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Many people feel pressure from their peers to drink alcohol and are relieved when someone close to them stops drinking, says the founder of a support group.
2020 was enough to get a taste of our best, and for some, the occasional drink became a daily coping mechanism. Claire Robbie is the founder of No Beers? Who Cares !, an organization that tries to change attitudes about how and why we drink, and show people that it is possible to have a good time without alcohol.
He joined Weekend to share some thoughts on coping with life without alcohol.
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He said his group tried to change attitudes around alcohol, not to judge people who did not want to drink and to teach people how to socialize without alcohol.
If people wanted to cut down or stop drinking, it took between 90 and 120 days and often provided a “trickle down effect” for other people in their lives, such as partners or friends.
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In New Zealand, summer is “an exceptionally triggering time” to drink in part due to peer pressure and habit, says Claire Robbie.
“There are many people who are pressured by their peers to drink and not because they are weak or anything like that.
“Most of the time those people drink because they don’t want other people to feel bad because when you stop drinking, you become a kind of mirror for other people whose drinking is not particularly healthy.”
It gives other people permission not to drink as well instead of the “unconscious pressure” they feel to adjust.
In New Zealand, summer is “an exceptionally triggering time” to drink in part due to peer pressure and habit, Robbie said.
She encourages people to identify their triggers and then choose another option, such as bringing their own non-alcoholic drink to a social gathering and also preparing ahead of time for questions they may get from people.
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Claire Robbie is the founder of No Beers? Who cares!
“A lot of the people I work with experience a kind of questioning that happens with very close friends about why they don’t drink.”
People should respond strongly, offering reasons such as for their health, to be a better role model for children, or to be curious to see what life is like without alcohol.
Many people drink to calm the feeling of loneliness. Stopping drinking can increase feelings of isolation and needs to be accepted, he said.
There is often a false connection to people through alcohol and she has found that with her closest friends “we have the kind of connection that doesn’t need to be reinforced by alcohol.”
Drinking habits formed in your teens
Robbie said that for the last decade he has reestablished his relationship with alcohol and has not had a drink in four years.
Everyone drinks differently and hers was a quintessential kiwi pattern. He started binge-drinking as a teenager, then drank heavily as a student, and then lived in Asia where alcohol was incredibly cheap.
When he was in his early 30s, he decided to stop drinking for a year because he was going through a divorce and wanted to make some changes in his life.
“When I started with that, that’s when I realized that it had become quite a massive social-emotional coping mechanism for me.”
After two years she started drinking again and it got worse when her son was born and the glass of wine at 5 o’clock “quickly turned into two or three wines at 5 o’clock” and finally decided she needed to cut back.
Meditation, therapy, and yoga helped her “quit [alcohol] walk away almost “four years ago.
His group is not anti-alcoholic, yet he wants people to realize that drinking alcohol is “just a symptom of deeper things.”
She has had chronic anxiety for most of her life, and although alcohol seems to numb or soften those feelings, the chemicals in alcohol actually make the anxiety worse over time, Robbie said.
“So it’s really important to start learning the things we need to do to regulate our nervous system in a healthy way.”
That can be eating better, enjoying nature, exercising more, or sleeping better.
“If we find things that are really good for us and really restorative, we may find that we are choosing less and less alcohol.”
