5 ms·

Why I Don't Drink

57 points by nealogrady 12y ago

humancontact 12y ago
I just don't like the taste of alcoholic beverages, and therefore I don't drink them.
- trentmb 12y ago
  If beer didn't have alcohol, I wouldn't drink it. It's the least awful alcoholic drink I've found.
- eterps 12y ago
  Which non-alcoholic beverages do you like? I have a hard time finding good tasting alternatives.
  - humancontact 12y ago
    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.
brianobush 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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.)
- ethnt 12y ago
  Alcohol is a prevalent part of a lot of lives — it's what a lot of people do to be sociable.
- nealogrady 12y ago
  I wrote the article, and I honestly wrote it primarily for myself and didn't expect others to find it interesting. It's a question I get on a more than weekly basis, I figured it was time to sit down, think about it deeply, and write it down.
hawkharris 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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)
shaunxcode 12y ago
The x in my name is more than just a delimiter!
- SixteenBlue 12y ago
  Why was this down voted? It's perfectly relevant.
mjn 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    > 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 12y ago
      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).
  - 12y ago
sheetjs 12y ago
> 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 12y ago
  asking why someone doesn't drink doesn't imply condescension
  - rdtsc 12y ago
    It is about the context. Given that it probably happens when everyone else is intoxicated slightly, it probably doesn't seem condescending to the person asking, they are just having fun, being warm and friendly but since he doesn't drink they might seem like assholes. See his last point on that.
  - judk 12y ago
    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 12y ago
      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.
- NegativeK 12y ago
  I don't drink. Most people think it's unusual or weird.
- 12y ago
swalsh 12y ago
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 12y ago
  >I go to clubs. I enjoy certain intoxicants. Sounds like he gets high, but doesn't drink.
  - faddotio 12y ago
    Probably chows down on ritalin like half of HN. ;)
faddotio 12y ago
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."
te_chris 12y ago
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.
bra-ket 12y ago
this article should have been posted last night
joshlegs 12y ago
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/dp/B001G6YPLW http://www.amazon.com/Parker-Sonnet-Original-Matte-Fountain/...
- tomasien 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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 12y ago
      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.
Duhck 12y ago
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 12y ago
  You were spending more on nightlife than rent? Wowsa.
  - Duhck 12y ago
    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.
ethnt 12y ago
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.
Osiris 12y ago
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.
whoismua 12y ago
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.
m0nastic 12y ago
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.
eterps 12y ago
What are good recommendations for non-alcoholic drinks? I don't like most alternatives because they are too sweet.
cyphunk 12y ago
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.

Why I Don't Drink

57 points by nealogrady 12y ago

humancontact 12y ago

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

trentmb 12y ago
If beer didn't have alcohol, I wouldn't drink it. It's the least awful alcoholic drink I've found.
eterps 12y ago
Which non-alcoholic beverages do you like? I have a hard time finding good tasting alternatives.
- humancontact 12y ago
  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.

brianobush 12y ago

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 12y ago
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.)
ethnt 12y ago
Alcohol is a prevalent part of a lot of lives — it's what a lot of people do to be sociable.
nealogrady 12y ago
I wrote the article, and I honestly wrote it primarily for myself and didn't expect others to find it interesting. It's a question I get on a more than weekly basis, I figured it was time to sit down, think about it deeply, and write it down.

hawkharris 12y ago

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 12y ago
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)

shaunxcode 12y ago

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

SixteenBlue 12y ago
Why was this down voted? It's perfectly relevant.

mjn 12y ago

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 12y ago
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 12y ago
  > 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 12y ago
    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).
- 12y ago

sheetjs 12y ago

> 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 12y ago
asking why someone doesn't drink doesn't imply condescension
- rdtsc 12y ago
  It is about the context. Given that it probably happens when everyone else is intoxicated slightly, it probably doesn't seem condescending to the person asking, they are just having fun, being warm and friendly but since he doesn't drink they might seem like assholes. See his last point on that.
- judk 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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.
NegativeK 12y ago
I don't drink. Most people think it's unusual or weird.
12y ago

swalsh 12y ago

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 12y ago
>I go to clubs. I enjoy certain intoxicants. Sounds like he gets high, but doesn't drink.
- faddotio 12y ago
  Probably chows down on ritalin like half of HN. ;)

faddotio 12y ago

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."

te_chris 12y ago

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.

bra-ket 12y ago

this article should have been posted last night

joshlegs 12y ago

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/dp/B001G6YPLW http://www.amazon.com/Parker-Sonnet-Original-Matte-Fountain/...

tomasien 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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.

Duhck 12y ago

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 12y ago
You were spending more on nightlife than rent? Wowsa.
- Duhck 12y ago
  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.

ethnt 12y ago

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.

Osiris 12y ago

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.

whoismua 12y ago

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.

m0nastic 12y ago

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.

eterps 12y ago

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

cyphunk 12y ago

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.