The state of Sor and Booze: 2020
Jul. 16th, 2020 07:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressAlright, it's Sor talks about alcohol funtimes!
100% true statement: I drink alcohol.
95+% true statement: I don't drink alcohol.
So, I often like the taste of hard liquor (scotch is my preference) and I *adore* the way high-proof stuff "burns" in your throat and stomach. My favourite boozes in the world have been slightly sweet scotches (I've had some mapley-tasting ones, so good!)
However, I do not like the vast majority of feelings that come with tipsy or drunk. I do not like the way my legs go fizzy after a sip of beer or cider. I do not like the way it makes my brain muddy and feel stupid. I don't like the way it makes me _super_ insecure and paranoid about my romantic relationships. I do not like the way the room gets slightly out of wack and I have to concentrate harder on walking or standing.
(I do get an ironic enjoyment of the fact that my brain always *insists* that this time it'll be funny for me to say out loud "I am soooooo drunk right now" in a valley girl voice. I also, on _very_ rare occasion get mild enjoyment from being extremely giggly and laughing a lot and lying on the floor and leaning on people in a way that even I can't tell how much is "alcohol" and how much is "psychosomatic symptoms of alcohol" and how much is "I'ma pretend!".
But that is really the only thing, and it is definitely not an "every time I drink" and if we're being totally honest "giggly and silly and lying on the floor" is something that happens to me pretty easily if I feel safe and happy enough, even when I am stone cold sober. I don't need alcohol to be in that state, so I don't actually think of it as a symptom of being tipsy/drunk.)
I have only maybe twice in my life been "drunk" and I have never been "serious drunk" --definitely never blackout or memory loss, no bad hangovers (rarely: very mild headache and cottonmouth the next day), I don't believe I slurred speech or had significant trouble walking, etc. FWIW, none of those symptoms sound the least bit appealing either.
So I effectively hate every single thing that happens to my body once alcohol gets in it, and given that I am a tiny person who barely ever drinks, I have *no* tolerance. I start feeling the booze a few sips into virtually any drink, and it steeply goes downhill from there.
But I do enjoy the way it tastes! I do *want* a sip here and there -partly to be included, partly because it is tasty and I do like it.
So here are the situations in which I do and do not drink:
*I do not drink when I am alone or the only one drinking. This is one of the Rules. I have slightly bent it once or twice in the past to drink around my (acquaintance rather than friend) roommates, even when they're not drinking. That once or twice is not a vague rounding, it is literal.
*I do not drink around coworkers, period full stop. We have monthly "first Fridays" at the school where teachers go to the pub after work, and the last day of school is always a several hour multiple stop pub crawl. I join both of these, and drink a lot of coke and/or shirley temples. I also get to have fun-times conversations about "yeah, so I don't drink" way more often than I actually want to with my coworkers! (coworkers are not given nuance).
*I do not drink at parties where a significant portion of the attendees are under 21. This hasn't mattered since college, but wow was I not going to drink illegally around college kids.
*I do not drink if I ever utter or think "god I need a drink". This is the first Rule and it is ironclad.
*I do drink around people who I am in established sexual relationships with, but only if I expect that we will not be having sex that night, or if I am able to talk with them about consent while sober. (Almost none of my serious partners drink, I've dated three complete teetotalers, and all three of my current partners drink with similar frequencies to me, read, rarely.)
*I do drink at parties, if the majority of people are over the legal drinking age, and a "high enough" proportion of them are people I know/trust.
*I drink at Scottish Pinewoods, except the last two or three years I've bought myself a bunch of fancy bottled sodas and shirley temple mixings instead. It gives me the same boost of "oo, special drink at camp!" without having to consume alcohol.
*I drink with my family, mostly because I want to be a Real Adult who can order a Real Margarita Or Cider at a restaurant (I'm 31, this happens less often than when I was 22).
*I take sips of drinks from almost anyone who offers and isn't under 21 or a coworker.
