At a recent dinner party, I asked a bartender for a spirits-free drink: “Sparkling water, no ice, lime, please.” It threw the fellow for a loop. “The pinot noir is excellent,” he almost whispered, trying to persuade me to take a glass.
Throughout the evening, the bartender, who had morphed into a server, repeatedly tried to put a glass of wine in my hand. “No, thank you,” I said, repeatedly, but to little effect.
I could have made up an explanation: I’m allergic to sulfites, or I’m taking an antibiotic that requires I just say no to alcohol, or I’m in Alcoholics Anonymous. Truth is, I had a different reason – one not so good for party talk: I was suffering from depression, a diagnosis I didn’t want to share with my server.
I thought drinking might be worsening my mental health, so I just simply and quietly stopped about 30 months ago.
Little did I know that the hardest part of that prescription would be its impact on my social life. Social drinkers around me were clearly uncomfortable having a “mocktailer” in their midst, almost as if I was passing judgement on them.
I found myself in a strange place, a zone between drinking friends and sober ones. I made no grand pronouncements, and I followed the rules of good etiquette. I declined with a simple “No, thank you” and refrained from ostentatiously turning over my wine glass at the table. That would be rude.
As my trial month turned into a year, the social pressure continued.
One evening at a workplace get-together, I was offered a cocktail; before I could say “Perrier, please!” I heard a colleague call out to the entire room: “Steven doesn’t drink anymore.” Although my work pal didn’t say why, eyebrows went sky high.
It wasn’t that I was ashamed of my sober status, but I did feel exposed. This fellow’s public outing felt like an unwelcome violation of my privacy, but it was his teasing and vaguely accusatory tone that gave me the most pause. Why, I wondered, would a sober Steven be threatening to others?
Kenny Levine, a clinical social worker in Durham, North Carolina, who specialises in alcohol and drug abuse, told me that my colleague’s reaction was common: others fear that a non-drinker will disrupt the camaraderie at the table.
“Just as often,” he added, “your sobriety might make your friends question whether they, too, have a problem with drinking that they ought to be attending to.”
I’m satisfied I made the right choice. I lost 2kg of belly fat, I sleep better and I wake up with more energy. Those were my personal prizes.
But my decision had side effects, too: after a year without red wine, my HDL cholesterol (that’s the good one) had dropped precipitously. In the evenings I found myself regularly eating a scoop of ice cream, to mitigate the loss of the sugar found in wine, I think, and my blood sugar started to creep up into the pre-diabetic range.
Recently, I’ve learnt some tricks to help me avoid unnecessary attention.
If I’m going to someone’s home, I’ll tell the hosts ahead of time that I’m not drinking. And when I encounter an insistent person I’ll be a bit more strident, saying something like “No, thanks. Alcohol doesn’t agree with me.” Or “I’m the designated driver.”
How do I feel two-and-a-half years later? My depression is better, and my friends now stock up on sparkling water, offering a variety of flavours. They’re better at respecting my choices and my privacy. Practice makes progress. I’ll drink to that.