177. REACHING ROCK BOTTOM - Why England Needs to Sober Up
I don’t drink alcohol. Never have. I am what punks call ‘straightedge’ - no alcohol, no drugs - and have been forever. Since before I even heard the NOFX cover of the Minor Threat song laying out the philosophy - ‘I’m a person just like you, but I’ve got better things to do…’
Being sober for my entire life has been hard. Not because I’ve been tempted to drink (I haven’t) but because it means having to look at the world with clear-eyes and take every problem it has without a buffer. Nothing to take the edge off. Nothing to switch off, numb myself, and ignore. It has been hard because life is hard, and full of problems.
My reasons for not drinking are simple - I don’t want to be cognitively impaired. I’ve seen too many dumb drunk people doing dumb drunk things and just never saw the appeal. And in my time I’ve heard the stories of a lot of people who drank too much. Some proper alcoholics, others just people who felt they were heading in an alcoholic direction. And I’ve been thinking about those people lately a lot. The reason is that people who drink too much tend to let their lives sort of slip out of control a bit…and they don’t fully notice it because they aren’t working at full cognitive capacity. Perhaps the house gets a bit filthy, the fridge a bit empty, the clothes they wear a bit dirty. Maybe they oversleep and are late for work a bit too frequently, or miss appointments with friends as they lose track of time once a drink is in their hands. Or they say things they shouldn’t to people and don’t fully realise the damage they are doing to their relationships. It takes a lot of mental effort to spin all the plates of an organised existence. Keeping on top of chores, of responsibilities, of bills, of relationships, of work. While some self-medicate with alcohol to ease some of that pressure with a little oblivion every now and again, those who have lost control with alcohol spend too much time obliterated.
Why has this been on my mind?
It started with a simple joke made by a Spanish comedian I saw on Friday night, supporting Guz Khan. Ignacio Lopez made the offhand remark that one of the things he did to fit in with English culture was become an alcoholic. Laughing, he marvelled at how much we drink as a culture. He isn’t wrong. While alcohol is global, the English have a distinct inability to drink in moderation. Just look at any city centre late on a Friday or Saturday night. Messy doesn’t even cover it. The sort of behaviour one tends to see limited only to college dorms elsewhere around the globe is a regular state of being for many English adults. The English don’t drink because they like the taste, or because a slight looseness acts as a pleasing social lubricant. The English drink to get drunk much of the time. And our drinking culture is such that alcohol is equated with fun to the point that many can’t imagine having a good time without it. I remember the horror that came at the suggestion we might make our wedding alcohol-free (a cunning ruse from my wife and I to minimise the complaints about the entirely vegetarian food - but one we knew would scare our parents into acceptance of the lack of meat because they’d rather starve than be denied their drinks!) People think it completely acceptable work-place conversation to yearn for a glass of wine at the end of a long day rather than something, perhaps, to be ashamed of. Consider replacing that glass of wine with other addictions: ‘boy it’s been a tough day - I can’t wait to get home and eat some chocolate to make me feel better’ or ‘definitely need to get high tonight to cope with the day’. Though chocolate and drugs might also be what we get up to once home, no-one would boldly admit it to their peers and expect both recognition and agreement about it the way they do with a glass of wine or pint of beer. Then there’s the bottle of wine to say thank you for something. An awkward convention if you don’t drink like me because you don’t want to reject a gift coming from a genuinely nice place, but the assumption that you would enjoy the gift speaks to the underlying assumption that everyone drinks. Just think of the focus of England’s fury about the lockdown during the pandemic - it wasn’t our families we wanted to visit, but the pubs.
When I was at university I used to pretend I was a recovering alcoholic to people because I got so bored of both having to explain myself every time I went to the pub and only drank soft drinks or water. When you said you didn’t drink there was an immediate defensiveness from those who did, trying to defend their own life choices against an imagined judgement, and even those who would try and spike your drink with something to show you that drinking alcohol was fun. They could understand alcoholic, because it meant you were like them - a drinker - but had gone too far. To not drink simply through choice just didn’t compute.
So why did Ignacio Lopez’s comment lead to this post? What am I thinking about or arguing here (because you’ll notice I’m not actually presenting an argument against drinking alcohol - what you do with your life is up to you)?
The comment stuck in my mind because I had been talking a lot recently with people about just how broken England is, institutionally, right now. A government that doesn’t govern, a health service and education system that are woefully underfunded and under-performing, in crumbling and unsafe buildings. A lack of affordable housing and a population experiencing houselessness in increasing numbers. A welfare safety net that doesn’t seem to catch those that need it as they fall. An economy in permanent spiral, with the austerity that followed the 2008 crash not only proven to have failed, but never undone. When families ‘tighten their belts’ it is usually as a brief measure until things get better. If they don’t get better it is no longer ‘belt tightening’, it is a chronic problem in need of a solution. But we’ve lost so many public services that never came back - from decent libraries in every town to decent childcare providers - and continue to see services close and nothing seems to be done about it. Our public transport doesn’t work - trains on strike, bin collections, postal service. Nothing works, and hasn’t for a very long time.
It made me think about that alcoholic, deep into their cups on a grotty sofa in a filthy room. Only realising their life is falling apart for a few brief moments every morning before their lips find the first sip of the day. The recognition of disaster becomes numbed. Obliteration beckons and promises relief from having to think too hard about the spiralling chaos of their day-to-day life.
I am not saying that we have done this to ourselves without help. There are people very much responsible since the 2010 election for specific choices which led us to this disarray and disfunction. But people have long taken advantage of the inattentiveness of drunks. Pass out in the park walking home from the pub and see if your wallet is still in your pocket by morning. What I am saying is that it has certainly been a lot easier to slowly dismantle the workings of a functioning society when the majority of that society is too drunk to notice and, when they do, respond to the growing number of concerns and troubles by pouring themselves another drink.
So I guess what I am really doing is posing the following thought experiment: do you think a sober society would have sat by and done nothing for twenty-four years as their country failed to meet even the most basic standards of functioning anymore? And does the fact that England is not a sober society give us some explanation as to why the English have seemingly done exactly that?
Author: DaN McKee (he/him)
My book, ANARCHIST ATHEIST PUNK ROCK TEACHER, is out everywhere now on paperback and eBook. You can order it direct from the publisher or from places like Amazon.
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