The really big stopping block for me is that it's difficult for me to get a small enough quantity of alcohol to be happy. Surprisingly hard to approach a bartender and say "I would like you to make me a mixed drink with the absolute minimum alcohol you can put in", and harder still to say "I would like you to pour me a scotch but literally no more than a teaspoon or so". I sip from shot glasses -and if the shot is more than half full, it will probably take me all night to finish it.
So parties with pouring alcohol (sharing from a punch bowl or a bottle) are the most likely situ for me to drink in, because I can pour myself a minuscule quantity and enjoy the taste without the effects. (See again, Scots Pinewoods, which has a...weird drinking culture of "there are multiple parties throughout the day with alcohol but most people are drinking no more than a serving at a time and then doing lots of exercise and drinking tons of water and eating huge amounts and so despite literally all day long drinking, very few people are ever "drunk"")
Second most likely is at my parents house, because they will get it if I nurse a bottle of cider for six hours and then dump a third of it down the drain.
What this boils down to is, I probably drink a partial serving of alcohol (from a sip up) no more than 6-8 times a year, and a whole serving of alcohol (full bottle beer, shot glass of liquor) no more than...god...twice a year if that? And these numbers are trending _down_ as I get older. If I had to never drink alcohol again, my life would basically not change.
There are two significant things that helped give me my particular perspective:
The first is that I have been extremely lucky and grew up in a very alcohol responsible family. My dad will drink "a beer" at or after dinner, or sometimes "a wine" during dinner (and when we go out to sit-down restaurants, he's a sucker for "a froofy margarita with bright colours and a little umbrella"). But that's it. I have never seen my father drunk, and barely ever seen him tipsy. He likes an alcohol here and there, but he is definitely not an alcoholic, and most of his friends are the same way.
(He had one friend, when I was growing up, who would drink a lot and was generally a very fun drunk, and then one day he beat his girlfriend and that was the end of him being a part of my parents' friend group. The girlfriend remained one of my extended pile of adults1, the drunk has never been heard from since.)
Mom drinks significantly less than I do. Like, she has a nip bottle of Baileys that she enjoys at New Years and has been working on the same nip for 5+ years. She has been drunk once that I've ever heard of (parents and their friends on a Vegas trip when I was 11 or so) and she was honest and forthright about how much it sucked and how she didn't enjoy it.
Most of my extended family are similar to my da -a glass of wine at dinner, some but not all nights, or an occasional beer, or what have you. Again, I am very lucky! I was raised neither to believe that Alcohol Was The Immediate And Constant Devil Who Would Ruin Your Life Forever, nor that "it's totally normal to be constantly miserably puking drunk".
The second thing that has given me my perspective is the fact that I have almost no social anxiety.
I am not scared of public speaking. I do not fear karaoke. I am capable of friendly conversation with strangers. I don't bother sitting on the edges of a party if I can jump in and start chatting.
Part of this is because I have spent a lifetime honing myself into a creature who knows exactly who and what they are, and has no shame for it. I'll be the first to call myself weird, but I'm certainly not gonna let you try and make me feel bad for it, how rude! Some people don't like me, but it's usually the people I don't like back, and it's rare that I have to be at a party with only them. And honestly, I find humans to be broad and fascinating and lovely, and I like a lot of people I meet --and am very capable of faking it for the rest2.
And wow, I am not embarrassed by myself at all. I'm not embarrassed that I am quick to crack wise, that I am sharp-edged and sarcastic, that I can be extremely silly, that I always have a clever comment to make or a joke to riff on the situation. I try to be *mindful* of these things, and make sure that I am not dominating a conversation, and that I am being appropriate to the level of professionalism the situation demands, but I'm not embarrassed by myself at all.
