Teetotalism

I heard an interesting bit of information recently when talking with a friend of mine. She was telling me that according to some statistics the alcohol consumption in Finland in the lower age groups (young adults) has recently passed its peak and has been coming down. Another friend of mine verified this by complaining that he feels that it's now a trendy thing to be a teetotaler in Finland and that very many of his friends have dropped alcohol. In this latter case I have some sort of skepticism as to the length of the abstinance period, but even still I think that's a healthy sign. A more prominent issue nowadays is supposedly the increased alcohol consumption of middle aged segments of the population.

I personally also cut alcohol out of my diet from the first half of February onwards. Nothing religious, nothing philosophical. I just found that with the shitstorm I went through in January, I was drinking for the wrong reasons and personally felt that the situation was resembling a slippery slope. I don't, however, think that this will become a way of life for me as such, but that it is a useful mechanism to steer yourself in a certain direction. I haven't really set any sort of specific "ending date" for this either, as that would just provoke at least a night of binge drinking to celebrate, as is customary in all academic celebrations. But the point here is that I won't use any form of alcohol before I feel like it. That might sound like an empty promise as such, but the actual meaning is that there's no reason to drink alcohol unless you're doing it for the right reasons and in moderation. And the right reasons might be as simple as enjoying it in the form of a glass of wine or perhaps a well-prepared cocktail.

This abstinance from alcohol has, however, shown some interesting aspects about different things. The reactions of people have ranged from understanding and supportive to outright provocative and nasty. Especially the people who are still firmly placed on the campus and don't have that many obligations seemed to think of this as a silly exercise and it still seems that a predominant way of thinking is that you can't have fun without alcohol. To some extent that is true, but it's more dependent on the definition of "fun". The type of fun in question is, surprise surprise, the sort found on campuses, namely drinking parties. And I can see how teetotalism might be problematic then. ;) But in fact it's been an interesting experience to take part in parties by drinking mineral water and having fun then is just a matter of your personal attitude. It just requires that at some point of the evening you know when it's time to leave. That's typically when the collective intoxication level of the nearby area reaches some threshold level. I'm sure everyone can determine the metrics for themselves.

Oh, and as a positive aspect of all this, you no longer have to endure the dreaded day after. And I've heard that at some levels of yoga people typically do in fact give up alcohol because it no longer fits in their lifestyles and prevents them from getting further in yoga. But, if you disregard the last, teetotalism isn't necessarily just for religious fundamentalists and alcoholics. ;) And I guess I'll have to brush upon this subject again in a few months to see if anything new and interesting has come up...

And on a completely separate note, after eight years I found Lenny Kravitz again and have been listening to his Greatest Hits for the past few days: