This is why I love this board. I get to see things I never would have dreamed up on my own. My experience is the people who ban things are less accepting of differences than people who welcome all things. So the people that a have an ice chest of beer, soda and water will be more welcoming than those who only offer diet soda and water same with the people that grill a steak and a veggie burger compared to the people who only make a vegetarian lasagna. Of course, not that I’ve ever seen it, someone who insists that everyone eats meat at their parties would be equally tedious.
I certainly enjoy spending more time with the former than the later. How have you met these people who are welcoming and open but disallow people certain activities?
Alcohol is a little different than other things because of alcoholism and more general alcohol abuse. This has two consequences: the possibility that someone can’t really be around alcohol without risking their health, and the possibility that someone with a known tendency to overdo things might becomes drunk and disruptive. There’s also a third issue: some people have a religious objection to alcohol, and are uncomfortable having it in their house. None of these things apply to offering a vegetarian option at dinner. If someone declared that an occasion was “dry”, I would assume it was one of those things. Presumably I already know them well enough to know if they are generally interesting people. The new information isn’t going to change my impression.
I think those people are the worst to be around and generally who I’m thinking of in this conversation. The disruptive drunks are just disinvited from future events, I can’t imagining telling my brother in law he can’t drink at a party because uncle Jonny takes loudly about what nice asses the teenagers have when he’s drunk, I just tell dirty Jonny he’s not allowed to the next family party. Punishing the group for the behavior of a single individual seems crazy.
As far as alcoholism I’ve known a lot of drunks over the years and as long as they weren’t a problem its never bothered me if my dad passed out in the middle of a party. When he got sober I certainly didn’t stop drinking in front of him. People who can’t control their own behavior and choose to control others as a result aren’t the ones I want to be around.
What about people that don’t want guests to smoke weed at their party?
And again, it’s not about whether you would do such a thing. It’s about if your mother asks you not to bring booze to a party because whatever reason, is that really enough to make you not want to spend time with your mom?
I guess i don’t think that hosting a dry party is punishing anyone.
My mil was a recovering alcoholic. She hadn’t had a drink since before i met her. But i never served wine when she visited. The only exception was Passover, and my husband discussed it with her in advance, and she said it would be okay. We had lovely family gatherings. Everyone enjoyed my mil’s company.
I don’t use but ya, I think the same thing. It totally ok to ask them to smoke outside and away from the door but to ban smoking is crazy. If it’s edibles they they should be allowed to use it whenever, same with chewing tobacco just don’t spit where people will walk or leave your spitter laying around.
Absolutely, if she is trying to control my behavior because other can’t control theirs that’s shitty behavior on her part and I would want to spend less time with her.
What if she said no? Would you have given up your religious preference for her?
Maybe punishing is the wrong word how about: having my behavior restricted? Why should the group have their behavior restricted due to the bad actions of a single member?
I would have served grape juice only. Grape juice is ritually acceptable everywhere wine is required. The ancients didn’t distinguish between fermented and unfermented grape juice.
I can’t answer for @puzzlegal specifically, but until the 19th century, it was actually easier to get wine than non-alcoholic grape juice.
The reason for this is that, very often, if left alone (i.e., put in a bottle or a barrel), grape juice will transform itself into wine anyway, if there’s any yeast at all in the grape juice (and “wild” yeast can just float around in the air). It wasn’t until the 19th century that Thomas Welch, a Methodist minister and supporter of the temperance movement, started pasteurizing grape juice in order to halt fermentation, making it possible to mass-produce grape juice that remained reliably non-alcoholic.
Heh, “smoke weed”? I’ve been at parties where I knew nobody present was into cannabis consumption, so I’ve discreetly vaped live liquid resin and nobody was aware.
Oh, I also want to qualify that weed is legal here. Illegal behavior is something different so my response would be different to meth or heroin or weed in one of the non-legalized states. While politically I’m for ending drugs being illegal (anti biotic are a weird corner case) that doesn’t extend to inviting people to do illegal things around me and my kids.
