
Why I Don't Drink - nealogrady
http://www.neal.is/blogging/why-I-dont-drink
======
mjn
This feels like a very "American" article [1], in the way it frames the
discussion. The intro suggests the author has a policy of not drinking _at
all_ (or only every few months), but most of the bullet points only apply to
why you shouldn't binge-drink. I did not find anything in this article that
applied to normal drinking. If you drink a glass of wine with lunch, and one
or two with dinner, as a typical southern European, you should not have a
hangover or other such issues, unless you have a relatively rare (for those of
European descent, at least) sensitivity to alcohol.

I'm slightly tempted to write a follow-up article with, "why I don't
participate in bro culture", based on this article's pervasive reference to
clubs, "certain intoxicants", and other such questionable things the author
appears to indulge in, but which seem stupid and harmful to me.

[1] To be fair, the U.S. may have gotten its drunkards-vs-teetotallers
attitude in part from Europe. Sweden in particular, and the UK some centuries
earlier, used to have a very similar divide.

~~~
RogerL
I was about to post the same thing. A glass of wine with dinner, for example,
can enormously enhance the experience without any of the downsides that he
mentions. Not that I care if people don't drink, but several of the arguments
were pretty spurious.

~~~
lucaspiller
> A glass of wine with dinner, for example, can enormously enhance the
> experience

Can you explain how exactly? Is it just greater social ease as the author
suggests in the article? I'm intrigued, I don't drink wine and hardly ever
have a beer while eating.

~~~
funkyy
Its a southern European culture - wine goes well with some tastes and since
wine vapours a lot it delivers taste also to your nose. Beer is usually used
only with fatty/heavy foods as it helps to dissolve them and stimulates
stomach to work harder (that would be mainly German/Irish kitchen).

------
sheetjs
> Almost everyone will at some point ask me why I don't drink, which is fair
> considering it's engrained into human society.

There should be no need to explain why you don't drink. Period. There's
nothing wrong with not drinking and there's nothing weird about not drinking.
If people are asking with any sort of condescension, you are probably spending
time with the wrong people.

~~~
massappeal
asking why someone doesn't drink doesn't imply condescension

~~~
judk
But it conveys "outsider" status and puts someone on the defensive. Would you
like to be asked "Why?" every time you oder a drink?

~~~
funkyy
If someone avoids alcohol there are 4 options: -he dont like it -religion or
family tradition -he got sick after it -he is total wanker after few pints and
he dont want people to see it

When someone is not ordering alcohol people might think the last one - and
that's from the start bad omen.

I fully support people not drinking alcohol but unfortunately I find out that
most people dont drink because inner them is coming out.

------
Duhck
I empathize with this article. I rarely drink, I get drunk about a half a
dozen times a year, and shifting my social life away from bars and restaurants
has enabled me to afford a lifestyle I otherwise couldn't have.

I put every penny I saved from my former bar oriented social life into a
savings account, and in two years I put over $65k away, which turned into seed
money for my own startup.

This is a point of pride for me, and overall has enriched my life in ways
social drinking never could have.

I've grown distant from certain friends because of it, and I get questions
nearly everytime I do go out and refuse a drink. These things are not
important to me, and those people less so.

Moral of the story is, people should live their lives how they see fit, and
that is for both drinkers and non drinkers alike.

~~~
judk
You were spending more on nightlife than rent? Wowsa.

~~~
Duhck
No, I live in Brooklyn, my rent is absurd. I was spending $1k a month on cabs,
restaurants and bars. That's five to ten nights out. Less if you go with your
significant other.

