Alcohol

This is one of those places where my opinion differs greatly from both mainstream and my own cultural group(s). I despise drinking. It's not just a personal, me, thing. I don't like the taste of anything alcohol-based I have ever tasted, ranging from wine, beer, brandy, and mixed drinks. That's on me. I never had the capacity to acquire the taste.

No, I actually hate drinking more generally, and that's because I've never known anyone to do it well. No one I've ever seen is nicer, smarter, harder-working, or easier to get along with while drinking. In fact, most people I know are either angry or mentally slow while intoxicated. So...which do you prefer: scary or frustrating? I would rather not deal with either one. Especially angry or its near kindred - cruel or violent.

And a lot of people seem to have the backwards notion that if something bad is done while drunk, that should mitigate any legal consequence or social ones. What the heck, people??? Unless a person was held down while alcohol was poured down their gullet, they are just as responsible for that as for anything else in their lives. Decision made, consequences lived with. Done.

I don't advocate prohibition. It didn't work. Plus cooking with wine can work pretty well - I always makes sure to get a one-minute rolling boil or use it in the slow cooker. Pinot Noir and pork chops with black-eyed peas = yum. Screaming drunken jackass = not so much.

What then? I advocate people who dislike drinking saying so instead of holding a cup of diet Coke at a party and pretending it has JD in it. I advocate people standing up and saying that bad drunken behavior is JUST as intolerable as bad sober behavior. I advocate using technology, like Instagram or Youtube, to shame people who engage in dangerous behavior while drinking or who are black-out drunks and plead amnesia in the AM.

But this is just me.