by Jill Stark
But I’ve not been rendered socially incompetent by removing beer from my life. Perhaps booze is just a placebo. We think it gives us confidence, so we feel confident. In fact, there’s research to back up that theory. Several studies over the last 40 years have shown that, while alcohol undoubtedly has a chemical effect on motor performance, memory, coordination, and reaction time, social behaviour and mood changes may be influenced less by how many tequilas we knock back, and more by the expectations that we bring with us to the pub. In experiments, psychologists have shown that groups of people who were told they were drinking vodka started to display certain behaviours — for example, becoming more confident and flirtatious — even when they were only drinking tonic water. The results of these ‘alcohol expectancies’ experiments suggest that, just as I use booze as a truth serum, to spill my secrets and mouth off about my frustrations, people routinely use drinking as a way to behave in ways they otherwise wouldn’t because they believe they’re drunk.
If we Australians think that drinking makes us more attractive and dynamic, it’s no wonder that so many of us can’t get through the weekend without a glass of wine. These perceptions are formed from an early age. The way in which alcohol has been marketed — as if that cold beer is going to transform you from a nerdy, no-mates loser into a bronzed and shimmering demigod, fighting admirers off with a bull whip — creates the impression that booze is our social elixir. Without it, we’d be desperate, dateless, and alone. Many young Australians struggling with their identity and with trying to form relationships have learned that drinking is their ticket to belonging. In a 2008 study from the University of Wollongong, 90 per cent of 15- to 24-year-olds who were shown a series of alcohol adverts said that they thought the products shown would help them to have a good time. More than two-thirds of the 300 high-school and university students interviewed felt that drinking would make them more confident, sociable, and outgoing, while 70 per cent said that it would help them to fit in. Half thought that the drinks in the ads — which included Tiger beer, and the liqueurs Frangelico and Kahlua — would help them to succeed with the opposite sex; almost 60 per cent thought it would make them less nervous.
These perceptions have not arisen by accident. As part of a 2009 inquiry into the conduct of the alcohol industry in the United Kingdom, the House of Commons Health Select Committee obtained internal marketing documents from a number of alcohol companies and their advertising agencies. One of the key findings from the documents was the importance that alcohol producers place on selling the notion that their brands can help to foster a sense of togetherness. Internal planning documents for Carling, a leading beer brand, described it as a ‘social glue’, stating that ‘owning’ sociability was the way to dominate the booze market. This was borne out by the commercial for its ‘Belong’ campaign, which featured a flock of starlings re-creating the word ‘belong’ in the style of the Carling logo. The internal documents stated that the campaign ‘celebrates, initiates and promotes the togetherness of the pack, their passions and their pint because Carling understands that things are better together’. Documents obtained for the same inquiry found that the brand promise for Lambrini, a sparkling pear-based drink that comes in a range of flavours, was that ‘it’s the perfect social lubricant’, and would ‘make you and the girls forget your dull working week and transform you into the glamour pusses you know you should be’.
The industry in Australia is no different. You only have to look at the website of one of the country’s largest beer companies to see that alcohol is being spruiked as a social necessity, and as the panacea for all our woes. An advert by Carlton & United Breweries, which makes Carlton Draught, Victoria Bitter, and Crown Lager, shows a young, attractive man walking into a bar full of similarly good-looking drinkers, and claims that ‘communities are strengthened through the unique, everyday bonds our beer creates’. In video footage that shows the man laughing and bonding with friends and family, the voiceover tells us:
We’re there for the little moments where people feel comfortable with who they are and who they’re with and we understand that what we make has always and will always be right there in the thick of things as people create friendships, face adversity and enjoy prosperity — from the casual beer at the local to grandest of celebrations, to the moment where you just want to drop back home to remember where you came from and where you belong. In fact, we believe, in a society becoming too busy to pause for simple pleasures, if a whole lot more people raised a beer in friendship, the world would be a better place.
Yep, that’s right, we can heal the world with beer. Perhaps all that’s required to achieve peace in the Middle East is a few dozen slabs of VB and a tray of party pies. After all, alcohol can help us to make friends, cope with tough times, celebrate victories, and generally improve our otherwise sad and dull lives.