------
hawkharris
Not to mention that alcohol is a major carcinogen in the United States. From
the National Cancer Institute: "Based on data from 2009, an estimated 3.5
percent of all cancer deaths in the United States were alcohol related." [0]

[0]
[http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/alcohol](http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/alcohol)

~~~
judk
Note that those cancer prevalences are associated with drinking >3.5 drinks
(50g alcohol) per day, which is borderline alcoholic (assuming it really means
most days, not just some days)

------
ethnt
This hits the nail on the head for me. I'm a college student in the US right
now, and drinking is a big part of the "college experience". I don't like
drinking — that's not to say I don't every once in a while (think once every
two months), I just don't really enjoy it like other people do. It makes me
uncomfortable that I'd be around other people I potentially don't know without
all my faculties.

I think it's just a control thing for me — I don't want to lose control of
myself and do stupid things. Even normally, I'm super self-aware, and that'd
just get worse with alcohol.

------
joshlegs
I'm really with the author here. I don't drink much, and people usually ask me
why when I'm out. I just don't find it all that enjoyable most of the time, to
be honest.

also, there's this: >There is a longer list of things I'd rather spend $100 on

I just want to take a moment to suggest this as an alternative.
[http://www.amazon.com/Parker-Sonnet-Original-Matte-
Fountain/...](http://www.amazon.com/Parker-Sonnet-Original-Matte-
Fountain/dp/B001G6YPLW)

~~~
tomasien
I might use this comment to respond to every single person who uses the cost
of alcohol as a reason not to drink saying "there are so many other things I'd
rather buy.."

LIKE WHAT? A PEN? That's a pen. You can never convince me that I should
believe that pen is objectively more valuable than a night out treating
friends. Forget it. If it's more valuable to YOU because you love pens and
dislike drinking, fine, but this argument that "stuff" is somehow inherently
worth more than "experiences" (like food, alcohol, events, etc.) falls so
unbelievably flat to me.

~~~
joshlegs
It's all where you place your value at. Is that so hard to get? I like pens
(yeah they're expensive pens). And folks like me obviously find value in
things other than alcohol. Nobody's trying to say that drinking is worthless:
it's just worthless to US. If you get enjoyment out of it, more power to you.
I'm not sure why there's so much controversy about not liking the act of
drinking :S :S

~~~
tomasien
If you don't like drinking, why bring up the money? It's an irrelevant point,
unless you're saying "I like drinking, but I like pens more so I choose to
spend my money on pens" at which point I say "I respect that, but we're
clearly not going to be friends". But if it's "I don't like drinking, btw I
like pens so I spend the money I would spend drinking on pens" then it's not
why you don't drink - it's what you do with your money since you don't like
drinking. In which case we can be friends.

The way it's presented in this post is none of those, and seems more to me to
be an attempt to make me feel silly for spending my money on "things I won't
remember" (something that never happens to almost anyone when they drink). I
don't feel silly at all for it, and my personal view of life makes me feel
that placing value on physical things above experiences is extremely silly.

~~~
joshlegs
> The way it's presented in this post is none of those, and seems more to me
> to be an attempt to make me feel silly for spending my money on "things I
> won't remember"

I didn't get that at all out of it, and not sure why you did. I read it as "I
get this question a lot, and I'm just ready to vent a little. So this is why I
don't drink." Don't read into something that's not there! :) I feel like a lot
of the people who don't like this article have read it as a criticism of their
decision to drink, which it doesn't seem at all to be.

------
m0nastic
I don't drink very often anymore (maybe a few times a year). I've never liked
the taste of most alcohol, so when I drink, it's generally just a lot of shots
to get it down easiest. When I went out more, I drank more (the incredible
effort I have to maintain to be around people is lessened if I'm drinking). As
I got older, it seemed easier to just stop leaving my apartment, and I was
never a fan of drinking at home.

I suppose somewhere in the back of my head I always worried about becoming an
alcoholic (coming from a long line of stinking drunks), but thankfully, I
don't really have any addiction issues.

I'll admit that it's probably a bad thing that so much of our culture is
alcohol-centric, but I don't begrudge that other people just like drinking.

------
cyphunk

         I enjoy certain intoxicants. 
         I enjoy hanging around people that are intoxicated
    

Look, it's wonderful to abstain from some things in life. If/when I have a
child I will tell them this "pick and abstain from one addiction or enjoyment
that see most people exploring. when you are older you will start to doubt
your abilities and look for choices you made to blame it on. if you abstain
from that one thing you can always just say 'meh, at least i dont do ___'".

That said, one can give plenty of arguments for why alcohol adds something to
your life. Mainly all of the reasons you gave against it were completely self-
centred and if you acknowledge that the quality of your life is most greatly
impacted by your interaction with others... well, alcohol can bring value to
that.

As a side note, if you are going to parties and filling up on "other
intoxicants" that make you thirst more for water than alcohol, you're not
really doing yourself any favors.

------
te_chris
I'm wallowing in self pity after a great night last night. New Zealand is like
Oz and the UK in that it has a huge, ugly, binge drinking culture. I was
caught up in it for a while but eventually I had to perform a bit of self-
reflection, realise that I was a bit of a dick when I lost control and really
focus on what I wanted. Turns out I enjoy drinking with friends, but I hate
being wasted and out of control. I also really enjoy the taste and variety of
the conduits which we use to numb ourselves.

Why am I posting this? Because it sounds like OP and myself (and likely many,
many others) have gone through a similar experience of calibrating ourselves
to alcohol, but found ourselves coping with the downsides in different,
equally-valid ways.

------
humancontact
I just don't like the taste of alcoholic beverages, and therefore I don't
drink them.

