Alcohol consumption has fallen again – the figures for 2009 are just out. It’s part of a long term trend: we Brits consume 13% less than we did in 2004.
This prompts Mary Kenny to reflect on her own unhappy experiences with drink (now twenty years in the past), and to wonder why anti-drinking campaigns prefer to stress the dangers of alcohol rather than the joys of sobriety.
Many of the campaigns against alcohol focus on the damage that it can do – that it harms your liver, can be a factor in throat and bladder cancers, and wrecks your personal and professional life. All this is true, but it’s emphasising the negative: what about stressing the joy of sobriety?
I once thought that life couldn’t be fully experienced without alcohol: but the truth is the opposite – life can be more fully experienced without alcohol. Drunkenness deadens experience: it renders delight oblivious and pleasure dull. Although I get anguished flashbacks from my drinking years, I have also forgotten huge tranches of my life. Regrets are pointless, but it is sad that I lost so much of the prime of my life in that haze of alcoholic amnesia.
And then, sobriety turned out to be the true champagne – bringing everything into focus in clear colour and full recall. One of the strangest things that happened to me after I started getting sober was that I had this intense sensation of colour all around me. The colours of life became so heightened.
We seem to be so nagged at and scolded about so many health and safety issues that I am not sure if gloomy warnings about the health dangers of alcohol are all that effective. Two things clearly help: increase the price of dirt-cheap supermarket alcohol, and emphasise the pleasures of sobriety.
Justin Webb wrote recently about an experience he had in America – which appalled him – when he went to a smart Washington party, only to find that the “punch” being served was cherryade. I thought, “Bravo for the hosts”. American culture, for all its faults, does not have this general idea that you have to be plastered to have fun. Honestly – you can have a great time on cherryade. Well, preferably, elderflower spritzer.
Searching for a birthday card, recently, for a young relation who was turning 21, I was hard put to find any greetings card aimed at young men which didn’t emphasise the glory of getting pissed. But getting pissed isn’t glorious: it’s shaming. It is life, fully savoured, fully aware, that is the glorious intoxicant.
There is a more general question here. Why is it that we often want to scare people away from what is harmful rather than attracting them to what is good?
PS – I’m not against alcohol! In moderation…
Bridges and Tangents 
I always enjoy your blog Stephen.
This post brought to mind Fr Alban preaching at Fisher House on the Marriage at Cana. I recall him describing the size of the vessels used to carry wine back in the day and then reflecting wistfully, ‘Just imagine – 100 bottles of Chateau Latour!’
This week, it is 4 years since I had an alcoholic drink. I did not quit due to alcoholism, I quit because I felt there are so many benefits to not drinking. I do often wonder why some people become anti-drink rather than pro sobriety. There is a real difference.
When younger, I used to occasionally drink alcohol but it was so rarely that I quickly became quite drunk after only a few drinks. I stopped drinking some twenty years ago and since, have enjoyed the clear headed feeling and fuller experience of life Mary Kenny describes. Like the person in the post above, I didn’t quit due to alcoholism; I just didn’t like alcohol, or rather, I preferred life without it.
We live in a society where there seem to be drives for people to experience things right now and, preferably, to excess. We only need to go into any town centre at 6pm to see the effects of ‘happy hours’ where, for many, there is not a happy ending to the night out.
For me, Father Stephen, the last two words of your post define admirably the best approach to anything which can be good or pleasurable – “in moderation”. If anyone overdoes anything, it ceases to be pleasurable and they can suffer for it physically, psychologically, socially or spiritually. I must confess to feeling that selling the plus sides of abstinence seems an uphill struggle but, nonetheless, one worthy of a good try.
This is so interesting, I think it has become an over cautious part of our culture to define the dangers and scare monger. And not just related to alcohol. For instance when I went to childbirth classes during each of my pregnancies, we were educated about the latest methods of pain relief. Which drugs eased this, which drug eased that, what the known side effects of each drug were, what the risks of pregnancy were. The dangers or situations we may find ourselves in and every possible outcome etc etc.
With each of my children I experienced different drugs as recommended for each individual pregnancy. My last child however came in her own time, quickly and without intervention or drugs or another loved one present. My experience with her labour was one of great spiritual fulfilment and poignant clarity. And not once before was I sold the option or told how wonderful and full of clarity my experience could have been free of all stimulants.
I still Love the odd glass of Champagne or G and T though.