Why does alcohol play such an important part in the lives of so many adults? I’m not sure what it is about that question, but it seems like when I ask it, people either joke around, or get really angry and defensive. I think the latter is because those people seem to think that I’m judging their activity, but that’s not it at all.

I’m not a teetotaler, and I certainly have no right to tell anyone how they choose to live their life, but I’ve been tasked with organizing my share of events and for reasons unknown to me, if there’s no alcohol involved, attendance is drastically lower. It’s almost as if people don’t know how to have a good time without drinking.

I didn’t grow up with drinking in my house and I was never one of the “cool kids” who was invited to a lot of parties, so my exposure to drinking was minimal. It was never demonized, but it also just wasn’t a part of my life. Yes, on occasion when I go out I will have a drink or two, but I’ve never been drunk, nor do I ever want to be. I’ve seen what it does to people and it’s something I just don’t want in my life. Again, if and when this comes up, people either don’t believe me, think I am trying to preach total abstinence, or that somehow I am judging them, even though I never made one comment about their actions.

Certainly I understand what alcohol does to the body and how it can affect someone’s disposition, so I understand why people drink. After all, it’s not inexpensive and it’s certainly not going to rehydrate you, but I just can’t wrap my head around why some people seem to need it. It really struck me how important to me it can be to some people when a friend of mine was trying to decide on a camp ground for a vacation and the other people she was going to be going with refused to go to a facility where alcohol was not allowed.

Maybe it’s a cultural thing that I am missing. It can’t be that everyone is an alcoholic, because they don’t seem addicted to booze, but when they choose to not do something just because they can’t drink, to me it says that they care more about alcohol than the event itself. Even now I don’t drink at home. I’ll have at most a few drinks a month when I am out, but even that’s just to fit in with what everyone else is doing. (Actually, when I look at it, that’s pretty terrible. Why am I doing something I don’t really want to just so other people will accept me?) I don’t need a drink to have a good time, so I don’t see why anyone else, and seemingly everyone else, does. I just don’t get it.