A Toast with Myself: In Defense of Drinking Alone

30 March 2011

Somewhere, somehow, somebody decided that it was not a good idea for people to be drinking alone. That drinking alone is a sure sign of teetering on the edge or deep emotional issues that need be resolved immediately by interventions or, at the very least, drinking with friends. Surely you know of this? I've been getting a lot of smack for my habit of drinking alone (and the sometimes preference of it over drinking with friends), people have been suggesting I get therapy, calling me an alcoholic and similar stuff, and I don't mind the concern, I just don't think there is anything to be concerned about.

This frowning upon drinking alone may be because alcohol is generally viewed as the social lubricant, and having nothing to lubricate but still pouring out the lubricant just doesn't make sense to some people. In this society if you drink alone you must be depressed, or troubled, or downright pathetic, which is sad since it need not be like that at all. Now I won't deny that I do drink alone when I'm depressed, but depression isn't the main reason for drinking alone. The reason I drink alone is because I like being alone and I like drinking, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing them together.

Whenever friends tell me I shouldn't be drinking alone I ask them why they think so and the answers can't get any lousier; "It's friggin' emo.", "It's not gonna help you, man", "It'll make you sadder". Now, again the presumption is that drinking alone is done when you are sad, solitude is not the same as sad! When one drinks alone one finds an opportunity to converse with oneself similar to the way we converse when drinking with a group, the alcohol lubricates the internal lines of communication too.

When I drink alone I am not required to keep my end of a conversation, talk about something I have no great interest for, pretend to care about some pitiful problem of some guy who thinks drinking with friends means getting advice while drunk. Drinking alone is about relinquishing the problems and loosening up, letting shit go and just relaxing. Since I talk a lot when with my friends, drinking alone is when my mind finds no need to engage anyone in a conversation.

Now I can go on and tell you how to drink alone or what to drink when alone but it won't really matter, drinking alone is about being with yourself and you should decide what that should be like. Personally I prefer an ice-cold beer and a bag of Cheetos, but every now and then a man would want some whiskey on the rocks.

Now cut the people who drink alone some slack, there's nothing wrong with it, it's just prejudice. To say that drinking alone is a sure sign of alcoholism is AA bullshit. First of all it considers us powerless over the "drug" then telling us how we should relinquish our concerns to a "higher power", we are not powerless against alcohol, we're not even alcoholics! Has anybody even considered the reason for drinking alone? How about simple appreciation of alcohol? Doesn't that count? How about 'time for myself'? The taboo of drinking alone has been intensified because of these beliefs.

Ernest Hemingway has been quoted; "I drank a bottle of wine for company. It was Chateau Margaux. It was pleasant to be drinking slowly and to be tasting the wine and to be drinking alone. A bottle of wine was good company" it indeed is. But it's  better than drinking with an actual person, the bottle doesn't jabber or judge, the bottle doesn't mind if you get drunk as shit, and you don't have to worry about who is gonna drive the bottle home. Go ahead, drink alone, you are perfectly sane.

"I take my wine jug out among the flowers
to drink alone, without friends.

I raise my cup to entice the moon.
That, and my shadow, makes us three."

(Poem From: Drinking Alone by Li Po)