Alcohol and Other People’s Pressure

Holiday culture makes alcohol a sign of trust, adulthood and belonging to the group. So refusing a glass often has to be defended harder than the decision to drink.

Which is why the rules are better chosen in advance:

• how much you intend to drink;
• how you will get home;
• who stays sober;
• which medications or conditions are incompatible with alcohol;
• which decisions must not be made after drinking.

You are not obliged to drink in honour of friendship, a holiday, the host or a well-delivered toast.

Respect that requires chemical confirmation is fairly unsure of itself.

Particularly dangerous:

• drinking fast;
• mixing with other substances;
• competitions;
• driving;
• leaving a very drunk person alone;
• sex where a person is unable to agree freely and clearly.

If a person is unresponsive, breathing abnormally, unable to stay conscious or vomiting continuously, that is not a reason to let them “sleep it off”. They need emergency help. The person must not be left alone.

The right to stop exists after any amount already drunk. The previous glass creates no obligation to the next one.

Pressure almost never looks like pressure. Nobody says “drink”; they say “now you’re offending me”, “it’s a sin not to drink to your parents”, “one glass doesn’t count”, “I mean it from the heart”. Every phrase hands the refusal a fresh reason to argue, and the person starts explaining: I’m driving, I’m on medication, I have an early start. The explanation is the weak spot — each one has an answer waiting. What works is not the argument but repeating the same short phrase without changing it.

The second thing that works better than willpower is a decision made before you walk into the room: how much, until what hour, how you get home. A sober person decides how much he will drink. A person who has been drinking only decides how much more.