This is an article I've just read from the Observer website and I thought I'd copy it here for other's to read.
My name is Ruth and I have a drink problem; the problem is that I don't drink. Strictly speaking, it isn't my problem. I'm happy to be a non-drinker, apart from the reactions it provokes in some other people.
My husband, family and close friends are used to it now, but it can be embarrassing with people I know less well. Even now, when a slew of reports suggests women are drinking more than they should. One of the tell-tale signs someone is an alcoholic is that they are evasive about their drinking - and so am I. At a business lunch with a new contact who is eagerly eyeing the claret, I wouldn't dream of admitting I don't drink; instead, I'll make a vague remark about having a lot to do later or accept a glass and leave it untouched, a trick I've used many times and never, to my knowledge, been found out.
I would never just come out and say: 'Actually, I don't drink' without first making a quick assessment of how likely my new acquaintance is to write me off there and then.
Not that I would entirely blame them. Teetotallers are not an appealing bunch; you certainly wouldn't want to be gathered round the non-alcoholic punchbowl with Osama bin Laden, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, and while Adolf Hitler shunned the schnapps, Churchill was saving the free world helped by copious quantities of whisky and champagne.
Positive role models are thin on the ground. We've got Jonny Wilkinson, whose kick is powered by nothing stronger than soft drinks, and Tony Benn, who drinks tea, hourly, by the pint. There is Nicolas Sarkozy, who is said to be a non-drinker, which would mean that - impressively - he must have got up the nerve to seduce Carla Bruni with the aid of Evian alone.
I'm not a lifelong teetotaller; until four years ago, I knocked back the pinot grigio with the best of them. I didn't set out to be an abstainer; sobriety just crept up on me.
One reason people hate teetotallers is they suspect them of being proselytisers. In fact, it's the other way round. I've no desire to lecture anyone or to try to stop them drinking, but there is plenty of pull in the opposite direction. A love of alcohol as a relaxant, a social lubricant and a disinhibitor is one of the few things that unites our class-ridden nation. Choosing not to join in is unsettling, almost subversive, to that social consensus.
The drinking culture is deeply embedded and I'm conscious that for me, it's relatively easy to opt out, because I'm old enough and settled enough not to be subjected to serious peer pressure. I wasn't an alcoholic, so I didn't find it physically or mentally hard to stop and, most important, I'm married: I could never, ever get off with anyone stone-cold sober.
If I were single, a life without drinking would be unimaginable and that's down to the double standards around women and alcohol. With all due respect to the energetic M Sarkozy, the big problem with being teetotal is that it is so utterly unsexy. A man who doesn't drink is somehow not quite a real man; there is an aura of ruined glamour about alcoholics such as George Best that will always elude a sobersides. It's even worse for women. Female alcoholics are more likely to be viewed with distaste than with desire. But a woman who doesn't drink will never be seen as a siren: headmistressy, yes, irresistible, probably not. Apart from anything else, it must be daunting for a man to try to hit on someone who is definitely not about to lose her inhibitions or her judgment.
If I had been born a generation or two earlier, none of this would have been an issue, because many women were like me. My maternal grandmother never let a drop pass her lips after one unfortunate incident at Christmas with a sherry bottle, while my mother imbibes only the infrequent thimbleful. Abstinence was the norm for women in their world, whereas in mine, it is verging on the deviant.
One thing I do notice, in my sober state, is that younger women are being vilified for their allegedly heavy drinking. Charlotte Church, Sarah Harding and others are subjected to cruel and judgmental stories in the tabloids, even though they are doing no more than thousands of high-spirited girls of the same age, most of whom will eventually slide into a calmer lifestyle.
Scare stories about the health damage being suffered by the 'Bridget Jones' brigade of thirtysomething women appear almost weekly. The statistics on hepatitis and liver failure are alarming, but how many of these stories are motivated by a genuine concern for their health and how much by a chauvinist desire to stamp on women having a good time is anyone's guess.
Abuse by women certainly seems to attract more column inches than that by men. We have a deeply ambivalent attitude in this country towards women and alcohol. Drink to excess and you're a bit of a slapper; drink only a bit or not at all and you're a prude or a bore. Sober or drunk, a girl just can't win.
Britons of both genders have a peculiarly self-punishing attitude towards alcohol; we don't tend to drink moderately in pleasant surroundings, we binge all night in pubs or clubs. We just should be able to enjoy a drink - or not - without it being such a big deal. It's time to get over it.
