Millennials choosing an alcohol free lifestyle

I am a boomer and chose that lifestyle a long time ago. Guess I have something in common with them afterall.

I'm on the border of two different generations but I'm alcohol free for the most part anyways. Sometimes I will have a beer or glass of wine but that's maybe 6 - 8 times a year.

As I've gotten older I've figured out that the penalty for drinking too much is far too steep.

I don't see the point in going completely dry for me, but we've cut back on our alcohol consumption since the holidays just because we were feeling a little unbalanced with it.

I'm not alcohol-free and have zero intention of ever being alcohol-free. I drink for the taste rather than the feeling and I never drink to excess.

Gen X here. I maybe have 3 drinks a year. New Year’s Day mimosa, 1 shakin Jamaican on a Disney trip and a Kahlua and cream somewhere, either Disney or around Christmas.
In all transparency both sides of my family have struggles with addiction, booze, drugs and gambling. Thankfully I’m very aware of it, and I don’t shy away from talking about it. We have had some very open discussions with our kids about addiction.

I do have to say though raising 4 kids who are currently 13, 18, 19, and 23, I didn’t see the peer pressure to try drugs and alcohol that I had when I was their age. 2 of my boys worked at a pizza truck where there were alcohol and drugs used by customers, sometimes bands that came to play, and sometimes but rarely an employee, they were asked once and both said no and that was the end of it. No one asked again. There were fireballs in the freezer and my kids never touched them. It was like that through school too. Asked on occasion from someone in school, they said no thanks, and the response was cool man and they weren’t asked again.

Fast forward to now, my oldest does come home from work and has a beer with his dad. He does not drink if he goes out with coworkers unless I know ahead of time. If he does plan on drinking we set up a time for me to come get him and DH and I come and DH will drive his truck home. My 2 middles are teatotalers, they are not even remotely interested in drinking. My youngest loves the smell of red wine but says she will never drink. I think if she drank anything it would be wine and maybe 2-3 times a year. It’s just not their jam.

I read about sober bars opening up too. I told DS23 this would cool at their restaurant. To have a sober night or something. You can make some pretty fancy drinks with no alcohol in them.

I’m a millennial who rarely drinks. I don’t remember the last time I did drink...

Although I do occasionally have a few glasses of wine, it is rare. I don't care a lot for alcohol because after a couple of drinks I start feeling stupid and I do not like feeling out of control or dumbed down. Pot on the other hand is relaxing and enhances my mental activity. I have never felt out of it with pot. I also don't smoke the super duper potent strains either. I have my own mellow, fun stuff that I have used for fifty years.

I never really drank a lot, neither did my DH. I gave it up (almost) entirely about 25 years ago or so. I’ve had one glass of champagne since. I decided it’s expensive and unnecessary, and with all the substance abuse running rampant in my family and DH’s I figured it would be setting a better example for my kid to just not drink. DH will have one beer or a single drink on occasion, but usually he’ll choose a citrus green tea or an Arnold Palmer instead.

We’re both shocked by just how much some of our neighbors at the cabin can put down, and also by how often they do it. Some are people (just younger than us, maybe 48-50) with young kids like ours, and both parents will just get hammered which I can’t wrap my head around. Some are a little older than we are, and they’re constantly drinking. We never see them without a mixed drink or a beer or glass of wine in hand, and it has almost become a Facebook game to DH to “spot the drink in this photo” because there always is one.

It really is surprising once you stop by just how many people will pressure you to drink only because they are. I had a casual friend years ago who always thought it would be “fun” to see me drunk.   Really? Why? Quite honestly it wouldn’t be fun at all because I’m such a lightweight after all these years that I’d likely be curled up in a corner somewhere sleeping. Needless to say, she’s not my friend anymore and I’d venture to guess that about 98% of our friends now either don’t drink at all or if they do it’s very infrequent.

Isn't this where I'm supposed to say something like "Well, they can't afford it because they spend all their money on avocado toast?"

Sorry, just had to play along with that game, I don't actually mean it.

I think the idea that some places have of creating cool mixed drinks that are nonalcoholic is a good one. I drink but it's very sporadic - maybe one or two in a month unless I'm on vacation and then, yes, I have more. I've never been a bar scene kind of person, but yes, there is always that pressure to drink if you're out and socializing. It would be more fun to not drink if you could get something that you don't just have on an ordinary day - cool tropical juices with seltzer and lime or something, for a random example - way more fun than a Diet Coke.

I had never heard of Seedlip before. I checked the site and did some reading. I LOVE the taste of cocktails, but gave up drinking many years ago, both for religious reasons and for the fact that I loved the taste just too darn much. I worried I might end up on a road I didn't want to travel. So Seedlip is interesting. What do you like best from there?

