Drinking Culture!

I agree with Nose.  My group of friends and family - we all would still go out on the weekends and do go out when I visit home.   Probably not til 4am any more, cause who needs the lack of sleep and hangover, but we still go out.  While it's nicer (and cheaper!) to go to someone's house or apartment for dinner or bbqs at times, we do still go to the bars on occasion.  Just not the same ones we used to go to.  Now we're about places where we can sit and hear each other.  

I haven't encountered anyone being standoffish when I opted not to drink when out here.  

I have had British people tell me that they feel that people who don't drink are judgemental.

I guess they associate not drinking with prudish, bible-thumping, "alcohol is the work of the devil" teetotalers.

As a matter of fact, the only person I know here who doesn't drink at all has a reputation for being a prude - she wears tops that reach up to her neck in summer - and is not British.

And I definitely notice that I'm treated differently when I'm holding an alcoholic drink than when I'm not. (If I do have alcohol, I'm drinking very little so alcohol isn't affecting my perception.)

If someone offers to buy me a drink and I ask for a coke, they'll probably only say a few words to me the rest of the night. If I get a beer, I'm included in all the conversations.

Once again, this doesn't apply to people who aren't drinking for a reason - like they have to drive home.

They are just suspicious of people who aren't drinking just because they don't feel like drinking.

I'm lucky it isn't like that where we live. This is, for the most part, a hard working blue collar village (mostly fisherman, factory workers, builders, etc.) and we have 14 pubs here.   But for the most part, people go out on Saturday or Sunday afternoon and do a little circuit up the street to a few different pubs, then call it a night with a takeaway around 8 pm. It's pretty innocent, compared to the drinking culture in Dallas, where many parts of town were filled with crazy drunken frat boys at 2am. I realise I am comparing a city with a tiny town, to be fair. Obviously, I'm close to Newcastle, so...  

The only problem in our village is the underage drinking - the teenagers hang out on the sand dunes drinking (evident by the number of bottles discarded there and they start fires and cause other problems) or they hang out at the kid's playground and get drunk and destroy some of the stuff there, ruining it for the smaller kids.   The police even put up CCTV and flood lights at the playground, but it hasn't been a deterrent. Last time I took DSS there, the older kids had ripped up most of the rubber turf stuff they put around the merry go round.   I realise there isn't a lot for them to do out here in the country, but still.  

I just feel like it's a broad statement, but it's also something I haven't encountered here.   I know the bartenders are taken aback sometimes if I opt for something non-alcoholic/ water, and jokingly ask if I'm detoxing, but the places that are near where we work (which is mainly where I go out if I do go out) are decidedly more bars than pubs so it's less a casual local and I imagine my non-booze request is more rare.  

But everyones experiences are different.    I will say that since I do go out for drinks with people in the office from time to time, on the nights where I'm not drinking, I imagine they don't feel judged because they have seen me with a drink in hand at another point.  If they felt judged at all?  I just never really got that impression.  (And these are the people I don't know that well)

Last time I took DSS there, the older kids had ripped up most of the rubber turf stuff they put around the merry go round.   I realise there isn't a lot for them to do out here in the country, but still.  

They would still do it even if they were in the city. The kids ruin stuff in Dublin all the time and there's plenty to do around here! 

They would still do it even if they were in the city. The kids ruin stuff in Dublin all the time and there's plenty to do around here! 

I guess what makes me even more angry about it is that they are only hurting their own little brother and sisters and cousins and other kids in the neighbourhood. It's the only playground on this side of the village. Not that it's ok whatesoever, but why not vandalize something that belongs to the adults instead? I mean, what did the little kids ever do to them?  And probably every last one of them used to play there themselves a few years ago. Jerks. 

I have had British people tell me that they feel that people who don't drink are judgemental.

I guess they associate not drinking with prudish, bible-thumping, "alcohol is the work of the devil" teetotalers.

As a matter of fact, the only person I know here who doesn't drink at all has a reputation for being a prude - she wears tops that reach up to her neck in summer - and is not British.

And I definitely notice that I'm treated differently when I'm holding an alcoholic drink than when I'm not. (If I do have alcohol, I'm drinking very little so alcohol isn't affecting my perception.)

If someone offers to buy me a drink and I ask for a coke, they'll probably only say a few words to me the rest of the night. If I get a beer, I'm included in all the conversations.

Once again, this doesn't apply to people who aren't drinking for a reason - like they have to drive home.