I’ll also note that legality of cannabis in the U.S. is a thorny issue. Even in states where recreational cannabis is legal (like my state of Illinois), it’s still illegal at the federal level. Even if that law isn’t being widely enforced (if it’s being enforced at all) in places where it’s been made legal at the state level, I wouldn’t blame anyone for not wanting it on their property for that reason.
I went to a party where one of the hosts had just joined the AA cult, it was horrible. Him and his AA buddies quickly segregated themselves in the dining room, away from the evil alcohol in the kitchen and living room where the rest of the party was. His partner was constantly apologising, so awkward. Basically a party in one room and an AA meeting in another.
They broke up a couple months later so I didn’t have to turn down any subsequent invitations, I definitely would have had a sock drawer to arrange that day.
Sounds like “Debbie” handled it rather badly. Instead of keeping it quiet her way of handling it means everybody now knows. It’s difficult to imagine it being a very happy party since it’s for such a downer reason. Hopefully, everybody can make an effort to keep things light for “Bea,” but with the last minute news just getting to some people, I’ll guess that’ll be hard to do.
I can’t remember ever going to a party that was designated as dry. I went to a Mormon wedding reception once, and it was just weird and rather off-putting – not because it was dry, but because the people were odd. Maybe it was just an odd ward.
I know a number of people who are perfectly happy to be friends with omnivores, and don’t harass omnivores about our food choices, but who don’t want meat in their own kitchens or on their own tables. To me this is far more open to the differences of others than the people who say they won’t go to an event if they can’t eat meat at it.
I know people who, while they don’t keep full kosher, don’t want pork in their kitchens either. And of course anyone keeping full kosher doesn’t want a whole lot of things in their kitchens or on their premises. That doesn’t mean they’re intolerant of people who don’t keep kosher.
I know people who, for various reasons whether religious or personal or both, don’t want alcohol on their premises, or don’t want alcohol at a particular event.
I know people who don’t want small children around, or at least don’t want them at adult parties, and others who routinely include them as part of everything.
Try turning it around. The people who are opposed to any party that forbids alcohol (or meat, or whatever) are insisting that all parties ought to be essentially the same. They want to ban (or at least to denigrate) any form of partying other than their own: to see other people’s forms of doing this as deficient, rather than different.
Our behavior’s restricted all the time due to the comfort level of others.
Do you feel unfairly restricted because you can’t show up at other people’s parties naked, or even if you can you have to wear clothes on the way over? Because generally you can’t have sex in the middle of the dinner table during dinner? Because you can’t announce ‘this music hurts my ears’, shut it down, and put on instead something you like but the host can’t stand? Because you can’t enact a live animal sacrifice on the front lawn, even if it’s done by the same methods as were used to legally butcher the animal whose steaks are on the grill?
I think that would have been a much better party if they hadn’t had any alcohol at all. Then everybody could have mixed in together.
If I were living with somebody, and they insisted on having a party in our shared house at which people were encouraged to do something they knew I couldn’t bear to be in the same room with, I’d break up with them too. Though admittedly I don’t know whether that was actually what was going on between the two of them.
That was my reaction to that anecdote, too. Why on earth serve alcohol at a party in your home if your partner has just barely gotten sober through AA? Surely some other (dry) party would have been more fun for everyone.
See, this is what I don’t get. I don’t drink - by choice; I simply hate that alcohol aftertaste - and I don’t preach about the evils of booze or shame you or anything. I simply don’t offer it and get togethers (I haven’t held a party since about 1980) are booze free.
Yet I’m told I’m wrong and condemning and judgmental and told to my face (on more than one occasion) “we can never hang out/become friends because you don’t drink”. Um, no. You don’t get to be all judgmental on me yet tell me I’m the issue.
Oh, and to that random guy on reddit who claims anyone who orders a virgin cocktail at a restaurant does it specifically to taunt him, the recovering alcoholic, get real. I neither know nor care about you.