~~~
eterps
Which non-alcoholic beverages do you like? I have a hard time finding good
tasting alternatives.

~~~
humancontact
Pretty much all teas, juices, sodas, and almost everything else that I have
tasted. I can only remember that, besides things containing ethanol, I can't
seem to like coffee.

------
faddotio
I agree with most of his points, and that's why I don't drink to excess. But
I'm happy to have a glass of red wine with a steak or a nice stinky piece of
cheese, and I don't suffer any of the drawbacks he states. I don't feel an
urge to continue drinking either, because yeah, being drunk and hungover later
sucks!

Drinking (or doing anything) responsibly doesn't just mean "find a DD and then
get trashed", it can also mean "find satiation with a little bit of something
nice."

------
Osiris
I've never had a drink for personal and religious reasons. From an outside
perspective, those are all the same kinds of reasons I'd have.

Primarily, it's shocking to me how much people spend on alcohol. I was out
with some co-workers that were spending $10 per shot. That was a bit of shock
for me.

------
swalsh
Everyone's got their vice. Some people have many. Alcohol just isn't yours. I
personally love beer. I really enjoy it... but i have nothing against anyone
for making the decision not to drink it.

~~~
CtrlAltDel
>I go to clubs. I enjoy certain intoxicants.

Sounds like he gets high, but doesn't drink.

~~~
faddotio
Probably chows down on ritalin like half of HN. ;)

------
brianobush
Why I don't do X? Seriously, you can do what you want and i am sure you have
your reasons. Why must we feel compelled to announce our choices?

~~~
derefr
Some companies, failing to differentiate themselves from fraternities, hold
"drink-ups" instead of meet-ups. Sometimes not drinking ostracises you from a
culture. (I have this problem in an even-more-conspicuous way: I don't like
hot drinks, or the taste of coffee. This makes "let's get coffee and chat" a
bit awkward.)

------
eterps
What are good recommendations for non-alcoholic drinks? I don't like most
alternatives because they are too sweet.

------
bra-ket
this article should have been posted last night

------
whoismua
First I respect his decision. For some it can addictive and if you feel like
you can't control yourself it's best to avoid. However, he uses "getting
drunk" and "drinking" interchangeably, there's a lot between those two points.

A drink a day, sometimes two, are not harmful. They will not really intoxicate
you. Everyone else is drinking so any dumbing down is valid for anyone else. A
drink are two is not unhealthy, maybe it's even healthy.

------
shaunxcode
The x in my name is more than just a delimiter!

~~~
SixteenBlue
Why was this down voted? It's perfectly relevant.

