My parents were not strict with me regarding liquor. It's not like we had wine with dinner or anything fancy like that, but we had this great 1960's bar set in the rec room that had little bottles of stuff like Ol' Grand Dad and liquers with names like cherry-chocolate and Creme de Menthe. You know, really gross stuff. It was out in the open and yes, we opened it. It tasted terrible and so we left it alone. We weren't a drinkin' kind of family although my dad had a beer or two in the summer when it was hot. I remember smelling it and thinking that I'd rather be eating Razzles. Blecccch.
When I started going to punk clubs in Philly when I was 18 (legal drinking age then), I only had one drink, early in the night. See, I was usually the designated driver and these nights were precious to me. I had virtually no curfew if I told my parents that I'd be home at 4AM. They were cool with that; they just wanted to know, that is, without knowing too much. The only thing that would really tick them off is if I came home drunk. And for me, drunkenness was not worth missing Gang of Four or BowWowWow or a night at the East Side Club, the only punk place in Philly with cute boys. So alas, I didn't drink much or did so as soon as I got there and then "danced it off."
None of my friends seemed to mind much. They drank/I didn't and we all managed to have great fun together. As time went on, and going out was more about going to bars FOR drinks, I would order a glass of wine and then drink half of it throughout the night. What can I say, I just don't have a taste for it. There would be times that some friends would urge me, rather vehemently, to drink more, but if I did that I would literally fall asleep right after I finished the drink (I once slept at an Indian restaurant in Montreal after having a martini at a hotspot prior. Yep. Right there on the banquet seat.) I can think of a few instances where I tried to partake and I always wound up home at 10:00 in bed, dead tired, with the room spinning right round me like a record baby, right round round round. Again, not worth it to me.
When I met Doug he was the same way; that is, not much a drinker. We can and still do, order one glass of wine when we go out and even then, we rarely finish it. We are Jews. Small, skinny, non-drinking Jews. This is who we are, and it's fine with us. But lately we have been feeling a lot of how shall I say, pressure, to drink more when we get together with other people. It's weird, this peer pressure to have a coupla fingers of scotch. We try to decline politely, but that hasn't been working. We just end up offending the person offering. When we say No Thanks, we really mean that: thank you for your hospitality but no, I'd like a coke instead. It is not a comment on anything bigger. Everybody else, have a drink! Have ten of 'em! But me, I'd still like that coke instead. I could go into a long diatribe about being a Jew with sinus problems and talk about the terrible pain of sulfites or how hard liquor makes the blood vessels in my head constrict, but that would be boring. Like, you know, harassing someone to take a drink when they don't want one.
I don't really know if this is a Jew thing or not; this not drinking. A friend of mine, the writer Jerry Stahl had a theory about it. He said that Jews drug, not drink. "The doctor prescribes it and so it's good for you. Have one, have ten." Maybe he's right. Or not. Maybe I just don't enjoy drinking. Hey that's it! I just don't enjoy drinking.
Can we toast to that?
When I started going to punk clubs in Philly when I was 18 (legal drinking age then), I only had one drink, early in the night. See, I was usually the designated driver and these nights were precious to me. I had virtually no curfew if I told my parents that I'd be home at 4AM. They were cool with that; they just wanted to know, that is, without knowing too much. The only thing that would really tick them off is if I came home drunk. And for me, drunkenness was not worth missing Gang of Four or BowWowWow or a night at the East Side Club, the only punk place in Philly with cute boys. So alas, I didn't drink much or did so as soon as I got there and then "danced it off."
None of my friends seemed to mind much. They drank/I didn't and we all managed to have great fun together. As time went on, and going out was more about going to bars FOR drinks, I would order a glass of wine and then drink half of it throughout the night. What can I say, I just don't have a taste for it. There would be times that some friends would urge me, rather vehemently, to drink more, but if I did that I would literally fall asleep right after I finished the drink (I once slept at an Indian restaurant in Montreal after having a martini at a hotspot prior. Yep. Right there on the banquet seat.) I can think of a few instances where I tried to partake and I always wound up home at 10:00 in bed, dead tired, with the room spinning right round me like a record baby, right round round round. Again, not worth it to me.
When I met Doug he was the same way; that is, not much a drinker. We can and still do, order one glass of wine when we go out and even then, we rarely finish it. We are Jews. Small, skinny, non-drinking Jews. This is who we are, and it's fine with us. But lately we have been feeling a lot of how shall I say, pressure, to drink more when we get together with other people. It's weird, this peer pressure to have a coupla fingers of scotch. We try to decline politely, but that hasn't been working. We just end up offending the person offering. When we say No Thanks, we really mean that: thank you for your hospitality but no, I'd like a coke instead. It is not a comment on anything bigger. Everybody else, have a drink! Have ten of 'em! But me, I'd still like that coke instead. I could go into a long diatribe about being a Jew with sinus problems and talk about the terrible pain of sulfites or how hard liquor makes the blood vessels in my head constrict, but that would be boring. Like, you know, harassing someone to take a drink when they don't want one.
I don't really know if this is a Jew thing or not; this not drinking. A friend of mine, the writer Jerry Stahl had a theory about it. He said that Jews drug, not drink. "The doctor prescribes it and so it's good for you. Have one, have ten." Maybe he's right. Or not. Maybe I just don't enjoy drinking. Hey that's it! I just don't enjoy drinking.
Can we toast to that?
