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Non-alcoholic restaurants? Maybe that's a nice idea, but I don't think that actually solves anything. The main problem with alcohol (at least in my culture) is

by maus42 10y ago

Non-alcoholic restaurants? Maybe that's a nice idea, but I don't think that actually solves anything. The main problem with alcohol (at least in my culture) is that it's not given that you can go and drink non-alcoholic stuff in a social gathering without others making it a huge problem. In that situation, who would go into the non-alco restaurant? Especially would you like to ask your friends "let's go to the non-alco place instead of the usual one", if the drinking is the thing you find problematic? Yeah, I've never heard much about non-alco restaurants. The existence of gimmicky restaurants isn't answer to these kinds of problems, because the inherit reason is ... how I would say this ... in the societal background of "what is normal": the overall framework what is expected of you, what you can reasonably expect of others, and what options you are left with if you think you have a reasonable, principled case against the way things currently stand and disagree with the behaviour that is considered "normal"? The parallels to over-indulging in predatory social media products are left as an exercise to reader.

bzbarsky 10y ago
I agree that there is a societal attitude aspect to the whole thing, sure. > would you like to ask your friends "let's go to the non-alco place instead of the usual one" Sure. Vegetarians and vegans do this sort of thing reasonably often. I should note that actual friends would tend to respect this sort of request. If I had a friend who struggled with alcohol addiction I would certainly respect a request to go to a no-alcohol place. In fact, I would default to that in that situation. It's just basic politeness from my point of view, and yes, I realize that the concept of "politeness" differs from society to society too. > Yeah, I've never heard much about non-alco restaurants. They're everywhere, in some countries. Simple example: McDonalds in the US. Again, this varies from country to country; in many countries in Europe McDonalds does serve alcohol. This does come back to the societal attitudes thing. I agree that this is rarer for upscale restaurants, but from a quick search http://www.latimes.com/food/jonathan-gold/la-fo-gold-dongpo-20160602-snap-story.html http://www.latimes.com/food/jonathan-gold/la-fo-gold-dongpo-... is an example (whether temporarily or not is not clear). Certainly there are lots of medium-scale restaurants in the US that do not sell alcohol but may allow you to bring your own, and then you, as the group going, get to make the call on whether to have alcohol. Of course t305158 he parallels between alcohol and phones are not exact; most people don't carry alcohol with them everywhere they go. ;) But in general what I think you're missing is that having explicit options that buck the societal trend goes a long way towards normalizing bucking the societal trend. > The existence of gimmicky restaurants isn't answer to these kinds of problems It's not _the_ answer, but it's part of _an_ answer.

by maus42 10y ago

bzbarsky 10y ago

I agree that there is a societal attitude aspect to the whole thing, sure. > would you like to ask your friends "let's go to the non-alco place instead of the usual one" Sure. Vegetarians and vegans do this sort of thing reasonably often. I should note that actual friends would tend to respect this sort of request. If I had a friend who struggled with alcohol addiction I would certainly respect a request to go to a no-alcohol place. In fact, I would default to that in that situation. It's just basic politeness from my point of view, and yes, I realize that the concept of "politeness" differs from society to society too. > Yeah, I've never heard much about non-alco restaurants. They're everywhere, in some countries. Simple example: McDonalds in the US. Again, this varies from country to country; in many countries in Europe McDonalds does serve alcohol. This does come back to the societal attitudes thing. I agree that this is rarer for upscale restaurants, but from a quick search http://www.latimes.com/food/jonathan-gold/la-fo-gold-dongpo-20160602-snap-story.html http://www.latimes.com/food/jonathan-gold/la-fo-gold-dongpo-... is an example (whether temporarily or not is not clear). Certainly there are lots of medium-scale restaurants in the US that do not sell alcohol but may allow you to bring your own, and then you, as the group going, get to make the call on whether to have alcohol. Of course t305158 he parallels between alcohol and phones are not exact; most people don't carry alcohol with them everywhere they go. ;) But in general what I think you're missing is that having explicit options that buck the societal trend goes a long way towards normalizing bucking the societal trend. > The existence of gimmicky restaurants isn't answer to these kinds of problems It's not _the_ answer, but it's part of _an_ answer.