Things I'm Looking Forward To Doing Now That I'm British: Number Nine

[nanila]

9. Maintaining an indifferent attitude toward the consumption of (unfeasibly large quantities of) alcohol. One of the things that always drove me nuts in the States is the mainstream view on booze. If you’re not teetotal or restrict yourself to drinking only the occasional glass of wine with a meal, many people will view you as a borderline alcoholic - or just plain alcoholic. I much prefer the more relaxed British attitude. I concede that it’s not without problems. Witness most town centres late on Friday or Saturday night after people have been out binging: not a pretty sight. Or the reaction to people who are in fact teetotal, which I’ve seen vary from gentle teasing to outright mocking so often that I breathe a sigh of relief when I’m with a group that takes an order for lemonade in its stride and without comment.

But I like that I could, back in pre-sprog days, go to the pub almost every day after work for a pint or two and no one would consider that unusual or problematic. I could even drink to excess - and occasionally still do - and no one would be considering an intervention. I like that I can take my students for a beer because it’s, y’know, legal for them to drink. I like that I can bring my child to the pub for a meal.

I look forward to being even less concerned about other people’s booze consumption levels than I already am.

Comments

[boundbooks]

I love this series of posts! It's like travelogue cultural blogging. :D

[nanila]

I started it expecting to do three, or maybe five, but it turns out this is a mental list I've been keeping for some time and it's gotten kinda long. :D

[telegramsam]

Hm, yea I never got that attitude. It's pretty endemic down here in the Buckle of the Bible Belt. It's not how I was raised though, the grownups always had wine with Sunday dinner and sometimes other dinners, and while my brother and I weren't given glasses of the stuff, we were allowed a sip of anything the grownups had and nobody really thought much about it.

I've had people accuse my parents of child abuse for mentioning that so I pretty much keep it to myself anymore.

[nanila]

I've seen friends here let their kids have small sips of booze, in public as well as in private. Also, they don't hide the fact that they're drinking alcohol, which I also feel helps promote a healthier attitude towards it.

I worry about mentioning certain things on Facebook because I suspect some of my American relatives and friends will not react well. For instance, if I'm off at a conference, I'll happily make a "drunk post", but if I'm at home...not so much.

[liseuse]

Hurrah for British drinking!

I used to get baffled (now I just laugh) at the tendency for concerned Americans in Harry Potter fandom to comment on stories with worried messages about the amount everyone was drinking. I once got a comment like that and had to politely respond with "well, I gave Pansy a mug of tea in this part when I really wanted to give her whisky" instead of just capslocking BOOZE at them.

[nanila]

YAY BOOZE.

I realised the other day that my daughter is going to grow up to be a whisky snob. And then I realised that I don't have a problem with that. :P

[sunflowerinrain]

I'm glad that not drinking alcohol is more tolerated in Britain now than it was. My mother upset the people next door because she would share a soft drink with them at Christmas, but refused booze: they took it as an insult. Now, people rarely bother about one's choice to drink or not to drink, and lots of drinkers sometimes choose orange juice even at times when they aren't driving. I think the old customs have faded away. I wish the new custom of getting blatted to the point they can't remember the evening would fade out too.

Oddly, there's no problem with being teetotal here among the vineyards - some of my French neighbours don't drink; and some drink lots. They're very relaxed about it. The police aren't, though, if you're caught driving with alcohol in your blood.

[nanila]

I wish the new custom of getting blatted to the point they can't remember the evening would fade out too.

Yeah, I'm not too keen on that one either. Although I guess it's possible that pretty soon none of us will be able to afford it.

The attitude towards drunken driving in the UK is a lot stricter than it is in the US. The laws are basically the same, but you'll run across a fair few Americans who regularly drive when they're over the limit, mostly because there's so little in the way of alternative transport late at night. That goes for cities as well as rural communities.

[marahmarie]

In the US it's just hypocrisy and public intoxication laws (it's illegal to stagger around drunkenly in public around here unless your fully documented, pre-existing medical condition requires such staggering - which does happen) that makes the difference. I think almost everyone in this country drinks, many drink to excess, and most have little shame about it, but the law-happy pseudo-Christian-values culture we have here keeps the effects of that under wraps almost every day of the year except New Year's Eve, when suddenly the whole entire country decides it's OK for all of us to stagger around drunkenly in public because New Year's Eve. It's so bad that during that one night we actually expect DUIs to go up, DUI wrecks and death tolls to spiral out of control, and are warned not to drive in order to avoid getting killed by others who drank to excess. I just do not get how my own country rationalizes drinking or not drinking on any day of the year.

There is so much hypocrisy and shaming and clearly irrational thinking on what's OK and what's not and when its OK and when it isn't that I could sit around and write books on what a sham fraud it is to be on either side of that line in this country. Which would still get no one any closer to understanding it.