementioned aversion to mind-altering drugs, it took a lot of convincing to get me to take them in the beginning. I had trouble staying on them as well because I hated the idea of taking drugs to feel differently. It took a long time before my doctors found a mixture that was actually useful to me and made me feel as though I was just a stabler version of who I really was.
I didn’t say that was why all people imbibed. I was directing my language specifically to those who were very intentionally “drowning their sorrows” or whatever. As pointed out, alcohol and other drugs have other effects besides making you forget your problems. I don’t have a problem with that (or at least not as much).
I still do have a problem when people feel like they need to drink to have fun, but it leads me to a strange conundrum: If you think you’re having fun, are you actually having fun? People that use drugs to enhance their fun say yes, while I say not necessarily for me. If it’s not fun while sober, it’s not fun. Use of drugs to make it fun just means you’re fooling yourself, the same way that you can get fooled by other illusions. It may feel genuine, and that’s enough for people other than me, but I don’t operate that way. That much is clear from my personality in general, so no one ever bothered to see if I wanted to try anything.
I see all these “old people” desperate plastic surgeries to attain or retain something that declines through time.
I have always looked at my time with “mind enhancers” as a return to productive and innovated, enhanced, mind Kraft. I make enhanced mind creations and discoveries, everyday. They are more active than the people that have no shuts. Instead of worrying about the supericial or looks, I am worrying about syntax and geomatria.
I think for a lot of those people, the main issue is probably that they feel they’re being officiously refused a hospitable drink by controlling (or selfish) killjoys. It’s not so much “Help, I cannot survive spending even a couple hours in a social environment without consuming alcohol!!” but more “That’s some pretty damn prissy stingy ‘hospitality’ you’re putting out there!!”
Personally, I’m happy to go have some fun whether alcohol is served or not, but I kind of see why somebody else might feel differently even if they’re not unhealthily dependent on alcohol. If you’re very used to the idea of serving booze as an intrinsic part of a generous hostly welcome, then it may seem a bit cold or cavalier for the hosts just to omit that part.
And tbf, if the hosts are throwing a dry party not because of religious/ethical principles but simply because (1) they themselves don’t particularly like drinking alcohol, (2) they want to save money, and (3) they don’t mind depriving their guests of a customary enjoyment and traditional hospitable gesture as long as it saves them money, then yeah, I might not feel so enthusiastic about attending their wedding either.
Part of being a good host is prioritizing your guests’ enjoyment. If you’re just arbitrarily deciding that your guests’ enjoyment of alcohol isn’t worth your spending any money on—even if you have no objection to alcohol consumption per se—then you’re focusing on different priorities.
It’s not just about money, it’s about norms and expectations.
I did serve alcohol when i hosted a wedding, because that feels like a normal part of wedding hospitality to me. But i don’t serve alcohol when i host bridge or square dancing. For square dancing last weekend, i just served water and cookies. (Delicious home made cookies) And i invited people to bring other refreshments if they liked. Sometimes, someone brings soda. If anyone brought booze I’d trot out appropriate drinking vessels. (I served the water in mugs.) For bridge i usually serve diet coke, (which i don’t drink, but some of my friends do), decaf coffee, cheese, crackers, a fruit, and a sweet, like cake or pie. It occurs to me that everyone in my bridge group provides slightly different refreshments. Some offer wine, some offer more or fewer foods. I’m sure i spend as much money and time on refreshments as others in the group, but wine isn’t really in my repertoire.
Yup, it’s all about the context. I don’t expect alcohol to be served when I go to a contra dance or bridge game, either (for one thing, I’m a lousy enough bridge player already without adding alcohol-induced cognitive impairment into the mix).
But i also don’t expect meat to be served if a vegetarian invites me to dinner. Whereas i invited some of the square dancers to stay for dinner (so i could give them a ride to another square dance that weekend) and on discovering one of them was vegetarian, my husband cooked a fresh dish so they had something to eat. (They said they were fine skipping supper, and just wanted the ride, by the way.)
I feel like alcohol is sometimes customary, but isn’t part of my “minimum expected hospitality” for most events. For other people it might be.
Yeah, I agree that the societal taboo against letting a guest with unforeseen dietary restrictions just sit there going hungry at your table is stronger than the taboo against letting a guest who enjoys alcohol just put up with staying dry at your table. Feeding people is fundamentally more important than intoxicating them.
Do you think there’s some objective measurement of fun?
Yes, if you think you’re having fun, you are.
If it’s because the gathering has been enhanced by alcohol or drugs, then that may be the source of the fun. Or, the alcohol and drugs are part of the festive activities, which might include other fun elements, like music or socializing.
It’s not somehow illegitimate fun when chemical enhancement is included.
The problem, in my opinion, is when the chemicals are deemed required to have fun. If it’s the only source of fun, in my opinion, that reflects a dependency that is problematic.
But just liking something, and finding it fun to do, doesn’t somehow speak of a problem.
I was going to give them a PB&J sandwich, or heat a can of beans, or a plate of cheese and fruit or something. But my husband felt it was important to give them a real meal, and cooked a nice chickpea dish. But either way, we weren’t going to sit there and eat supper while a guest went hungry.
A lot of people consider the act of sitting down and drinking with a group of friends to be inherently fun. Particularly if it’s in an interesting setting. Everyone relaxes a bit. Talks about some bullshit. Tell a few jokes. Maybe act a little silly. Occasionally drink a bit too much. For most people I don’t think it has to be anything more complex than that.
Alcohol reduces inhibitions, so there is a school of thought that you are seeing more of a person’s true self after a couple of drinks (within reason).
I suppose there is the question of at what point are you enjoying drinking with people as opposed to just enjoy drinking and are fine hanging out with these people because they share the same vice as you?