Until very recently, I’d have said the same thing. Now, I’m starting to think that there might be a more constructive way to express my emotions or to make new connections. It won’t always be easy, but I want to be honest with the people in my life, without having to be drunk to do it. When I tell my friends and family I love them, I don’t want there to be any doubt about why I’m saying it. If I’m frustrated at work, I’d like to find a way to communicate my grievances in a manner that might actually get me the desired result. If I’m attracted to someone, I don’t want to wait until I’ve had a skinful to tell them. It might be scary laying myself bare completely sober, but it’s got to be more authentic than dipping the truth in a bottle of wine and calling it real.
HABIT IS A peculiar beast: she’s not easily tamed, and she’s not afraid of a dare. My body might be learning that I don’t need alcohol to feel good, but my brain is following a more familiar script. As i attempt to order a lime and soda in a bar with friends one night, i’m shocked to hear the words ‘vodka, lime, and soda’ come out of my mouth, nearly sabotaging my booze ban just weeks after it’s started. When I correct myself, the barman asks why I’m not drinking.
‘A social experiment,’ I reply.
He looks at me quizzically. ‘Why on earth would you want to do that?’
Five minutes later, he approaches our table, sets down a shot glass, and says, ‘We’ve just got this new vodka in. It’s beautiful, really smooth, goes perfectly with lime and soda. I’ll just leave that with you.’ Smirking, he walks off, leaving us staring in bemusement at this strange offering.
Twenty years on the piss and all I had to do to get free alcohol was renounce drinking?
He returns ten minutes later, taking the untouched vodka shot with him. ‘Well done — you’ve passed the challenge.’
I didn’t realise I was being tested.
It’s the first of many occasions where my decision not to drink is taken as an open invitation to try to knock me off the wagon. I’d like to think that my personality hasn’t been muted because I’m not drinking booze, and that I can still crack a joke and hold up my end of a conversation, but some people are intent on proving me wrong. ‘When can you drink again?’ they ask with panicked voices, as if my life is on hold and any endearing character traits have abandoned me.
Sometimes I wonder if people would be more relaxed if I were holding a beer bottle. Even if it were filled with water, I suspect that the illusion would be enough to ease their tension. I’m starting to realise that even if I don’t need alcohol to enjoy social situations, sometimes it makes other people more comfortable if I act as if I do.
Melbourne radio host Derryn Hinch — a former heavy drinker who gave up alcohol for health reasons — says that non-drinkers in Australia are marginalised and ridiculed. ‘I’ve had friends who’ve gone to pubs, and I’ll say, “I’ll have a lemon squash.” They’ll say, “Why? You’re a girl!” A female says, “I’m not drinking.” “Are you pregnant? Is there something we should know about?” The non-drinkers are [treated like] criminals,’ he told a conference on alc
ohol-related brain injuries in 2008. In my second month of sobriety, the truth of that is bearing down on me with great force. Like non-smokers at an office party in the 1970s, teetotallers are the new social pariahs. Being sober in a nation where 80 per cent of people over the age of 14 are drinkers feels like being part of an underground counterculture you’re not sure you asked to join. That historical fear of the wowser is so engrained that I can only imagine how tedious it must be for people who never drink to have to face this level of pressure and mistrust on a regular basis. It’s tiring to constantly explain why you’re not drinking, in a culture that does little to embrace a booze-free lifestyle and much to encourage the opposite.
So I decide to ask one of the only non-drinkers I know how he copes with a life of permanent sobriety. Nick is my friend Bridget’s husband. He grew up in Canberra, where the two met in high school. Being around him is easy; he’s a natural conversationalist who will always make you think and often make you laugh. He’s a full-time entertainer, performing stand-up comedy, magic, and conman tricks for corporate clients and pub crowds. I’ve never asked why he doesn’t drink, but I’ve always wondered. Today, over lunch in a Northcote cafe, he tells me. ‘I started drinking when I was about 17, the usual house parties where everyone goes along and drinks too much. There’s a history of alcoholism in my family, and I have a really addictive personality, so I would come home from school and have a beer by myself. All day I’d be like, I’ve got to get home and have a beer; I’ve got to get home and have a beer. I didn’t really notice it was a problem until I was about 18 and my girlfriend died in a car accident, and that knocked me about a bit, so I started binge drinking. I’d get paralytically drunk all the time. I’d drink every day. Then I just realised I can’t be a person who drinks.’
