I can take comfort from drinking a substance that I have drank my entire life. A substance that warms me but doesn’t change me. I may gain serenity, but I don’t gain the short-term escape that I would have gained with alcohol. I also don’t gain the sad glances from family; I don’t gain a horrific hangover and crippling anxiety and paranoia; I don’t need to keep an eye on what everyone else is drinking to see if I should slow down. I don’t wake up at stupid o’clock (well I might but that is just my age and luckily, we have an ensuite) worrying that I drank too much tea and did the tea make me text anyone, did I say anything, do anything? You see Tea doesn’t change my brain in the way alcohol does. So why did we move on from offering non- mood-changing drinks to alcoholic drinks? Is it down to cost? It used to be very expensive to drink wine at home or in the pub. Is it the media? Is it that big alcohol has done an amazing job of convincing us that alcohol will serve us better? I fear it may be. The Mummy wine culture drives me mad. and it’s everywhere. It’s not a new thing, around 18 years ago I joined a Mums group online and our logo was a martini glass with alcohol, an olive, and a baby’s dummy. I remember sharing memes about fridges that pump out wine not water. It’s been ‘cool’ and ‘funny’ for a long while. The fact that we drank wine when we got together, and not ‘boring’ tea or coffee was celebrated. Did we see ourselves as rebels? Possibly, we may be Mothers now, but we were still a bit wild. I was around for the ladette culture in the nineties, we had switched our beers for wine, but hey I was still rock and roll. E xcept I wasn’t. Consuming alcohol is celebrated. And if you get into trouble and get addicted to it? Well, that’s your fault because we asked you to ‘ drink responsibly' . Heck, we even wrote it on the bottles! Not to worry though, that’s just the irresponsible drinkers, you won’t become one of them (until you do). When did it become the norm to purchase alcohol for play dates or kids’ birthday parties? The adults couldn’t possibly attend these events without alcohol, could they? After all, the parents should have fun too. Which leaves me to ponder the question, why did we think having
alcohol at these events was the only way to have fun? Were we so conditioned that we no longer could do anything without our social prop? Were we so boring that we couldn’t hold a conversation without being bolstered first by alcohol? The annual carnival where I live has had to bring in an alcohol ban and hire security each year to stop the adults from getting drunk and ruining it for the children. I remember the first year that I attended, I was horrified (and I still drank at the time) at the parents in the children’s playpark drinking wine out of bottles while the children played. Years later, when the ban was implemented, I heard one of those parents complain that they wouldn’t attend if they couldn’t drink alcohol there anymore. This was supposed to be a community event for the children. And because some of the adults could no longer consume alcohol on site, their children could no longer attend. The same event now has half the number of spectators that it used to. It’s sad. I really do hope that with all the sober groups popping up, the ranges of alcohol-free drinks available, the education, and movements like Hola Sober and others, we can go back to being offered non-alcohol beverages when we attend events/friends’ houses. That we can all learn to communicate completely sober. Of course, I am not saying that everyone should abstain from alcohol. I would just love a world that doesn’t revolve around it. It's ridiculous how much tea I drink since getting sober (and how much I must spend on teeth bleaching kits because of it ;)) but I wouldn’t change it for the world. I love the fact that my youngest jokes about how much tea I drink and not wine as it used to be. I love the fact that instead of being excited after a night out to come home and drink more alcohol when no one is watching, I now look forward to my tea and chocolate. Does that make me boring? I don’t know and quite frankly don’t care. When I was drinking, I prayed for a boring life, so perhaps this is my gift. Either way, Tea isn’t ruining my life in any way shape, or form. So, I’ll take that.
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