I'm glad to hear it! My kids are not drinkers. It has to be a special occasion for them to even consider it. Son in law isn't a drinker. DS's girlfriend was raised with the theory of 'you have wine while cooking and eating dinner'. I think she has at least a couple glasses a night. I'm not a drinker at all anymore. I used to do the special occasion drinking, but I have zero need or want to now. My dh is an everyday beer drinker. Thankfully he is fully functioning and not a mean drunk. He also will not drive drunk. He is also cheap, so he drinks at home since it's less expensive.

I'm struggling right now because my Mom just passed away in Nov. Her death was due to liver and kidney failure. In part due to alcohol abuse and in part due to long term Dr. prescribed pain meds. The really crappy part is that for the first 27 years of my life, my Mom didn't drink. She started drinking when my Dad left her. She never got help for her depression and tequila became her medicine of choice for that. Her Dr. prescribed Norco was for arthritis and back pain which would have never been needed had my Mom advocated for herself with the Dr. to find the cause of her back pain. It ended up being her hip that was the issue and not her back. That diagnosis came from her freaking Gynecologist, 12 years after the pain began. She needed a hip replacement. Her back muscles had been over compensating for her messed up hip which is why she thought it was her back.

So all of this to say I'm struggling because besides my kids, almost everyone I know is a drinker. We're not talking a drink now and again, but drink every single day drinkers. It's always bothered me that people can't seem to have fun without alcohol and that I am always expected to be the DD. But that fact that even though I have explained to them what happened to my Mom, in detail, including the fact that she had a Doctors appointment that she was scared to death to go to and took 4 shots of tequila before she left (plus whatever else she had that day) and the neighbor had to help my stepdad get her into the car to take her and that her BP had crashed by the time they got to the Dr and they rushed her to the ER and she was in ICU for 28 days due to Septic Shock, liver and kidney failure, UTI etc...That she was completely jaundiced, she couldn't swallow, she could barely speak. She had a feeding tube, and catheter for urine and rectal needs and the list goes on, until we had to make the choice of what to do. Would she want to live in a nursing facility like this the rest of her life or would she want to go home with hospice? With a verbal "home" from Mom, we brought her home and watched the most horrifying death a person can live through. Starving and dehydrating to death, and trying to keep her comfortable by giving her Morphine that her body can't process, while she chokes on it going down her throat because she can't swallow. All these people hone in on is that "it was the Norco that killed her". Are you freaking kidding me? Why can't people open their eyes to the fact that their daily drinking can lead to this. Even my dh! Alcohol is poison to your body! Once in awhile, your body can handle it. Daily? Your body was not meant to have it. It seems that's all I can focus on now. I can't go out with anyone because I know I'm going to bring it up. I know I'm going to judge. I know that I'm not in the right frame of mind yet. I know I can't just get over it. I know I sound like a total bitch. So I stay home. I don't say anything to dh as I don't want to fight. But I have told him, "I will not bring you home with hospice and watch you die. You will be either in the hospital when you die or in a hospice facility, because I will never again feel like I am the one putting the last nails in your coffin by giving you morphine. Someone else can have the honor of that". I know it seems dramatic and whatever else people have said, but it's how I feel. It's how my sister and my daughter feel because we are the ones (along with stepdad who was so out of his mind with grief that he could have never done it) that lived it.

So I am glad to hear that the younger generation isn't drinking as much. I hope the trend continues and I hope they don't look for other ways to "take the edge off" as so many in my generation X and the boomers do.

Oh jlynnbarth I'm so sorry - I can't imagine the pain you have gone through and continue to go through. As snowsilver said, it's important that these stories are shared. Don't let your friends' comments silence your message.

I think this is very interesting. I'm 10 years younger that my oldest sil and her dh. He has mental health issues (mainly pretty significant depression) and always has at least one drink when he gets home from work, she goes out to happy hour a lot with friends. My other sil rarely drinks and her husband might have a drink a couple of times a week, but I don't think I have ever seen him drunk. DH and I don't drink at home more than 2-3 times a year --- unless we have others over. But if it is just the two of us we don't tend to drink. We both enjoy cocktails, so when we go out to eat (1-2 times a month at max) we both enjoy having one. That said the other time I find myself drinking is when I am around my inlaws. I make sure I have at least one drink to mellow me out. Which probably has them thinking I drink all the time - but I really don't - it's just around them to keep me sane!

My sister's husband is in his early 30's and stopped drinking about a year and a half ago. At first, he said it was for health issues, then it became clear it was a reaction to his dad's functional alcoholism. My sister still drinks occasionally, but she was never a heavy drinker to begin with. I totally respect anyone's decision to not drink and it always bothers me when people try to push alcohol on others.