Eighteen months after having his first drink, he stopped. Not one drop of alcohol has passed his lips since. A self-confessed control freak, he won’t even nibble a rum ball at Christmas or eat food that’s been flambéed. The pressure to drink, he says, is enormous and unrelenting. But it hasn’t come from the people he expected. His teenage friends had no problem when he quit drinking. Neither do the working-class men for whom he now performs, in tough pubs in Melbourne’s western suburbs. It’s people in suits who give him the hardest time. ‘I feel like I could do a lot better in business if I drank. I have corporate functions where everyone goes for a beer, and people want to chat to me afterwards and buy me a drink. I can say, “I never drink when I’m working,” but after the gig’s finished, I don’t have an excuse. Not drinking makes me slightly removed from the event in a professional sense. I often say, “I might just have a Coke.” It creates this weird tension.’
I’m becoming very familiar with that tension. Sometimes it’s so uncomfortable I almost feel like apologising to the drinkers in my company. I ask Nick why he thinks people are so disarmed by non-drinkers. ‘It’s like they think, you’ve made a life decision that I don’t understand, and I worry about what’s behind that. It’s kind of like if someone has a very different political opinion from me — if, say, they’re pro-life — I’m always a bit like, “What’s behind that culturally, because in my head I’m seeing you bomb abortion clinics,” which is entirely unfair and untrue, but I think it’s the same with alcohol.
‘It’s the thing that if two people go through a terrible experience together, they’ve shown a soft side; they’ve been through a war, and now they’ve bonded. It’s the same with alcohol: “Well, we’ve been drunk together, we’ve lowered our inhibitions.” It’s that thing about the reason you shake hands is to show that you don’t have a knife in your hand. Alcohol’s a social lubricant. You say things you might regret later on, so if you’re prepared to drink with someone, you’re saying, “I’m prepared to let the real me out.”’
I can relate to this. By choosing not to drink, it feels as if I have unwittingly broken a contract to be disinhibited. I have welched on that tacit agreement between drinkers to be candid, open, and in some ways vulnerable. When this contract is broken, it can turn ugly.
Nick says that celebrations, as I discovered with the beer-peddling birthday-party host, are particularly fraught. ‘Weddings are tough. They bring out the worst in people when it comes to alcohol. People would give me champagne, and I’d say, “Sorry, I don’t drink.” “But it’s for the toast. You have to have a drink.” They want everyone to drink: “We are here to celebrate, you will celebrate, and we’ll force this celebration down your throat in the way we want you to celebrate it.” Everyone has to have a glass to drink, and it gets quite nasty.’
How will I cope with that sort of pressure? How will I get through my own birthday with a non-alcoholic toast? If I’m to survive three months of this, I’ll have to start stockpiling excuses. I ask Nick for advice. He tells me that it’s important to always have a glass in your hand. That way, if someone asks if you want a drink, you can simply say, ‘No, I’m good, thanks.’
Also, I’m warned never to say, ‘I’m not drinking’ or ‘I don’t drink’, as this only invites discussion as to why not, and immediately there’s a barrier where there needn’t be one. ‘Just say, “No, thank you,” and stare them down. “Go on, have a drink.” “No, thank you.” “Are you sure?” “No, thank you.” And just ride out the five-second awkward pause,’ Nick explains. ‘I used to tell people early on that I was an alcoholic. I don’t think I actually was because I did just say, “I’m going to stop drinking,” and then stop. But I’d tell people, “I’m an alcoholic,” and they’d say, “Oh, sorry,” and back away.’
I like Nick’s style. I’ve already been asked at least a dozen times why I’m not drinking. I can usually tell by the delivery where those who ask place on a scale that ranges from genuinely interested to obnoxious wanker, and I tailor my response accordingly. With that scale in mind, I formulate my own top-ten excuses for sobriety.