And what that means is that I have never _ever_ needed alcohol as social lubricant. I do not need to drink to relax. I don't need to take the edge off --the edge has always been off! I don't know how I got lucky enough to be like this (I think "I was raised right" covers a lot of it, my mom is similar). I have many friends for whom that's not the case, and I don't judge them for it (jegus, why would I judge a friend for taking medication that helps them handle the world better?) but I simply do not have any "reason" to consume alcohol because the singular benefit for me is the taste and the burn.
My surety of self3 also means it is virtually impossible to actually pressure me into drinking. "It's weird you don't drink" says typical American society, and I respond "yep it sure is!" and continue sipping my Shirley Temple with triple cherries because I was super friendly to the bartender and now they like me. I have almost never had people try to pressure me past that, but it really doesn't go well for them.
This got hugely long, and I'm only a little sorry for that, but it is damn near definitive.
~Sor
1: I was raised by a village. Our house was The Place To Hang, mom loved having people around, and so I grew up surrounded by adults who treated me like a person (distinct from being treated like an adult).
2: I am not faking it for you, the person with mutual DW access reading this. I am certainly faking it for some of my Facebook mutuals, but if I am subscribed to your journal, it's because I genuinely like you and want to hear about your brain and life and everything. Like, I just doublechecked my subs list to make sure I could say that honest, and we're good.
3: "Has anyone ever told you you are amazingly self-assured?" "I tell myself that in the mirror every morning".
100% true statement: I drink alcohol.
95+% true statement: I don't drink alcohol.
So, I often like the taste of hard liquor (scotch is my preference) and I *adore* the way high-proof stuff "burns" in your throat and stomach. My favourite boozes in the world have been slightly sweet scotches (I've had some mapley-tasting ones, so good!)
However, I do not like the vast majority of feelings that come with tipsy or drunk. I do not like the way my legs go fizzy after a sip of beer or cider. I do not like the way it makes my brain muddy and feel stupid. I don't like the way it makes me _super_ insecure and paranoid about my romantic relationships. I do not like the way the room gets slightly out of wack and I have to concentrate harder on walking or standing.
(I do get an ironic enjoyment of the fact that my brain always *insists* that this time it'll be funny for me to say out loud "I am soooooo drunk right now" in a valley girl voice. I also, on _very_ rare occasion get mild enjoyment from being extremely giggly and laughing a lot and lying on the floor and leaning on people in a way that even I can't tell how much is "alcohol" and how much is "psychosomatic symptoms of alcohol" and how much is "I'ma pretend!".
But that is really the only thing, and it is definitely not an "every time I drink" and if we're being totally honest "giggly and silly and lying on the floor" is something that happens to me pretty easily if I feel safe and happy enough, even when I am stone cold sober. I don't need alcohol to be in that state, so I don't actually think of it as a symptom of being tipsy/drunk.)
I have only maybe twice in my life been "drunk" and I have never been "serious drunk" --definitely never blackout or memory loss, no bad hangovers (rarely: very mild headache and cottonmouth the next day), I don't believe I slurred speech or had significant trouble walking, etc. FWIW, none of those symptoms sound the least bit appealing either.
So I effectively hate every single thing that happens to my body once alcohol gets in it, and given that I am a tiny person who barely ever drinks, I have *no* tolerance. I start feeling the booze a few sips into virtually any drink, and it steeply goes downhill from there.
But I do enjoy the way it tastes! I do *want* a sip here and there -partly to be included, partly because it is tasty and I do like it.
So here are the situations in which I do and do not drink:
*I do not drink when I am alone or the only one drinking. This is one of the Rules. I have slightly bent it once or twice in the past to drink around my (acquaintance rather than friend) roommates, even when they're not drinking. That once or twice is not a vague rounding, it is literal.
*I do not drink around coworkers, period full stop. We have monthly "first Fridays" at the school where teachers go to the pub after work, and the last day of school is always a several hour multiple stop pub crawl. I join both of these, and drink a lot of coke and/or shirley temples. I also get to have fun-times conversations about "yeah, so I don't drink" way more often than I actually want to with my coworkers! (coworkers are not given nuance).
