She spoke with good humour about participating as a non drinker in a social world where abstinence is akin to leprosy, where socializing without alcohol is rare, except maybe for the latte crowd enjoying wake up time in cafes before lunch. If alcohol is not your drug of choice, life can get tricky. It’s like paddling upstream in a river of booze and never stopping to slurp. Exhausting!
Drug taking – illicit or otherwise – is a hot topic right now. Matthew Chesher, Chief of Staff to the Minister for Roads has resigned following his arrest for ecstasy possession. Whilst his wife, Education Minister Verity Firth relaxed at home with the kiddies on a warm Friday evening last week, husband Matthew strolled down to the local park and bought a single pill with a street value of $20.
All hell broke loose. The Premier Kristina Keneally was outraged and spouse Verity was disappointed and mortified. The fallout will continue as the legal treadmill grinds on.
The reaction of the general public was illuminating. Letters to editors and countless bloggers reveal overwhelming support for the aggrieved gentleman and derision for the action of the police and the hypocrisy of the circumstances. How can this happen when every day, pubs and bars are full of drunks who never cop the full brunt of the law - unless of course they pee in public or clobber someone. Why don’t police spend our taxes fighting real crime? What kind of oppressive regime converts this hard working dad into a criminal?
It’s clearly acceptable to be “doing” drugs and almost fashionable to defend the doing of them, so long as the drugs are “soft” and no one else gets hurt. There is a civil libertarian undertone to the bleating. The real crime is that Mr Chesher was arrested in the first place. Taking soft drugs is normal. Leave those who wish to partake in peace. Heroin or ice of course is entirely different. Once our pretty houses are ransacked by desperates or our kids are threatened it’s gloves off in the war against drugs.
Mr Pill Popper’s habit was compared favourably to a few drinks down at the pub with mates after work. A cultural institution! Part of our national identity and linked to that sacred concept: mateship. I’m moving onto dangerous ground here and must tread warily…tippy toe, tippy toe. Warning! The great Aussie laid back, fun loving, easy going beer and skittles moral highground is armed and ready, like a Cambodian minefield plonked quietly there, ready to explode.
This is a topic close to my own heart. For it isn’t drinkers and drug takers who are the pariahs in our community. It’s people like me! Let the rant fest begin! I’ve been calm, controlled and mostly silent on this for a while now but thanks to that sweet abstemious soul who giggled away in radio land yesterday, I feel permitted to vent with unrestrained joy.
I am Julesdog and I am a teetotaller. It’s been nine years since my last drink. I terminated my relationship with alcohol after a night at home with friends. I cooked, ate, laughed, cleaned up, saw them to the door and said to by bemused husband: “I’ve just had my last drink. I’m never going to drink again.”
It was sudden, cold turkey and to many friends and relatives, inexplicable. I didn’t discuss it at the time but I had been thinking about it for a while. There were many reasons for the decision: some complex, some simple. The bottom line was there was much to love but paradoxically so much to hate about drinking alcohol, and it was easy to halt proceedings and avoid this dilemma completely. I’m a black and white, no nonsense kind of girl!
What’s to love about grog? It’s fun and social. It lubricates us and makes awkward times smoother. It is a crutch, a healer, something to fall back onto when times are tough. It is a unifier and contributes to positive feelings of security and worth. I could go on…
But I don't like the stuff that goes with drinking: the toll on health, especially for people like me with a pre-existing illness, the hypocrisy around parental drinking at the same time as warning adolescents off the stuff, the insidious prevalence of it in this grog soaked, pickled country of ours, blah blah blah. Mostly it was the headaches and sluggishness that befell me almost always after drinking, even when I'd had just a couple.
What about the way alcohol shapes our play time? For those who don’t fancy mixing with the legless, smelly pubs are places to be avoided. I’d rather sit in the gutter outside and stick pins into my eyes than venture into a late night pub. The volume rises as the bellies swell and the eyes glaze over. Pick your pub or leave early. Do you know how many glassing incidents occur late at night when tempers and blood alcohol levels are boiling? Pubs don’t report incidents because the next step is to be put on watch. Plastic cups come out and the patrons bolt.
