EtOH

One of the things that even my closest friends overwhelmingly dislike about me is my almost complete aversion to alcohol. Paired with a nearly-perfect obliviousness to all forms of peer pressure, this can be distressing for more active devotees.

I wasn’t always like that. I gave the sauce a pretty fair chance, all told. In fact, though it’s currently all but unheard of for me to bother, my favorite drink is a dry, dirty gin martini. Not exactly a Shirley Temple.

Here’s the thing though. I don’t see what all the fuss is about. I enjoy the martini because it has a somewhat interesting feel in my mouth and it has a pleasant “salty olive” taste to it. I can spend unexpectedly long periods of time pooling sips of that drink in my tongue and inhaling over it, trying to get used to the odd sensation that comes with the solvation of my lungs. (If you were skeptical of my claim of being oblivious to peer pressure, let’s just say that I have spent hours not seeing anything that made me want to stop “breathing” my martini in the middle of crowded parties.)

That said, I also have more than enough knowledge of chemistry and cellular biology to explain how getting drunk works. Oh, and I know that alcohol, ethanol, EtOH are the same thing. Excepting that “alcohol” means a beverage, “ethanol” means a fuel additive, and “EtOH” refers to a cleaning solvent (as they are most commonly used).

Let’s call the debate of “to drink, or not to drink” a tie so far, just to prolong discussion.

To explain why I stopped drinking, given all that, we have to turn to my personal experience. Before we get into details of that, I’ll tell a story from college.

At college, I had a few friends who secretly felt that I did not spend nearly enough time in severely altered states. I had a good friend who thought that cough syrup made for an excellent high, until one night he vomited up a large quantity of Robitussin on his white sneakers and dyed them pink. Nobody likes pink sneakers, unless you have to choose between them and practical-minded engineer-types.

Anyway, this friend and another friend of his decided to find out what I would be like roaring drunk, so they decided to make it happen. They knew that I would be unlikely to go along with this goal as written, so they decided not to give me a vote in the matter.

The close friend dabbled in pottery and because of this had a large selection of opaque, very-oddly shaped drinking glasses around. The capacity of such a glass, on average, was about two cans of soda. But because of shape issues, you would tend to guess that it was the size of one can, at best. Anyway, the two of them sat me down with a glass full of ice in my hand, poured me an amaretto on the rocks, and got me telling a story in which I had strong, amusing opinions. The point was basically to keep me distracted as they continually refreshed my drink when I wasn’t paying attention. Their plan half worked. I thought I had about a half glass of the stuff when in reality I was pushing half a bottle in half an hour.

But I said the plan half worked. After half an hour, the friend asked me if I was feeling ok. I said that I was fine and asked why. I was told that with all the sneaking me drinks, the two friends had become unaware of the amount of liquor they were slipping me until one of them remembered that the bottle had started out full and I was the only one drinking it. After thinking about that, they decided to cut me off.

I was mildly concerned, but had actually not noticed anything unusual. I felt fine, but slightly warm. The larger group was getting ready to leave to go out, and I went along. On the sidewalk, we ran into a guy who was then in charge of the Residence Hall Association, in which I was then a President. The guy wanted to have a long serious conversation with me right then and there on the sidewalk. I told my drunken friends to go on without me, because I was somewhat concerned about them making an intoxicated scene if I kept them waiting. It occurred to me that I was the drunkest person in the crowd according to the sheer math of it, but decided I was already caught in the trap and would just have to see how it went.

Twenty minutes later, he left and I rushed off to catch up with my friends. The conversation with him had gone about the same as any conversation I ever had with the man, and he clearly had not noticed anything unusual. I say this because 1) the man was the biggest power-hungry NARC I have ever met, 2) he took delight in busting anyone for anything, esp. drinking/drug use irregularities – a skill he was very good at, 3) he hated me personally and professionally for disagreeing not only with his policies but also with his methods, 4) he had voiced a desire to uncover anything suspicious in me to several of my friends “in confidence,” and 5) I noticed with some surprise that despite the amount I had had to drink, the only change in my outlook seemed to be that I felt a little warm.

I never got any “drunker.” On certain rare occasions, I have had to consciously “correct” my balance when walking. The thing of it is, I always succeed and no one ever notices a change. I used to routinely have two strong-version long island iced teas in a bar, leave, and then run into random friends who (on the way home) would accuse me of being cold sober. Similarly, the only change in my behavior as I get more drunk is a growing fascination with correcting that development. I start to drink massive volumes of alcohol-free liquids. This, paired with the fact that just using mouthwash is enough alcohol exposure to make me have to pee incessantly means that I then just spend the rest of my evening in the restroom. Logically, there is a point at which I would lose my ability to keep full (or any) control. But 1) I have no interest in getting there on any level and 2) if I did, I’d have instinctively hidden myself away somewhere to deal with it as a problem I needed to fix.

None of that makes for me being more interesting at parties. In fact, it makes me look like an anti-social loser with bladder control issues. Further, drinking has always resulted in me having significantly less fun if I notice anything at all.

Many people hear this and reply, “That just means you haven’t had enough to drink!” But here’s the thing. I have provided here the well-established trends describing how I respond to alcohol. I am not bashful about sharing those trends, even though I am aware they are extremely atypical. Even so, faced with those facts, even reasonable people will reflexively spout the above conclusion. No, really, consider the facts again. Your conclusion is not implied. I have more respect for the conclusion of, “Maybe you just need to relax/let go.” However, that’s the sort of comment that comes from people who don’t know me very well. When you get right down to it, there’s not much left in life that I didn’t start laughing about from all perspectives a very long time ago.

In a nutshell, after years of pondering all that, I have arrived at the point where when someone says, “You need a drink!” I reply with, “Why?” It’s a friendly “Why?” until I’m ignored as I prove that I know perfectly well that drinking would make me less happy and interesting for the fourth time.

I know drinking is a major social convention (here). And I know that a great majority of people enjoy it (here). But given that I don’t, why on Earth would I want to?