<p>Urging alcohol or sermonizing about alcohol among adults seems inappropriate to me and has been something I have not been subjected to a lot. Similarly, pushing dessert on folks or sermonizing about eating dessert or too many sweets or too many calories is inappropriate and rarely happens in the settings I frequent. My BIL rarely ever eats desserts and my extended family has many members who rarely ever drink anything alcoholic as well as others who enjoy a drink or two. Both are completely accepted and unremarked upon.</p>
<p>I don’t eat dessert, and my family and friends wouldn’t offer me any. When I am out with some people, I notice they don’t like to order/eat dessert if I wasn’t having any, so I would usually tell them to order something and I would have an extra spoon, otherwise they may not order a dessert and be kind of grumpy. It is not hard for me to tell when I know I should have some dessert (usually few spoonfuls).</p>
<p>When I am out with a group of people, if bottles of wine are ordered, most people will have some even if they normally didn’t drink. They would just slowly take few sips to just to be social. I guess it is similar to what I do about dessert.</p>
<p>The teetotalers I know face a new challenge these days: My friends who are all into the artisanal cocktails make sure to have a concoction on hand for the folks who don’t drink. It usually involves some sort of non-alcoholic bitters and maybe some questionable herbal infusion. They present it with a flourish to the one or two non-drinkers in our group, saying, “Oh, I know you don’t drink so I developed this cocktail especially for you!” It’s REALLY hard to turn that one down. </p>
<p>I’d be so flattered I would’ve forgotten that I don’t care for concoctions and drink it anyways!</p>
<p>^ I miss my cocktails, too, now that I can’t drink. Loved a good, spicy bloody or vodka with cranberry juice and for a while my son got us into drinking frozen whiskey sours. He’s become an excellent bartender - so if he can’t find a job after graduating at least he has a fallback. </p>
<p>My H just brought home two bottles of homemade wine one his guys at work gave him. I may have to take a wee sip to see if it’s any good. </p>
<p>Surprised that no one has mentioned the assumptions that are sometimes made when a woman in her twenties or thirties suddenly starts declining a glass of wine at book club or something when she normally indulges . . . . This was always an obvious early “tell” for the women in my social circle . . . . “Congratulations!!” is not an appropriate response when someone declines a glass of wine, but it always felt a little weird to say nothing! </p>
<p>^ Not only did I noticed when my cousin’s daughter didn’t have anything to drink at the luncheon after her grandmother’s funeral, but pretty much everyone did. Same with my niece at another funeral the next year. None of us said a thing until after they announced it a few months later. Then we told them that we all knew.
And yes, alcohol is always served at our after funeral luncheons. </p>
<p>I have heard people advising women on the academic job market to always accept a glass of wine for precisely that reason. Seems a little silly and paranoid to me, but who knows.</p>
<p>What? Lol</p>
<p>Actually, there is some sad truth to that. One of my former bosses (a major a-hole!) was talking about doing the alcohol test on the female candidates he interviewed (if he was the one taking them to dinner).</p>
<p>Ugh, he sounds like a jerk. </p>
<p>I hope the EEOC doesn’t get hold of that as a new protected class!</p>
<p>I rarely drink in business setting. I can’t drive afterwards. So forget the test.
It’s bad enough that I drive like a grandma without alcohol, with alcohol it will be worst.</p>
<p>I admit, I haven’t read all 13 pages here. Alcohol really exacerbate’s my Crohn’s Disease and while I miss an occasionall glass of wine or strawberry margarita or Bailey’s on the rocks, it’s not that big a deal. I find people’s reactions to my inability to drink pretty interesting though. Some act as though my life must be miserable because I cannot drink. I wasn’t a huge drinker before the Crohn’s so while occasionally I think “It would be nice to have a glass of wine”, I don’t miss it much. </p>
<p>I’m like pizzagirl – I don’t drink, for no particular reason, and I never have. But somehow, I have to explain myself. We had a large group of friends here for the weekend, and two couples brought us wine, which I thanked them for and put in the frig. Later, they asked to open it, so I pulled out an array of fancy glasses, asked them to tell me what were the right ones, and we proceeded to hunt down a corkscrew (pocket knife!) </p>
<p>I didn’t mind until the group was clearly amused that I “hadn’t become a grown up yet”…I’ve never had beer, had one gin and tonic, had champagne a few times and liked none of it. I drink sparkling water so I can hold a glass and avoid the annoyance of Look! She’s Not Drinking!! When I was younger, people always assumed I was pregnant, good grief. Now I have to have An Opinion. Why those who drink need my approval, I’ll never know.</p>
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<p>The reasons might be varied, but I would wager that those who are comfortable with their drinking don’t need your approval of it, and those who aren’t, well, you know …</p>
<p>My BIL comes from a family w a lot of alcohol problems - though “genteel” if you know what I mean. He is very aware that he could easily have a problem, so he’s asked my sister to maintain an alcohol free house, which is nbd for her - her drinking is the occasional glass of wine when out w girlfriends. My family of origin aren’t big drinkers either so it’s nbd for any of us either. However, his family made a stink that they didn’t plan on serving alcohol at things like my niece’s christening, First Communion party, etc because a party isn’t a party without alcohol. I do think people who think that way more often than not tend to have problems w alcohol. </p>
<p>I have good friends who chose not to have alcohol at their son’s graduation open house because they didn’t want to worry about policing the high school kids/new grads at the party. The husband in this family makes his own beers and wines so it isn’t that they are teetotalers themselves, they just chose not to have at this one party. They had friends who made a stink about it. I agree that people who think that way most likely have problems with alcohol. </p>
<p>I was listening to Vinnie Politan once on HLN in my car. He is a former prosecutor and does a lot of the true crime analysis. One day he said that he had never had a drink, not even a taste of alcohol his entire life. You would not believe the grief he took for that. Callers accusing him of lying, people questioning his character, etc. I was amazed. Granted, people like him are not all that common these days, but they do exist! He basically said he didn’t drink simply because he just didn’t want to and never had even been tempted to try it. </p>
<p>We didn’t serve alcohol at our daughters’ high school graduation parties for friends and families. It never occurred to us to do so - high school being the key word here. We’ve also been to a number of high school graduation parties - no alcohol. Maybe it’s not a thing around here.</p>