What Do You Do When Someone Asks Why You Don't Drink?

Video Transcript: Tim here. Sobernation.com I'm doing another video because I was asked an interesting question the other day and it's a question that I have been asked a bunch of times. I've never really had the perfect advice to give and I still don't have the perfect advice to give, but I thought I'd at least share my experience on it in case anyone else is wondering about this which, I'm sure they are. So the question that was asked fo me is, what do you do if someone asks why you don't drink? Usually, this happens if you're out with friends, if you're out at a social event. If someone offers me a beer, I usually just say "no thanks." If someone asks me why, I usually just say "because I don't drink." That's where I leave it and most of the time that's where it stops. I've found that people don't actually care as much as I think they do as to why I don't drink. It's more so that they just offer it and then you say no and then they say "okay, no problem." But, every once in a while you will find that person who sort of looks at you weird and they ask you why and sometimes they me even ask "c'mon, what do you mean you don't drink? It's just one." My usual response is that "it's not good for me." Sometimes they catch on and sometimes they take it a step further. They may even ask "did you have a problem?" or "what? are you an alcoholic?" The reason why I think there is no clear cut answer to this is because it is up to everyone individually as to what they want to say. You can go into and tell your story if you want. I generally choose to say "I've had some problems with it in the past and I chose not to do it anymore." Again, that's usually where it stops. The thing that is important is that... it's a big fear of ours right? To think, what are people going to think of me? Am I going to be judged? Are people going to talk behind my back? What are the neighbors or my friends going to think? I've discovered like I said before that people don't give it that much thought. I tend to be a self-centered person. I think it's important to establish what self-centered means. Self-centered means that everything is about me. So if people are having a conversation I assume it is about me. If there is something going on, I always can make it about me and I get up in my head about it. So, you think that people are talking about you or that they are thinking about you but really they're not. Everybody has got their own lives going on, everybody's got their own problems and their own insecurities and the truth is that most of the time people don't really care about your insecurities that much. That's my advice on the subject. That's really the best advice I can give because like I said before it hasn't really been that much of an issue for me. Maybe I can think of a few times, one time at a wedding a family acquaintance was pretty drunk and kept offering it to me and I just walked away. I didn't make a big deal about it. My response, if someone offers me a drink is "no thanks, I don't drink." That's usually where it ends right? If anyone else has had any other experience about this, please share it leave it in the comments. Leave it in the comments of the blog as well, not just the social media. I am sure there are people out there who have had issues or experience with this. Maybe I'm just lucky and I'm not one of them. If you have had some experience, give us some of your advice because I am sure there are other people out there, that are looking for advice that could use your help. That's all I got. As always if you guys want to share your personal stories with me, if you want to share your before and after, if you want to share your anniversaries, just send me the picture through the messages in the Facebook. If you have a personal story just email it to me at [email protected]. If you guys ever want to contact me, at all just email me. I love talking to you guys I love hearing what you have to say. Till next time.