My name is Ruth and I have a drink problem; the problem is that I don't drink. Strictly speaking, it isn't my problem. I'm happy to be a non-drinker, apart from the reactions it provokes in some other people.
My husband, family and close friends are used to it now, but it can be embarrassing with people I know less well. Even now, when a slew of reports suggests women are drinking more than they should. One of the tell-tale signs someone is an alcoholic is that they are evasive about their drinking - and so am I. At a business lunch with a new contact who is eagerly eyeing the claret, I wouldn't dream of admitting I don't drink; instead, I'll make a vague remark about having a lot to do later or accept a glass and leave it untouched, a trick I've used many times and never, to my knowledge, been found out.
I would never just come out and say: 'Actually, I don't drink' without first making a quick assessment of how likely my new acquaintance is to write me off there and then.
Not that I would entirely blame them. Teetotallers are not an appealing bunch; you certainly wouldn't want to be gathered round the non-alcoholic punchbowl with Osama bin Laden, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, and while Adolf Hitler shunned the schnapps, Churchill was saving the free world helped by copious quantities of whisky and champagne.
Positive role models are thin on the ground. We've got Jonny Wilkinson, whose kick is powered by nothing stronger than soft drinks, and Tony Benn, who drinks tea, hourly, by the pint. There is Nicolas Sarkozy, who is said to be a non-drinker, which would mean that - impressively - he must have got up the nerve to seduce Carla Bruni with the aid of Evian alone.
I'm not a lifelong teetotaller; until four years ago, I knocked back the pinot grigio with the best of them. I didn't set out to be an abstainer; sobriety just crept up on me.
One reason people hate teetotallers is they suspect them of being proselytisers. In fact, it's the other way round. I've no desire to lecture anyone or to try to stop them drinking, but there is plenty of pull in the opposite direction. A love of alcohol as a relaxant, a social lubricant and a disinhibitor is one of the few things that unites our class-ridden nation. Choosing not to join in is unsettling, almost subversive, to that social consensus.
The drinking culture is deeply embedded and I'm conscious that for me, it's relatively easy to opt out, because I'm old enough and settled enough not to be subjected to serious peer pressure. I wasn't an alcoholic, so I didn't find it physically or mentally hard to stop and, most important, I'm married: I could never, ever get off with anyone stone-cold sober.
If I were single, a life without drinking would be unimaginable and that's down to the double standards around women and alcohol. With all due respect to the energetic M Sarkozy, the big problem with being teetotal is that it is so utterly unsexy. A man who doesn't drink is somehow not quite a real man; there is an aura of ruined glamour about alcoholics such as George Best that will always elude a sobersides. It's even worse for women. Female alcoholics are more likely to be viewed with distaste than with desire. But a woman who doesn't drink will never be seen as a siren: headmistressy, yes, irresistible, probably not. Apart from anything else, it must be daunting for a man to try to hit on someone who is definitely not about to lose her inhibitions or her judgment.
If I had been born a generation or two earlier, none of this would have been an issue, because many women were like me. My maternal grandmother never let a drop pass her lips after one unfortunate incident at Christmas with a sherry bottle, while my mother imbibes only the infrequent thimbleful. Abstinence was the norm for women in their world, whereas in mine, it is verging on the deviant.
One thing I do notice, in my sober state, is that younger women are being vilified for their allegedly heavy drinking. Charlotte Church, Sarah Harding and others are subjected to cruel and judgmental stories in the tabloids, even though they are doing no more than thousands of high-spirited girls of the same age, most of whom will eventually slide into a calmer lifestyle.
Scare stories about the health damage being suffered by the 'Bridget Jones' brigade of thirtysomething women appear almost weekly. The statistics on hepatitis and liver failure are alarming, but how many of these stories are motivated by a genuine concern for their health and how much by a chauvinist desire to stamp on women having a good time is anyone's guess.
Abuse by women certainly seems to attract more column inches than that by men. We have a deeply ambivalent attitude in this country towards women and alcohol. Drink to excess and you're a bit of a slapper; drink only a bit or not at all and you're a prude or a bore. Sober or drunk, a girl just can't win.
Britons of both genders have a peculiarly self-punishing attitude towards alcohol; we don't tend to drink moderately in pleasant surroundings, we binge all night in pubs or clubs. We just should be able to enjoy a drink - or not - without it being such a big deal. It's time to get over it.
c: :heart:
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