Is alcohol requred?
By cobrateacher
@cobrateacher (8432)
United States
July 16, 2009 12:41pm CST
Many times in social situations, people have asked me why I'm not drinking. When I tell them I just don't like it, they don't believe it! Many congratulate me on sticking with the AA program. It's as if not being a drinker makes me a freak!
Is alcohol a requirement for being sociable?
3 people like this
10 responses
@gorgeouslydone (14)
• Philippines
17 Jul 09
of course its not required. its just pride that drives you to come drinking with someone even if you dont like it. pride of being in the "it" crowd. you can drink or not drink if you want to, dont force yourself in liking things you dont initially want. but of course, it has its advantage as well. why dont you try it just for experience? at least the next time you are on a social function, you can relate if they talk about drinks. drink but dont be drunk. :)
1 person likes this
@cobrateacher (8432)
• United States
17 Jul 09
Several years ago, I had a principal who took the whole faculty out for drinks after school on Fridays, and he swore he's find a drink I didn't dislike. I tried a sip of this or that, and I just didn't like it, so that was the end of experimenting. I wish I didn't like chocolate!
1 person likes this
@writersedge (22563)
• United States
16 Jul 09
Hey Cobra! Yet another way in which we are alike! I get similar reactions. My husband and I both don't drink. When people ask him why he doesn't drink, he has the perfict answer, "Someone has to remember what the rest of you did." That's if he likes them. If he doesn't like them, "Someone has to remember what kind of a$$es (or fools)you made out of yourselves."
@cobrateacher (8432)
• United States
16 Jul 09
Don't people act like complete idiots when they drink?! Neither my husband nor I ever have, and we like it that way. Your hub's response is wonderful!
2 people like this
@writersedge (22563)
• United States
17 Jul 09
Thanks for best response, my husband has some great things that he says. Some men he works with were bragging about their wives (some of it was dirty or confidential, too), so he shut them up with, "My wife's hearing is so great, she can hear a fart two counties away and sense of smell is so good, she can smell a bear on the other side of the lake in VT." That shut them all up! He doesn't mind them being proud of their wives, but sometimes the bragging gets stupid or invades their wives' privacy (some people he works with he has to shut up or he'd know every detail of their bedroom lives). I think the people he works with drink so much during their off hours that the filtering screen between their brains and their mouths is gone.
1 person likes this
@Palmerhusky (843)
• United States
17 Jul 09
it certainly is not. a lot of the time im in social situations and i don't drink, and why should i, its expensive enough if your say in a restaurant buying your own food, or even if its been bought for you its still a little much to be asking for a drink. and if you are not drinking because you have a serious enough problem with it that you had to go to AA about it then your making the right choice by abstaining from it in the first place. no one should make you feel like a freak for taking a stand against it for yourself.
1 person likes this
@cobrateacher (8432)
• United States
18 Jul 09
I must have made some things very unclear! I have never had a drink, never had a drinking problem, and never been to AA. I just think it's odd that people act as if a non-drinker is so very, very weird!
@bird123 (10643)
• United States
18 Jul 09
I think not drinking is a sign of intelligence. You are smart enough to realize the buzz the night before isn't worth the price paid the next day. I get a glass of orange juice then tell them it's spiked. No one ever knows the difference.
1 person likes this
@jugsjugs (12967)
•
16 Jul 09
I go to the pub about once a week and sometimes i only drink coke as i tend to do the driving and even though i can get a taxi home i still decide to drive.So just like you a lot of people think this is very funny,i am sure they think that you have to have a drink or get drunk to have a nice time.Happy Mylotting.
1 person likes this
@cobrateacher (8432)
• United States
16 Jul 09
Since I never have been a drinker, I'd probably react horribly to it. Let 'em think I'm weird, so what? I thing the fact that they expect a non-drinker to have some sort of problem to be very weird!
1 person likes this
@debrakcarey (19887)
• United States
18 Jul 09
When I stopped drinking...several people who had been good friends...suddenly stopped stopping over???
You are not a freak...and no it's not a requirement.
I admire you!
1 person likes this
@cobrateacher (8432)
• United States
18 Jul 09
It's so weird that so many people think social means drinking!
@cyrus123 (6363)
• United States
17 Jul 09
No, I don't think so at all. I also congratulate you on sticking with the AA program. If they think you are a freak, it might be because you are in the wrong crowd. I also congratulate you for speaking out the way you do. I used to drink socially, myself, but now I don't drink at all. Actually, about the only time I did drink socially was when I went with mother and daddy on some of his business trips. They would have cocktail parties and I would drink something then. I'm a christian and I decided to abstain from it. The last time I had anything to drink was 1982 or '83. Kathy.
@cobrateacher (8432)
• United States
17 Jul 09
Props to you, cyrus! I've never done AA, because I never did drink. People seem to assume anyone who doesn't drink is recovering!
1 person likes this
Happy mylotting! Kathy.
@jb78000 (15139)
•
16 Jul 09
sometimes i drink when i go out and sometimes i don't (usually if i've got something important to do the next day but not always). when i was much younger i used to tell people i was on antibiotics if i didn't want to drink for some reason, now i don't bother - if they think it's weird then that's their problem not mine.
1 person likes this
@funnystuff (14)
• India
17 Jul 09
i don't thing it is required because it cause harm ti body.
it also ruins us
@stricken43 (347)
• Philippines
17 Jul 09
its not a requirement but of course if you are with your friend and you are just the only one who is not drinking, then on your part, you can take a single shot just for them not to feel that you are different..i usually drink a single shot whenever im in a gathering but they never require me to drink, i just did..hehe
@cobrateacher (8432)
• United States
17 Jul 09
Hi, Stricken!
Since I don't like it, I usually have a diet Coke, and that's enough for me.
