Why I Don’t Drink Alcohol
“I drink to make other people more interesting” (Ernest Hemingway). From serene wine and book club groups to the beer frenzies of fraternity parties, the social ubiquitousness of alcohol and drinking is seen in every facet of society. However, I do not drink alcohol. I have tried to justify it for all sorts of reasons. There was never any seminal moment in my life where I realized the dangers or consequences of alcohol. To be quite frank, while my parents gave me the “drinking is bad” speech, there was never any real oversight or consequence if I decided to drink or not (other than a breach of trust). My sobriety is more of a logical rationalization, a ratiocination. In this article, I am going to walk the reader through some of the ill-fated reasons why I stopped drinking and move on to the reasons why I do not drink today.
Underage drinking happens. Mostly everyone has ranged from a sip from their parents drink to the beer frenzies in someone’s basement. For me, it was a sip here and there, with that culminating Screwdriver on vacation. However, for some time, I subconsciously knew that drinking wasn’t for me. As a New Year’s resolution when I was 18, I vowed to never touch a drop of alcohol again. One of the first reasons that I used to justify myself was the social implications. The topic would come up that I do not drink and usually my go-to response was “if you can’t have fun without alcohol, maybe you don’t deserve to have fun”. My thinking behind this was that I am just as capable of having fun without “liquid confidence”. Thus, drinking is overrated and a tool for those who can’t let loose. I had this thinking for quite some time because I felt satisfied and unchallenged. However, I realized that maybe I was being a little hypocritical. My definition of fun mostly is something super adventurous and crazy, something like skydiving. What difference is the risk from when I go skydiving to have fun compared to the risk of alcohol to have fun? I found my argument slightly lackluster and I abandoned it.
One of my earliest memories of viewing drinking is at these absolutely crazy New Year house parties my family and I went to. The kids would be running around having fun, playing games. Meanwhile, the adults would be getting absolutely hammered on the dance floor, guzzling alcohol like water. I have a distinct memory of an adult that I knew at the time puking all over the toilet. If I were to psychoanalyze myself, maybe one of the reasons why I have shunned alcohol in my life is seeing the effects it can have on people at an early age. However, even this reason is unconvincing to me. My actions are not controlled by those around me. Just because I see other people getting inebriated does not mean I am forced to also.
In this journey, I reached a point where I started gaining traction in my reasoning for not drinking alcohol. The following points are the general reasons that some of society points to. It is no secret that alcohol is detrimental to one’s health in the form of cirrhosis, increased cancer risk, higher incidence of heart disease, etc. But, the risk that really got me is the neuromodulatory effects alcohol can have on your brain. Cognition and perception are fundamental to our humanness. We could lose an arm, leg, and eye and still be us. But, is an individual really themselves if their brain changes? Or, are they something new? Someone else? In addition, not only can it affect my brain but the neural networks of my children. Although I do not have any kids at the moment, I still feel a sense of responsibility to preserve myself for their sake. In addition, even though this is not as big of a reason, the money that can be used to buy alcohol can be going towards other things.
While health and money certainly play a role in my reasoning today, I felt as if there was something missing, as if a massive hidden iceberg of a reason loomed just under my conscious thought. I found the reason when I was trying to understand the humanistic side of addiction. One of the behavioral strategies of addiction patients trying for sobriety that has remarkable success is the strategy to limit cues from the environment. This means that patients change up their environment to limit cues such as getting rid of excess drugs or paraphernalia, not habiting the same locations, changing friend circles, etc. The reasoning is that patients are less likely to relapse if there is less negative stimulation in their environment. The metaphorical train of thought hit me. I realized that the reason why I don’t touch a drop of alcohol compared to limiting myself to a couple drinks here and there is because I do not want to make additional unnecessary choices and add stress. If I started drinking, there would always be a nagging feeling in the back of my head if I am drinking too much/should I stop/is this bad for me. If I limited my cues by not having the stimulation at all, I would not have this extra anxiety and, in my opinion, be more free to enjoy life.