You might wonder why I worry about places I’m unlikely to be seen dead in. It’s the three almost adult children who live the night owl existence, not me. Adolescent boys and grog are a well known toxic mix. What is not acknowledged is that adolescent boys almost always emulate or evolve into the father, regardless of the relationship. And this is where it gets tricky, as health experts will readily concur. Try asking this colony of middle aged best male mates to navel gaze for a minute or two and self assess personal drinking levels. Nuh…not going to do that…no problem here…it’s those drunken hooligans that are the trouble…I’m fine…piss off and leave me alone.
Young women hang out with those boys, so they are equally at risk. Sculling vodka is a popular past time these days. We know drunkenness is dangerous. It is also reasonably fashionable.
When it comes to grog, I give thanks for being of a certain age and female, where abstinence finds more soul mates, feels less like leprosy and more like good sense. I would find it excruciating if I were to metamorphose into a non drinking male aged anywhere between 18 and 40. I remember one guy, only one lonely single sock from uni days who didn’t drink. Orange juice was his preferred thirst quencher. Like many of his friends I was curious about living as a non drinker. What was it really like?
“Boring mostly” he said, “especially late at night when parties are warming up. That’s when I leave.”
I never really understood this until I stopped drinking. There is a capacity for liquid tolerance with alcohol which doesn’t equate to soft drink consumption. Try this quick test: count how many beers or wines your bestie can put away compared to your one or two glasses of mineral water or coke. Unbelievable! At least three to one and that’s a conservative estimate.
At least middle aged chicks don’t usually shout by the dozen. It’s more likely they share a bottle of wine. Or throw in equally regardless of who drinks most. Beware those big groups in restaurants. It is only the teetotalling curmudgeon who feels brave enough to query the bill. That spaghetti marinara and smallish side salad can break the bank once the grog is factored into the fun!
Dinner parties…ho hum. The conviviality of drinking is exclusive. Without it, parties lose their gloss and conversations don't sparkle much past main course. The funsters in the group warm up as their jokes fade. Or get repeated. And beware that dangerous phase which starts right after dessert, when the “one for the roadies” warm up, just as this tired and sober little wombat craves a pot of tea and a good lie down. I become the antisocial one right about now, not because I am, but because not wanting to finish off a dinner party "with a coupla ice coldies" makes me the party pooper. The begging begins: “let him stay…just one more..." It's tedious being the boring one sitting there jangling the car keys.
Along with my certain age, I am also glad I am uninvolved in the mating and dating scene which revolves totally and exclusively around drinking. A date in a park feeding the ducks is sweet but those little duckies don’t want to be harassed four times a week. Art galleries and museums are lovely, but rather quiet. Coffee shops have ambience, but did you know caffeine is very bad for you? Add a muffin and it's so fattening!
I prefer morning socialising in cafes where there is a level playing field re alcohol. It might come up in conversation; people are curious and that is understandable but I'm unlikely to be interrogated. Whereas when I'm with people imbibing... We non drinkers are a rare species! I try to explain without zealotry, but defensiveness often lurks. It is as if my choice speaks volumes about their habits, even if I’ve never met them before.
I am sometimes neglected at parties and often ignored at functions; after everyone else has been offered a drink, I need to ask for one because if it isn't grog I want, there is an assumption that I’m not thirsty. And if I am thirsty, surely Chateau Tap will do?
I’ve been hammered by those with strong ideas about bottled mineral water (especially if its imported) and badgered to partake by people who know I don’t drink, just because it is their way of demonstrating friendship and social inclusion.
“Are you sure you won’t have a drink? Just a drop?”
“It’s OK really.” I can belong here happily, and not drink….can’t I?
What about this, my latest weapon:
“Do you know I haven’t had a drink for nine years? I’m fine thanks. Really.”
There was a phone-in after the journo vented. Two guys and many more women. All living parallel existences, all with remarkably similar stories. It was the blokes I really felt for. Both chose to cite alcoholism as their reason for not drinking. Shock and embarrassment shuts down all discussions and though they suffer an ill deserved reputation, it allows them peace to get on with the business of living without the stuff. A female self confessed alcoholic concurred. It is noble to live in abstinence in defiance of addiction.
Back to the unlucky soul who strolled the park one lonely evening, seeking out a pill dealer down in the dark by the bushes. I’ll reserve my opinion on his behaviour and life choices. I think I’ve said enough already!
Bottoms up!
