Longrider

Ruth Sunderland doesn’t drink and she finds it a problem:

My name is Ruth and I have a drink problem; the problem is that I don’t drink. Strictly speaking, it isn’t my problem. I’m happy to be a non-drinker, apart from the reactions it provokes in some other people.

I know the feeling. I haven’t touched a drop of the sauce since I was 19. I tried it, found it wanting, and decided that it wasn’t worth the bother. I recognise the sense of disapproval in others, though. I was once at a wedding and my refusal to toast the bride and groom with champagne caused a moment of embarrassment with the waitress insisting that I take the glass and my persistent (and increasingly angry) refusal. Unlike Ruth, I take the “fuck ’em” approach. I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t judge those who do; so those who do had better not start judging me or they’ll get a somewhat acid response.

At a business lunch with a new contact who is eagerly eyeing the claret, I wouldn’t dream of admitting I don’t drink; instead, I’ll make a vague remark about having a lot to do later or accept a glass and leave it untouched, a trick I’ve used many times and never, to my knowledge, been found out.

I would never just come out and say: ‘Actually, I don’t drink’ without first making a quick assessment of how likely my new acquaintance is to write me off there and then.

I do. I come straight out with it. “I don’t drink alcohol”. See? simple and to the point. People can like or dislike it as they choose. What I won’t do is apologise to them for my decision. It is, after all, my decision and it is my life, and I’ll damn well live it as I see fit and if people don’t like it, well, they can fuck right off.

Not that I would entirely blame them. Teetotallers are not an appealing bunch; you certainly wouldn’t want to be gathered round the non-alcoholic punchbowl with Osama bin Laden, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, and while Adolf Hitler shunned the schnapps, Churchill was saving the free world helped by copious quantities of whisky and champagne.

Ah, well, Ruth, old bean, if you are going to fall for the stereotypes game, you deserve all you get. This is the daft logic that says all atheists want to put people into gulags; ’cos Stalin was an atheist. Don’t play their game. You tell them up front that you don’t drink and don’t apologise for it, and they can go hang if they disapprove.

Positive role models are thin on the ground. We’ve got Jonny Wilkinson, whose kick is powered by nothing stronger than soft drinks, and Tony Benn, who drinks tea, hourly, by the pint. There is Nicolas Sarkozy, who is said to be a non-drinker, which would mean that - impressively - he must have got up the nerve to seduce Carla Bruni with the aid of Evian alone.

But we don’t need positive role models. The decision to imbibe the juice of the grape or grain, or not, is a personal decision. No apologies are needed, no excuses required and no explanations or role models necessary. You do what you feel is right for you and others may do likewise. It’s called freedom of choice.

One reason people hate teetotallers is they suspect them of being proselytisers. In fact, it’s the other way round.

Yeah, I’ve noticed. So, fuck ’em. I recall many years ago a friend refusing to buy a round of drinks that involved something non-alcoholic. So, despite my preference, he bought me a pint of beer. It sat on the table untouched. He tried lacing a glass of orange juice with vodka thinking that I wouldn’t notice. That, too remined untouched. Eventually he got the message.

The drinking culture is deeply embedded and I’m conscious that for me, it’s relatively easy to opt out, because I’m old enough and settled enough not to be subjected to serious peer pressure.

Ah, yes, peer pressure. I managed. I was still in my late teens when I decided that I didn’t want to drink and I managed to resist peer pressure. It isn’t that difficult, you make your position clear and you stick to it. If your friends are any friends at all, they will respect it. If they cannot respect it, then they aren’t really friends, are they?

If I were single, a life without drinking would be unimaginable and that’s down to the double standards around women and alcohol.

Oh, please… Spare us the pseudo-psychological bunk. I was single – okay, so I’m male, but do you really, really think that the peer pressure was any less? I was a biker hanging out with other young, hormonally charged bikers. For fuck’s sake, I was under huge pressure to be one of the lads and drink beer. I didn’t like it and stuck to my guns. In the end, that refusal to bend won grudging approval.

A man who doesn’t drink is somehow not quite a real man; there is an aura of ruined glamour about alcoholics such as George Best that will always elude a sobersides.

Well, anyone moronic enough to believe that is a fuckwit and not worth any further consideration. I really don’t care what people think about my decision. It is my decision and my life. If people think it unsexy, then that is their problem, not mine. Frankly, if people think I’m unglamorous or unsexy, I couldn’t give a shit. They can go fuck themselves.

It is unfortunate that an article written by a teetotaller simply goes along with the stereotypes without challenging them; accepts that people see us as sobersides unable to let our hair down and enjoy ourselves without getting plastered. We can and do and that is the case Ruth should be making here.

I don’t drink because I don’t like it. I neither need it nor want it in order to enjoy an evening out. That does not mean that I judge those who do drink, nor does it mean that I buy into all the propaganda about binge drinking. If you enjoy a tipple, good luck to you – it’s your life, your decision and you must do as you see fit. All I ask is that you respect my decisions in the same way.

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Update Nice to see that the usual fuckwittery is in force on CiF. This piece of buffoonery in the comments from someone calling themselves JeanArmandDuplessis:

Of course teetotalers make healthy people nervous. If you are invited to a five course dinner and you only eat bread, people will encourage you to try some of the good stuff, and they’ll get flummoxed when it transpires that there’s no medical reason for your rude behaviour, you just decided on a whim only to eat bread.

Break social codes, and you’ll get punished. What did you expect?

Jesus H Christ on a pogo stick! It is not rude to decline alcohol. To compare non-alcohol consumption with only eating bread at a meal is idiocy of the first water – where do they dig these epsilons up from? No, I do not expect to be punished because I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t expect to have to justify myself to narrow-minded bigots like JeanArmandDuplessis; who, frankly, can go roger him or herself with the rough end of a pineapple.