So I don't drink. And to be clear, I mean I've never had a drink in my life, and I won't eat rum cake or tiramisu, even. While we're at it, I don't smoke. No drugs. As far as possible I avoid even medicinal ones. I have mixed feelings about drinking caffeine.
This is usually received fairly well, honestly, but people are often a little perplexed, especially if it was some apparently innocuous dessert item that brought it up. Once in a while somebody will make plain that they think I'm being asinine, but even then most folks work with it, these days; any overt insistence is strictly the purview of the badly drunk, and--for whatever reason--a certain sort of pathetic little old man.
Even so, people do get puzzled, so as a public service to those who might someday eat and drink in my vicinity, here are a few quick answers to the Frequently Asked Question.
Q: Why not?
A:One way to look at it is that I'm just taking the easy way out. All those games that people play while drinking, trying to decide how much further they can go before they reach whatever level of drunkenness seems appropriate for the circumstances, trying to second-guess as they go along what they are or are not capable of at a given point--I never, ever have to mess around with that.
A college friend once told me about the test she used to determine how drunk she was: she would slip into the bathroom and sit on the toilet and watch to see if the room kept spinning even after she was certainly sitting still. Another told me of his high school precautions for driving drunk: he went very slowly. He wrecked anyway, not so surprisingly.
There's something fundamentally flawed about the idea of an instrument trying to check its own work. If the brain you think with is slowly losing its function, then you can't trust that brain to test its own impairment. And just the fact that so many people's ideas of drunkenness don't even begin until some arbitrary number of drinks (greater than one) shows how little people are thinking about the process itself. Do you really suppose the effect kicks in all at once when you drink that fourth one?
Q: Why not?
A: Not as a moral stand, certainly. And it's nothing to do with any tragic childhood incident or anything either. I almost wish it was; that would be easy to explain. It's all about practical considerations; I just don't personally want to deal with either short-term impairment or long-term health issues. I don't care what anybody else does, though I do tend to steer clear of any seriously mind-altering escapades if I have any alternative at all. But basically the issue is me. It's all about what I do and don't want happening to me.
Q: Why not?
A: I've worked hard enough to be who I am now. I don't want any altered state. My current state works dandy. I don't want to escape myself or my life; I don't think that some modified me would have any more fun than I do.
Q: Why not?
A: I have always suspected that the long-term damage done by alcohol and marijuana is greater than anyone thinks. The others, we've heard more about, though their users are supernaturally immune to reason on the subject--smokers can stare down any criticism at all with their one and only argument, which is "oh, it's not such a big deal."
Alcohol, though, is not thought of as having such drastic physical effects, potbellies and round red noses aside. And it's hard to do a study on it, because pretty much nobody goes through life without drinking a pretty good bit, nobody but me and the Muslims. And a lot of Muslims have more basic killers at hand, poverty and all that comes with it. And I'm young yet. I'll outlive you all though.
Q: Why not?
A: I wouldn't trust myself. I don't know why anybody trusts themselves when altered, for that matter... I stick my foot in my mouth plenty when sober, and I know for a fact that I have more than enough stupid, violent, rude, unfair, insincere and otherwise unacceptable thoughts running around in my head. I don't need anything that makes me more likely to speak them or act on them. I've heard too many long painful stories that start with somebody's totally unnecessary gaffe while under the influence.
Q: Why not?
A: Because I don't ever want to have to deal with addiction. I don't know how well I'd do; I have trouble staying away from coffee, already. I fall too easily into bravado; I have trouble leaving behind my teenage habit of trying to impress people with feats of overeating--in spite of its clear inappropriateness for my current metabolic rate. If I were to drink, I'd far too likely be the sort who sought to show off how well he could hold his liquor.
Q: Why not?
A: Frankly, I don't have the money to spare. How is it that everybody, but everybody, can manage to scrape the money for smokes and booze no matter how poor they are for every other purpose? Why is that, of all things, the last luxury to go?
Not like I don't know the answer--see above, "addiction."
Q: Why not?
A: Out of spite. At this point, it really is in some part because I am appalled by how much pressure there is--abstract, impersonal cultural pressure, more than personal urgings--to partake. There is a certain deep cultural cool that travels exclusively with cigarettes, a whole vocabulary of body language that is held up as admirable. And drink is very hard to avoid--toasting with anything not alcoholic is potentially taken as an insult, ordering non-alcoholic drinks is often not counted toward a drink minimum. It kicks me right in the oh-no-you-don't gland.
Q: Why not?
A: Because I don't want to. And I mean, it doesn't even cross my mind, I'm not thinking about it, I'm not sitting around wondering what it's like, it has no place in my mind. I don't care. It holds no attraction. I never had it. I don't miss it.