*I do not drink at parties where a significant portion of the attendees are under 21. This hasn't mattered since college, but wow was I not going to drink illegally around college kids.
*I do not drink if I ever utter or think "god I need a drink". This is the first Rule and it is ironclad.
*I do drink around people who I am in established sexual relationships with, but only if I expect that we will not be having sex that night, or if I am able to talk with them about consent while sober. (Almost none of my serious partners drink, I've dated three complete teetotalers, and all three of my current partners drink with similar frequencies to me, read, rarely.)
*I do drink at parties, if the majority of people are over the legal drinking age, and a "high enough" proportion of them are people I know/trust.
*I drink at Scottish Pinewoods, except the last two or three years I've bought myself a bunch of fancy bottled sodas and shirley temple mixings instead. It gives me the same boost of "oo, special drink at camp!" without having to consume alcohol.
*I drink with my family, mostly because I want to be a Real Adult who can order a Real Margarita Or Cider at a restaurant (I'm 31, this happens less often than when I was 22).
*I take sips of drinks from almost anyone who offers and isn't under 21 or a coworker.
The really big stopping block for me is that it's difficult for me to get a small enough quantity of alcohol to be happy. Surprisingly hard to approach a bartender and say "I would like you to make me a mixed drink with the absolute minimum alcohol you can put in", and harder still to say "I would like you to pour me a scotch but literally no more than a teaspoon or so". I sip from shot glasses -and if the shot is more than half full, it will probably take me all night to finish it.
So parties with pouring alcohol (sharing from a punch bowl or a bottle) are the most likely situ for me to drink in, because I can pour myself a minuscule quantity and enjoy the taste without the effects. (See again, Scots Pinewoods, which has a...weird drinking culture of "there are multiple parties throughout the day with alcohol but most people are drinking no more than a serving at a time and then doing lots of exercise and drinking tons of water and eating huge amounts and so despite literally all day long drinking, very few people are ever "drunk"")
Second most likely is at my parents house, because they will get it if I nurse a bottle of cider for six hours and then dump a third of it down the drain.
What this boils down to is, I probably drink a partial serving of alcohol (from a sip up) no more than 6-8 times a year, and a whole serving of alcohol (full bottle beer, shot glass of liquor) no more than...god...twice a year if that? And these numbers are trending _down_ as I get older. If I had to never drink alcohol again, my life would basically not change.
There are two significant things that helped give me my particular perspective:
The first is that I have been extremely lucky and grew up in a very alcohol responsible family. My dad will drink "a beer" at or after dinner, or sometimes "a wine" during dinner (and when we go out to sit-down restaurants, he's a sucker for "a froofy margarita with bright colours and a little umbrella"). But that's it. I have never seen my father drunk, and barely ever seen him tipsy. He likes an alcohol here and there, but he is definitely not an alcoholic, and most of his friends are the same way.
(He had one friend, when I was growing up, who would drink a lot and was generally a very fun drunk, and then one day he beat his girlfriend and that was the end of him being a part of my parents' friend group. The girlfriend remained one of my extended pile of adults1, the drunk has never been heard from since.)
Mom drinks significantly less than I do. Like, she has a nip bottle of Baileys that she enjoys at New Years and has been working on the same nip for 5+ years. She has been drunk once that I've ever heard of (parents and their friends on a Vegas trip when I was 11 or so) and she was honest and forthright about how much it sucked and how she didn't enjoy it.
Most of my extended family are similar to my da -a glass of wine at dinner, some but not all nights, or an occasional beer, or what have you. Again, I am very lucky! I was raised neither to believe that Alcohol Was The Immediate And Constant Devil Who Would Ruin Your Life Forever, nor that "it's totally normal to be constantly miserably puking drunk".
The second thing that has given me my perspective is the fact that I have almost no social anxiety.
