Editorials

#YEAR13PROBLEMS

8 January 2018

By Lauren E. White

Being teetotal

It’s Dry January, but I’m not sure how many people in Year 13 are participating in 31 alcohol-free days. I’m guessing none of them. But what about Dry Life? A whole lifetime of no alcohol. To some, it sounds ludicrous. To me, it’s a life choice.

Being teetotal (not drinking alcohol) is not really a Year 13 problem so to speak. It’s not even a problem until someone makes it out to be one. Which people do, more often than you think.

I am grateful that most people around me accept the fact I don’t drink alcohol and don’t try to force it upon me, but do get irritated by the people who constantly question my way of life and try to convince me out of it.

I get plenty of funny looks for not consuming the world’s most dangerous drug (which is not why I don’t drink, by the way) and I get plenty of comments on it too. People often offer me their drinks, very kindly, and I politely decline. That’s okay and I appreciate you caring. But when you keep offering repeatedly and keep asking if I want one and keep trying to get me to taste this wine or this vodka or this gin, it’s beyond a joke. And it is unnecessary.

The way I see it is as though people keep offering a vegetarian some pork. Or beef. Or chicken. Then they keep asking why they don’t eat meat, it’s just a bit of fun, why are you so serious about it? But that rarely happens to veggies. People accept it as a different choice to their own, which is right, but when it comes to me and alcohol, some people refuse to accept that, like a vegetarian, if I wanted to, I could. But I just choose not to.

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