They are just suspicious of people who aren't drinking just because they don't feel like drinking.

I always get a "lemonade" (ahem - sprite), and ask for a lime.

People think I'm drinking a gin and tonic, problem solved Whenever someone asks if they can get me a drink, I just say "oh, no I'm going to get another one in a bit", no one seems to notice.

I enjoy going out to pubs and going to clubs, I just don't want to drink the whole time! I only want one alcoholic drink or two, not a whole nights worth. I still have a good time. I DO find that if people know you're not drinking, you do get treated differently, which is why I do it in secret.

My most successful story is one night I went to a club in soho with a group of friends. Some DUDE in the group (a friend of a friend, some city jackass trying to be flashy with his money), kept buying all the everyone shots and pressuring us to drink them. I accepted every single one of them, and when people went to take the shot, I threw it over my shoulder onto the floor. No one noticed

Except the guy behind you!

Kidding 

Haha!

Actually, I DID end up pouring my shot onto some unsuspecting guy's shoe - whoops!

My most successful story is one night I went to a club in soho with a group of friends. Some DUDE in the group (a friend of a friend, some city jackass trying to be flashy with his money), kept buying all the everyone shots and pressuring us to drink them. I accepted every single one of them, and when people went to take the shot, I threw it over my shoulder onto the floor. No one noticed

A British woman that I know has a story that she has repeated a couple of times about some American man at the company she worked for who came to England and went out for drinks with the people in her office.

According to her story, this guy bought lots of drinks, for himself and for others, but kept leaving his drinks all over the pub, unfinished, so that he didn't actually drink very much.

She found this to be extremely offensive - she and a colleague of hers went around finding all his drinks and bringing them to him - saying, in the sweetest Yorkshire accent, "You forgot your drink, luv" - so that he would either  have to finish his drinks or admit that he wasn't planning on drinking them.

She's repeated this story more than once, so I know that this behaviour really bothered her.

I also think that if you go out with the same people more than a few times, they will notice if you never let them buy you drinks.

Well, it works for me.

I imagine if you're going out with the same group of people constantly, that would mean that they're you're friends, and would have to eventually accept the fact that you don't drink as much as them.

For people I know well, they don't mind at all when I don't drink.

I get weirder looks from my British friends for not wanting a cup of tea every 5 minutes...

with jobs as well it seems to be accepted. Back when I worked for a very large insurance company,  during our lunch breaks, the manager would take us all to the pub and everyone would drink loads then go back to work. A lot of people go to the pubs on their lunch break and drink,then go back to work. and its oddly accepted to do

No way would this be accepted in the US.

with jobs as well it seems to be accepted. Back when I worked for a very large insurance company,  during our lunch breaks, the manager would take us all to the pub and everyone would drink loads then go back to work. A lot of people go to the pubs on their lunch break and drink,then go back to work. and its oddly accepted to do

No way would this be accepted in the US.

Yes.

In the UK its also acceptable to come in to work hungover, and let everyone know you are hungover.

In the US, if you did that they would assume you had an alcohol problem and threaten to fire you.

with jobs as well it seems to be accepted. Back when I worked for a very large insurance company,  during our lunch breaks, the manager would take us all to the pub and everyone would drink loads then go back to work. A lot of people go to the pubs on their lunch break and drink,then go back to work. and its oddly accepted to do

No way would this be accepted in the US.

In the US it seems far more acceptable to drive to a bar, drink alcohol and drive home. One of my visits we went out with people and I was astounded to see the person who was driving to be knocking back the beers. The bars were in the middle of knowhere and the car parks were packed.

From my experience, it seems drinking (and drinking a lot, often) seems more acceptable in the UK than in the US.  I've seen older people in the UK bragging about how much they go out and how much they drink (something I might see people in their early 20s doing in the US)...whereas older people in the US seem to hide their drinking and downplay it. 

I've also noticed that couples seem more accepting of their SO going out drinking in the UK.  My circle of friends in the UK and the US are very similar (same age group, all married with children, etc.).  But several of the SOs of my UK friends have gone out of the country for a week for a stag do and they were perfectly OK with this...whereas in the US, most of my friends would give their husbands grief for going out with the guys for a few hours.    

I've also had several different women (of all ages) talking about how much they drank while they were pregnant...and they almost seem confused by why I'm not drinking "just because I'm pregnant".  In the US, I might get smacked in the face by a stranger for ordering a drink while pregnant.