I Hate Alcohol. Am I An Alien?
by Audie Metcalf
This isn’t an article for anyone struggling with alcohol. I don’t minimize that struggle. Actually, maybe it is for you. It won’t be clear why quite yet, but a bigger thesis is coming.
I’ve never liked the taste of alcohol.
I snuck a sip of someone’s wine when I was 15 and was aghast that this was the thing everyone was telling us to not drink. DONE. Easy. Sunkist tastes about 187 times better than that gasoline-smelling swill, so that will not be a problem.
To this day I’m not sure if anyone thinks alcohol actually tastes good.
I can understand the allure of wanting a socially acceptable escape. Or the idea of having a glass in your hand at a party. Or knowing you’re a few gulps away from being confident and funny and unafraid of strangers. That is, at least conceptually, appealing.
Though it’s never appealed to me.
But then, I don’t like to be out of control. Ever. I hate feeling as though I might agree to doing something I wouldn’t normally do. Or revealing something I’d never reveal otherwise. Even in college, in a sea of red cups, I’d be nursing my can of Diet Coke.
Don’t you drink?! They’d yell over Naughty By Nature.
Don’t you ever relax?? They’d ask, with a not-subtle implication that I was uptight, or worse, uncool.
Alcohol has always been portrayed as cool.
Even beautiful.
Grace Kelly and her snifter in Rear Window, swirling swirling swirling her brandy.
Don Draper and his constant companion.
The utter normalcy of getting so drunk at a high school party that you ask someone to chop your hair off.
And so, during my pre-married life of hundreds of first dates, drinking was expected. When I would decline to split a bottle of wine and instead order a Perrier (or, wincingly, a wretched Pellegrino if that’s all they had), it was always met with the same 3 questions:
You’re not an alcoholic are you?
Are you sober?
Why don’t you drink?
It always amazed me that I was considered the one with the issue. And if I didn’t find the taste of alcohol and the experience of being drunk so grotesque, I’m sure I would have been coerced into having a glass. Or two. And so I think about that implied expectation that everyone should, when they’re sitting down at a table, drink alcohol. A drug which has now been classified as cancer causing. And is the reason for a person dying from a driving accident every 39 minutes in the United States. And is behind more than 700,000 kids in the USA between 12-17 who have alcohol use disorders.
I know I said I had a thesis earlier, but I’m not sure if I do. I think maybe it’s that we are so used to alcohol being linked to fun times and coolness and social lubrication, we haven’t quite caught up to its destructive impact. Can you imagine someone smoking a cigarette and being shocked you don’t take one from their pack? First of all, find me someone who even smokes at all anymore. And second, we’ve gone from nearly everyone smoking in movies to NO ONE smoking in movies. Except to show you he’s the bad guy or the rebel who doesn’t play by the rules.
Smoking cigarettes has drastically decreased since various tobacco marketing laws were put into effect, cigarette machines began to disappear (with a federal ban in 2010), and a tobacco advertising print ban in 1989. But listen, I don’t want to make this some “researched” article, mostly because finding all these stats is a big pain in the ass and it’s not really the point.
So what is the point?
Drinking is still a social expectation. Not just an activity. An expectation. And I was always the weird one because I didn’t do it. Is this the message we want to send to people? Especially people who may be predisposed to addiction? I don’t think enjoying a beer or a cocktail is bad. Whatever “bad” means in this context. But I think not drinking is also ok. Good, even. And it’s not something we should assume is out of the ordinary enough to ask a bunch of stupid questions about why we don’t want to guzzle down a liquid that literally disrupts our blood brain barrier.
Imagine if, the next time you see someone order a single glass of Chardonnay with dinner, you ask them, in an astonished tone:
Are you an alcoholic?
Audie Metcalf is the Editor-in-chief of The Candidly, and lives in LA with her family. You can find more of her articles here.
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