Candy is Dandy, Thanks!
If liquor is quicker
it still makes you sicker
and candy won't judgment impair -
for those who go drinking
do not do much thinking
'til they're too hungover to care.
For me candy's dandy
and I keep some handy
to give sagging spirits a lift.
It might make me rounder
but my mind stays sounder
and rational thought is a gift.
I won't take up boozin' -
it's not of my choosin',
I like knowing what I did when.
And if I act crazy
but mind is not hazy
I'll likely NOT do so again.
You might think I'm hasty,
but sugar is tasty
while liquor offendeth the tongue -
and I like to know
when I'm ready to go
I'll leave with the person I brung!
While I don't mean to trash
our old friend Ogden Nash,
I'd rather a good sugar buzz.
Choc'late's serotonin
will not leave me groanin'
and I'll always know where I was.
Now I'm done explaining
my views on abstaining -
I clearly don't sit on the fence.
This poem is ending
without more amending -
my reasons? They're just common sense!
By Sharon Flood Kasenberg (June 2007)
I don't drink - never have and never will. Alcohol smells gross and makes people act stupid, which I manage well enough when I'm stone cold sober. It gives people headaches and makes them sick, and I hate feeling crummy. It is expensive and caloric, and I'm a weight-watching cheapskate.
That's all the explaining I should ever have to do on the subject. But in a society - and especially in a season - where so many can't grasp the simple fact that celebrating does not equal alcohol, and that "a little Christmas Cheer" doesn't have to mean a good stiff drink, I often find myself having to offer explanations for the stand I take.
Many oversimplify my choice. They assume that because I grew up in a home where drinking was "against our religion" that I simply chose blind obedience to a church edict. I won't deny that it was easier for me to refrain from drinking in my teens because my parents didn't drink, but really there was enough rebellion in my soul that if I'd ever been tempted to drink I probably would have. I simply never felt the slightest urge to take even a sip, and my own childhood observations had a whole lot to do with that lack of desire.
Our next door neighbour was an alcoholic - a sloppy, "fall-down-comatose-and-get-carried-home" kind of alcoholic. I have vivid memories of playing in the yard with my older brother and a bunch of other kids and seeing a taxi pull up. The driver got out and asked my brother to help him carry this man into his house. (This happened more than once.) I remember thinking that if too much alcohol could do that to a person, I could happily live without it. That same neighbour fell on the ice multiple times trying to stagger home from "The Rosie" (a bar around the corner from my house). A few times concerned passers-by spotted him collapsed on the sidewalk and dragged him home. Once, someone pounded on our door and asked my parents to assist with this chore. "Marvin" (I'll call him) suffered head injuries after one bad fall. He lost his driver's license, barely kept a job, and died alone in his house, surrounded by beer cans. A concerned co-worker found him after he hadn't shown up at work in several days. His life was a perfect example to me of how not to live, and I knew I'd never fall into that kind of lifestyle if I never took a drink.
As a child, when I attended social events with my parents where alcohol was being served, I saw people behaving crudely and saying stupid things. It wasn't behavior I wanted to emulate.
When I was a teenager, I couldn't walk past the pool hall or bars on Gore St. without some tipsy Lothario giving me a leer and a "Hey Bay-beee!" (I'd often choose to walk blocks out of my way rather than pass the places where those buffoons loitered out front.) Throughout high school, I saw kids get wasted and act like idiots. I heard them talking about their drunken antics over the weekend and the hangovers that followed. I saw kids barfing into toilets at school dances and witnessed drunken brawls that nobody could explain afterward. None of these things managed to convince me that I was missing a thing by not drinking.
The funny thing is, all through my youth I was warned about peer pressure, and how other kids would try to make me drink (or smoke or try drugs), and I never experienced it at all. My friends accepted my choice to not drink and always had pop on hand to offer me. My friends could handle having an abstainer in their midst. Nobody ever twisted my arm or even offered a second time once I told them I didn't drink.
Since I've been an adult that's changed. I've been chided and treated as an oddity. I've had people try to "talk me into seeing reason" on the subject - asking "How is having a drink or two going to make any difference?" I've wondered why these adults are so much less mature and tolerant than the kids I hung around in high school, who were quick to understand that my most basic reason for not drinking has always been this - I simply don't want to. I've had to dispose of alcohol that came in "Christmas bonus" packages from my husband's employers, in spite of the fact that he's never had a drink either. (And in the politically correct time that we live in, I've wondered at the lack of wisdom shown in "gifting" people with booze when they could have a preexisting medical condition that makes drinking unwise, or have a family member battling alcoholism within their home.)
I've had people ask for a drink in my home, or ask if they could "bring their own". Both requests offend me. Am I really such bad company that a social lubricant is required to ease our interaction? Or are you simply so socially inept and alcohol-dependent that you don't know how to have fun without it? Can't you manage to abstain for a few hours while visiting the home of an abstainer?
You may try to brush off your request for a drink as a joke, but I'm not laughing. Nobody in this house thinks your request is funny. You have no idea how alcoholism has shaped our lives as we've seen its effects on someone close to us.
Over the years I've done a bit of research on alcohol, and learned enough to be absolutely convinced that abstinence was the best choice for me. Did you know that children of alcoholics are four times more likely to become alcoholics themselves? (My husband and I both have alcoholics in our family trees, so we shared this statistic with our sons at an early age.)
Did you know that recent studies have shown that a single drink can render you unfit to drive if you're over the age of fifty-five? (Google it.)
Do you ever read news stories about drunk drivers - and how many lives are lost because people hopped behind the wheel when they thought they were okay to drive home?
Do you know how many lives and families are destroyed by alcohol?
Do you know how much alcohol-related illnesses and accidents cost our health care system?
Do you still need to ask me why I choose not to drink?
I'm not going to criticize you or tell you I think you're morally or intellectually inferior because you enjoy a social drink now and then. I know many very fine people who don't share my views on the use of alcohol. What you choose to do within your house is your business, as is your choice of beverage when you eat out or go to a bar. As long as your drinking doesn't affect me in any way I can live with it. Just don't offer me a ride when you've been drinking, don't belittle me for not drinking, don't assume I'll find your drinking antics amusing, and don't ever expect me to offer you alcohol.
If you're looking for a bit of Christmas cheer I have plenty to offer. I'll pull out a platter of cookies and put on some awesome Christmas music. We'll laugh together and enjoy good conversation. If you want to be sipping a drink while we do this we'll meet up at a restaurant.
But if your definition of "Christmas Cheer" is an alcoholic beverage, you won't find it here.
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