The People We Use: Drinking Justification

There’s a fascinating little trick we pull when it comes to drinking: we turn the people around us into walking, talking excuses. Not consciously, of course. But subtly, almost elegantly, we cast them in roles they never volunteered for: reasons, justifications, enablers.

"I had to drink, Sarah just went through a breakup; she needed me." Did Sarah explicitly ask you to open a bottle? "It was the football game; everyone was having beers." Was there a mandatory pint-check at the door?

Most people don't give a flying fig about what’s in your glass. The friend sobbing over their ex isn’t counting your drinks. Your partner at dinner isn’t watching restless to see if you order wine. Your colleagues at after-work drinks are too wrapped up in their own lives to notice.

Yet we build this elaborate social scaffolding to hold up our drinking. We assign people roles as if it were all about them, for them, because of them, never us:

• The friend who needs our drinking solidarity

• The social circle that surely judges our sobriety

• The family member who is devastated if we turn down a dinner drink

• The workmate who absolutely notices if we skip the after-hours pint

These so-called pressures mostly exist in our own heads. We use people as props, inventing an imaginary jury that demands our participation when, in reality, no one really cares. This habit of pinning our drinking on social context almost always hides something deeper. Are we just trying to make our choices feel less like our choices and more like obligations?

The moment we see through this misty illusion, we get our agency back. No one’s actually expecting us to drink. And if they are, screw them. We drink because we choose to drink. Or not to. The rest is just window dressing.

Stay sober and cool, 

Your High Sobriety Club