We drink a lot of alcohol in the US, but not everyone drinks it. In fact, 35% of those of legal drinking age consider themselves abstainers (Gallup). Statistically, that means that more than three people in every ten we encounter don’t drink alcohol. So why are messages of drinking so ubiquitous? How did the alcohol industry succeed in showing those who don’t drink alcohol that they are in such a slim minority when that’s clearly untrue?
Don’t take it from me…do a twenty-four-hour exercise: make a tally mark for every advertising or mention of alcohol that you encounter. Let me give you some ideas.
Are you listening to music and hearing the Plain White T’s sing their anthem to drunk dialing, “I Should’ve Gone to Bed”? How about Gavin DeGraw’s ode to drunkenness, “Finest Hour”? Oh, you like country music. OK, how about Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song” or “AA” by Walker Hayes? I love all these songs, but they do make me cringe.
Driving down the road, did you see that billboard for whiskey? That counts. Beer bollards at your local gas station? There’s another tally mark.
And what about what people are wearing? Hats? Sweatshirts? T-shirts? In the early ‘90s, while working at a group home for children whose parents had the disease of addiction, a staff person showed up to his shift wearing a t-shirt that advertised Michelob Dark with the slogan, “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.” He was required to turn the shirt inside out. Fast forward a bunch of years, to when a similar situation happened…and I was the only one who noticed.
I was recently with hundreds of other attendees at a conference where money was being raised for youth education. But the party on the first night of the conference was so well-received that the alcohol budget was used up, and a box for donations for more alcohol was put out on the table. Let that sink in: the conference organizers had made special efforts to raise money for youth education programs and to engage youth in the cause, with a poster and speech contest for the youth and a silent auction benefiting youth programming. But the opening reception had alcohol flowing so freely that someone – I don’t know who – decided that the conference attendees should be encouraged to throw money into a box for more alcohol rather than to support the silent auction benefiting youth education. So, yeah, that’s another tally mark or two, one for hearing someone announcing the box being there and one for actually seeing it.
Did you pass a bar advertising for beer? Tally mark. Grocery store ad for wine? Tally mark. Watching TV where someone or a group of people are imbibing? Tally, tally, tally.
I really can’t think of another product that has found its way into society in such a way that if you don’t use it, despite it being cancerous and toxic, you’re the odd man out.
And, if you couldn’t tell, I’m one of the abstainers. I’m not a person who has addiction. Rather, I realized nearly ten years ago that I’m a better role model for those who can’t drink socially than I am for those who can, and so I stopped. I don’t miss it…because I don’t have addiction. And I don’t have a problem with people who want to drink occasionally. I do have a problem with the message that drinking is healthy or at least not unhealthy. And I have a problem with the idea that alcohol is safe and fun and for everyone, so much so that it is, indeed, ubiquitous.
But don’t take my word for it…start your tally marks, and see for yourself!
Too long, didn’t read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X__-G9NvtaE
References
https://news.gallup.com/poll/467507/percentage-americans-drink-alcohol.aspx
Guided by Guida 
Leave a comment