I am not scared of public speaking. I do not fear karaoke. I am capable of friendly conversation with strangers. I don't bother sitting on the edges of a party if I can jump in and start chatting.
Part of this is because I have spent a lifetime honing myself into a creature who knows exactly who and what they are, and has no shame for it. I'll be the first to call myself weird, but I'm certainly not gonna let you try and make me feel bad for it, how rude! Some people don't like me, but it's usually the people I don't like back, and it's rare that I have to be at a party with only them. And honestly, I find humans to be broad and fascinating and lovely, and I like a lot of people I meet --and am very capable of faking it for the rest2.
And wow, I am not embarrassed by myself at all. I'm not embarrassed that I am quick to crack wise, that I am sharp-edged and sarcastic, that I can be extremely silly, that I always have a clever comment to make or a joke to riff on the situation. I try to be *mindful* of these things, and make sure that I am not dominating a conversation, and that I am being appropriate to the level of professionalism the situation demands, but I'm not embarrassed by myself at all.
And what that means is that I have never _ever_ needed alcohol as social lubricant. I do not need to drink to relax. I don't need to take the edge off --the edge has always been off! I don't know how I got lucky enough to be like this (I think "I was raised right" covers a lot of it, my mom is similar). I have many friends for whom that's not the case, and I don't judge them for it (jegus, why would I judge a friend for taking medication that helps them handle the world better?) but I simply do not have any "reason" to consume alcohol because the singular benefit for me is the taste and the burn.
My surety of self3 also means it is virtually impossible to actually pressure me into drinking. "It's weird you don't drink" says typical American society, and I respond "yep it sure is!" and continue sipping my Shirley Temple with triple cherries because I was super friendly to the bartender and now they like me. I have almost never had people try to pressure me past that, but it really doesn't go well for them.
This got hugely long, and I'm only a little sorry for that, but it is damn near definitive.
~Sor
1: I was raised by a village. Our house was The Place To Hang, mom loved having people around, and so I grew up surrounded by adults who treated me like a person (distinct from being treated like an adult).
2: I am not faking it for you, the person with mutual DW access reading this. I am certainly faking it for some of my Facebook mutuals, but if I am subscribed to your journal, it's because I genuinely like you and want to hear about your brain and life and everything. Like, I just doublechecked my subs list to make sure I could say that honest, and we're good.
3: "Has anyone ever told you you are amazingly self-assured?" "I tell myself that in the mirror every morning".
no subject
on 2020-07-17 12:40 pm (UTC)I suspect that I could quickly acquire that taste, but from an early I formed negative associations with drinking (despite my parents being similar to yours in that regard) and so my tastes in that regard are like a child's. :-)
no subject
on 2020-07-17 03:32 pm (UTC)So this grasshopper walks into a bar, right? Hops up on the barstool, waves over the bartender, the whole deal. The bartender looks at him and goes "Hey! I have a drink named after you!"
"You have a drink named STEVE?!"
***
(The rest of this comment is potentially TMI - cw: sex)
Regarding your comment on tolerance/acquired taste: I have said before that I view alcohol tolerance in much the same way as I view ease of sexual intercourse. Specifically, I am not very good at receiving penetrative sex (physically small, angles are cramped and hard, don't much like any of that kind of pain) and theoretically if I tried it more, I'd get better at it.
Which is the exact same problem with my low alcohol tolerance --if I drank more (and more often) my tolerance would go up and I'd be *able* to drink more.
But both of these options involve doing an unspecified amount of something I definitely find unpleasant, to eventually be able to do something I might? find pleasant. And in both cases, there is just such a *wealth* of related options that are already pleasant and lovely and enjoyable --fancy soda and shirley temples and smoothies that don't taste off on the one side, oral and fingering and kink and dry-humping on the other.
So fuck off, societal expectations. I'm doing just fine as is. ;)
~Sor
no subject
on 2020-07-17 09:37 pm (UTC)