What decades of alcohol avoidance has taught me about moral consumption.
Moral consumption - the moral value we place on what we eat and what we drink leads to shame, guilt and over consumption. Darker forces are at play than our lack of willpower...
Whisper it quietly, I don’t drink alcohol. It’s a difficult thing to discuss. When I meet new people and I shun a glass of shiraz or pass on the prosecco, I am inevitably met with the same responses when I reveal my absenteeism. Some go quiet. I can see what they are thinking ‘Does she have a problem with alcohol?’ Believe me, I have 99 problems, but fortunately alcohol is not one of them.
Others respond by downplaying their own alcohol consumption, as if I am standing in judgement, mentally totting up their weekly units. I am not. You do you. I am quite in awe of anyone’s ability to knock back a bottle and a half of ‘house rough’ and still get up and go to work in the morning.
The most common response is unwarranted and unearned praise. ‘That’s amazing’, ‘I could never do that’, ‘wow, good for you’. Save your praise, I am not worthy of it. I am not built to drink. My abstention is a relief not a moral accomplishment.
I would climb over dead bodies for the last piece of chocolate cake but a glass of wine or a gin and tonic – just not my thing. I did drink until the age of 23 when I moved to London, nearly 30 years ago. New to this amazing city and the life I was creating with Mr Mack, I started to feel alcohol, or rather the increasing excruciating hangovers, were stealing my precious time.
Work all week, drink at the weekend, sleep, repeat. I came from a very small, dull industrial town and now a big girl in the big city, with my own home to curate and an exciting life to live I couldn’t find a place for alcohol. It is disingenuous to say, ‘I quit’. I didn’t. It just stopped being a feature and slowly my consumption dried up. I didn’t miss it. A chilled glass of wine on a summer’s evening I could forgo for a gelato topped with raspberry coulis. Both delicious to the right people.
It was easy for me. I don’t come from a family of drinkers. My dad hardly ever drank, despite coming from a family of ‘professional drinkers’ (my uncles had their own bar stools at our local pub). My mum was no drinker either, despite living from the age of 16 with my aunty and uncle in a pub. ‘Don’t get high on your own supply’, was the message and she was happy to finish her bar shift with a cup of tea and a sandwich. She was last drunk at the Queen’s Jubilee. In the 1970s. She will tell you all about it in great detail if you ask. She has never forgotten the hangover.
Please, don’t think that my past (virtually dry) 30 years are testament to my willpower, my strong internal moral compass and my determination to honour my mind and body. I really believe that I just don’t have the genes to drink. We all get hangovers but the hangovers that my mum and I have experienced have been something else and have acted as accidental aversion therapy.
Alcohol affects us badly, particularly as we have aged. Half a glass of wine can send me to sleep. A ‘Baileys’ before bedtime can floor me for two days (I tried at Christmas, tiny glass, lots of ice, ill for days, never again). My mum can no longer be in a room of drinkers before her head starts thumping, despite not touching a drop. There is no high for us, just a banging headache, lethargy and hunger pangs. I could push through it in the heady days of my early twenties, but it was no sacrifice to leave the booze behind.
So why am I writing this? Is this just a humble brag about my alcohol-free lifestyle? Hell no. I don’t drink because I don’t like it, its not been part of my upbringing, it doesn’t give me a ‘high’, my body and my biology can’t cope with it. I avoid the cataclysmic hangovers and save the calories for pastry laden breakfasts instead. Please don’t think my absenteeism is ‘amazing’ or ‘admirable’. I don’t deserve that, and it leads me down a slippery moral slope.
I have other moral ‘failings’ to beat myself up about. I just got lucky drink is not one of them. I have often thought that I would like to be like my aunty, Margaret. Margaret does not have a ‘sweet tooth’ and never eats dessert. Anyone who knows me knows; dessert is the most important part of the meal. Dinner with Margaret is always fun as she drinks my wine (she loves a drink) and I eat her share of dessert. Win/win.
Perhaps though Margaret has sometimes thought that she would like to be like me? Perhaps she berates herself for enjoying a glass of wine and admires my ‘willpower’ to resist a cheeky Merlot, the way I admire her ‘willpower’ to pass on the profiteroles. This is not about willpower or moral superiority. I am not morally superior because I have a low tolerance to alcohol. Margaret is not morally superior because she is happily sugar free. Other forces are at play.
Deeper and darker forces that have disembodied us from ourselves and seek to profit from the lie that we are all the same and therefore can all behave and be treated the same. Our biological and genetic drives towards alcohol, drugs, food and so many aspects of our behaviour are not identical. It follows that treatment of behaviour related conditions should not be identical either but should be individualised, person-centred and holistic.
So many other non-biological factors are at play too. The food industry, our environment, our experiences, our upbringing, our education and income to name a few. They all play a huge part in what we consume and its effect on our mental and physical health. Its challenging, multifactorial and weaves a complex tapestry that is well worthy of further investigation.
Big pharma, corporate names and political institutions combine to offer a profitable and quick ‘one size, fits all’ solution. This approach has contributed to so many of us feeling ashamed, incapable and too weak willed to achieve the morality of balanced consumption and acceptable health metrics. Where there is blame, there is a claim to a cure, often a costly and mass produced one. Solutions that lacks understanding, nuance and sensitivity, providing weak results that lead to self blame and recriminations.
So, I whisper it quietly. I find it difficult to tell people that I don’t drink alcohol and be afforded undeserved moral praise for my, easily achieved, alcohol absenteeism. I fear it follows that I will be severely judged for my inability to pass on the puddings and shrink my troublesome waistline.
I am writing for the chance for us all to be able to treat ourselves and each other without judgement, but with knowledge and understanding. I am writing to call for the institutions that govern us and provide care for us to do the same. That bit I will not whisper quietly. For that I will use the full force of my writer’s voice.
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