#abstemious

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B R A V O! This piece is absolutely brilliant. I wish everyone would read it and finally understand. I really don't have anything against drinkers. My choice to not drink isn't motivated, or pushed because I feel superior to drinkers or alcoholics or that I'm traumatized by negative childhood memories, it's just that I simply DON'T WANT TO. It's not appealing to me yet I'm not on mission to prove to everyone being abstemious is better and healthier because I don't do it for either of those reasons. I don't need it to be a happy person or have fun but I feel that when we teetotalers say this, social drinkers recoil and get on the defensive thinking that when we say this we're obviously saying that they are boring or inhibitive people that need to drink to actually be able to have some personality, but no. It's usually the other way around, because people who drink feel uncomfortable, questioned or attacked by our choice, they deride us and think we're the stuck up boring ones. Which personally doesn't offend me because if I'm boring not drinking, I'd be a boring drinker too. I've tried beer twice in my life and neither of those times did the taste or experience hook me up enough to try to drink again and again. Just like I've tried dishes that are hailed as the best cuisine creation but I end up hating them because my tastebuds are just not used to change or the different the same thing happens with alcohol. Maybe it's because of my stubborn, picky mind but I just don't enjoy it. But like with the choice of being childfree and not wanting, ever, to be a mom and around kids, the same applies with my teetotal lifestyle, I chose it because I just can't be bothered to drink, just like I can't be bothered to have kids I never want. There's no deeper meaning. And I feel that's one of the problems nowadays, in regards to this about drinkers vs nondrinkers, and a lot more--sometimes we're all so eager to find out a nonexistent 'why' to everything. Or we keep digging and digging until we find that deep meaning that's actually not deep at all, we've just left a hole that we then can't seem to fill up again. We want to psychoanalyze every decision people make not to be content with the answer(s) provided, but to feel superior and validated in _our_ choice(s), because it's as if we always deep down feel it's slightly wrong. Or maybe it's our ever increasing anxieties that makes us all think that everyone is out to push us down and always ready to come at our throats. Whatever it is though, most of the time, these choices aren't meant as a jab to anyone but something that just benefits us in our personal lives, which doesn't mean that drinking is not beneficial to those who do. The whole point of this is that we need to learn to be more tactful, respectful of those who've chosen things in life that are different to what we've chosen and to stop overanalyzing everything our peers do and somehow believe it's an attack at ourselves. And that when there is a strong reason behind why someone doesn't drink, instead of glossing over it, we need to be more compassionate and empathetic to their feelings and situation instead of always making it about ourselves. Though I can see why teetotalism is now looked even more suspiciously thanks to m***********g tmurp lmao. But yeah, tl;dr: I don't drink because I just don't want to, I don't like alcohol, it's not me attacking or feeling superior to those who do, and please stop trying to get us to drink! Thank u, next.

Wikipedia word of the day is abstemious : Refraining from freely consuming food or strong drink; sparing in diet; abstinent, temperate. Sparing in the indulgence of the appetite or passions. Sparingly used; used with temperance or moderation. Marked by, or spent in, abstinence. (rare) Promotive of abstemiousness.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/abstemious

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/abstemious

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/abstemious

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/abstemious