1. I just want to prove that I can do it.
2. My friends bet me I wouldn’t last a month.
3. It’s for charity.
4. I’m trying to lose weight.
5. I’m training for a marathon.
6. I’ve just come out of rehab.
7. NASA doesn’t let its astronauts drink before shuttle launches.
8. My psychiatrist says I shouldn’t drink on these pills.
9. Drinking makes the baby Jesus cry.
10. It’s one of my parole conditions.
But I suspect that none of these justifications will suffice. It seems the only excuse you can proffer for not drinking that passes the ‘you can have just one’ test, other than Nick’s ‘I’m an alcoholic’ line, is to say that you’re pregnant. Anything short of being up the duff is open to negotiation. I start to envy pregnant women, who can happily turn down a drink without feeling as though they’re altering the group dynamic or breaking a social contract. Theirs is seen as a decision of necessity, not choice, and therefore they’re off the hook.
When I decided to stop drinking, I knew it would be tough, but I thought it would be a simple proposition of abstaining from the act of consuming alcohol. I wasn’t prepared for the complex moral maze I’d have to navigate along the way.
A DECADE HAS passed since I came to Australia for what was meant to be a year-long working holiday, and turned into a life I never got round to leaving. Much has changed since then. My relationship ended, I got my dream job, and I bought an apartment, anchoring myself to a city I’d once known only through the slice of vanilla suburbia portrayed in Neighbours. I’ve seen friends and jobs come and go, and my clothes and hairstyle have changed, yet the one constant — other than taxes, the love of my family, and the rising and setting of the sun — has been alcohol. Wherever I’ve been and whoever I’ve been with, I have enjoyed getting drunk, regularly and unquestioningly. Drinking is the international language of social cohesion. When I was backpacking around Australia and New Zealand, it was drinking games that
broke the ice with fellow travellers. In almost every job I’ve had, work friendships have been sealed in the pub. Getting pissed is how we bond with friends old and new, not just on the night itself but also the morning after.
On the tram one morning, I overhear a couple of guys in their early twenties talking about the previous night’s adventures.
‘I was wasted, man. I can’t even remember getting home,’ says one, who’s wearing a cap low over a pair of mirrored sunglasses.
‘How the fuck did I end up on top of that car?’ the other asks.
Giggling, they try to retrace their evening, fitting their patchy memories together like a jigsaw puzzle.
It’s a conversation I’ve had with many mates over many years. Big nights out are something we revel in, comparing the sizes of our hangovers and the fogginess of our memories over laughs and cups of tea in the staff kitchen come Monday morning. When you get drunk with friends, it’s like taking a road trip together, destination unknown. You only need to look at the success of the Hangover movie franchise to see that there’s a universal narrative about the unpredictable adventures that can arise through the common bond forged by drinking. We might not all have woken up to find Mike Tyson’s tiger in our hotel bathroom, or pulled our own tooth out after marrying a Vegas stripper, but most of us will have at least one shared drunken escapade that we can recite proudly as proof that we’ve lived. Who hasn’t woken up groggy and aching, with only a phone number scribbled on a beer mat, a half-eaten kebab, and a smudged ink stamp on the inside of their wrist as clues to the previous evening’s events?
Deciding not to drink when your friends are still having these adventures is a bit like watching them go for a joyride in a Maserati while you’re desperately trying to keep up on a skateboard. As the second month of my sobriety continues, it seems that no matter how hard I try to get a seat in the car, there’s just no room. It’s subtle at first, but slowly things begin to change. A couple of times, people arrange to meet up at the pub for a few drinks, and I only hear about it days later. I think they presume that if I can’t drink, I won’t want to be there; I’m not sure if this says more about their company or mine. When I am invited, they raise their glasses to cheers the group, but don’t clink mine because it’s filled with water. Without booze, it feels like I’m becoming invisible, paling into the background like a cloud in a whitening sky. Some friends disappear altogether, alcohol seemingly the glue cementing our relationship.