Just to clarify, I myself don’t drink much (about a couple of beers every other month), but that’s because I don’t like the taste much, and the inebriation is not very interesting.
Heh, I inspired something!
Just wanted to chime in with my own experience: you’re not considered a freak here if you don’t drink, but it is thought unusual, and people often want to know why. My mum doesn’t drink at all (she’s a recovering alcoholic, hasn’t had a drink in 11 years - 12 in April), and at Chritmas she came to stay with us and my partner’s family. His stepdad made some crack about getting her drunk (a very typical British joke, I think!), so of course I had to explain that she doesn’t drink. I was met by horrified looks and their first question was “But what will she do when we go to the pub?!”. They calmed down once I explained that she would come with us, and have a coffee or a soft drink, and that she would have no problem whatsoever with the rest of us drinking - and that far from her sobriety putting a dampener on the festivities, she was normally the life and soul of any party, long after the drinkers have given up and gone to bed!
I think their attitude is a fairly typical amongst Brits - alcohol is so much a part of our social activities that we are somewhat baffled as to how to cope without it. The social anthropologist Kate Fox discusses this at some length in her book “Watching the English” - she hypothesizes that we drink to help us overcome our “social dis-ease”; that is, that the average English person (as distinct from Scots, Welsh and Irish) are so uncomfortable in social settings that they have to drink simply to be able to cope with them.
People freak out even more when you say “I’m not going to the pub”, and when you do and you get bored and want to leave you nearly always get the “oh come on, stay for a few more”. Why? You’ll be drunker/less interesting later on in the evening and I’ll be just as sober on my lemonade. I want to go home and play on my computer!
I’ve never been drunk either, and I like drinking alcohol. Mixed drinks, and wine, mostly. I just think getting drunk is completely unnecessary. I’ve tried on occasion to drink more than I usually do and just ended up feeling dizzy and uncomfortable.
I never argued that it’s a matter of necessity.
Nitpick, but: not true. There is no minimum age. It is illegal to provide alcohol to a child under five, but not actually illegal for an under five to drink alcohol. See the link provided elsewhere.
Amen!
Now, I really enjoy drinking. The pleasures of a full-bodied wine or a warm-you-to-the-core whiskey are high on my list of favorites. That said, I just hate it when people try to excuse their behavior because of alcohol or drugs. I don’t care if you were drunk. If you said it, you said it. If you did it, you did it. That was you (or me!), not the booze.
What I don’t understand is the situation where a drinker and non-drinker square off, with one (or both) trying to persuade the other that their choice is bad. I don’t need alcohol to have a good time, but I do like to drink. If you don’t want alcohol, no problem. I don’t see any need for anyone to try to persuade you that you should. If you’re a vegetarian, I’m not going to try to push a big ol’ steak on you, either. But you could lose a finger trying to remove the one from my plate. 
No, but you don’t seem to accept that it’s not a matter of necessity.
I think that its kind of like having a working knowledge of sports here in the states. I don’t watch sports much and it puts me at a disadvantage with my social skills.
I would think that not having a pint with your friends/coworkers would put you at a similar disadvantage.
No one likes to drink alone and who wants to be the only sober guy in the place?
Then again, most folks that I met could drink several pints in a setting and still be AOK.
Nowhere I’ve argued that one must get drunk. You are arguing the opposite, by putting forward a strict dichotomy between drinking and not. Whereas I’m arguing that it’s a gradient. That drinking 8 beers everyday is different than drinking 8 beers a week than drinking 8 beers a month…etc. Similarly, getting drunk everyday, vs. every week vs. every month…etc. Unless you believe that once you start, you will slide down the slippery slope of regular drinking, it’s irrational to necessarily avoid getting drunk.
This has been exactly my experience with the British people I know. They simply cannot imagine a good time without alcohol. Off to order that book…