Peer pressure – and that at my age…

Yesterday I was at a fair with several booths selling alcohol free drinks. One booth had a tasting going on. The drinks were not soda drinks but alcohol free imitations which were made with alcohol and then the alcohol got extracted. The guy abruptly moved into my personal space and without introduction asked me if I wanted to have a taste. More like: “DO YOU WANT TO TASTE!!!!?” My boundaries went up abruptly and I spat out a semi polite “No!!!”

Then I realised that was not such a nice reply and that I might be needing him in the future so I continued with “Thank you, but I would like some information about your company.” He started to walk off at the first word and then, reluctantly turned around again. Very unpleasant. I noticed internally that I did not want this ‘bad feeling’ to exist and that I wanted to be liked. Also, I had refused because I was scared. And because of his reaction I suddenly felt a sissy, a prude, an alcoholic with issues about trying AF. So I asked for his most popular product and he gave me a tasting glass.

I tasted one tiny, tiny, 3 drop zip of a supposed alcohol free wine. It tasted so real, you could have fooled me. I was flabbergasted to the point of freaking out internally.  Well, I am afraid he did fool me because when I asked if there really was no alcohol in it, he became vague and suddenly could not find the bottle he had poured it from. I could imagine a guy having worked for an AF-ish company for 10 years would know how much his most sold product contains – not?

So I handed it back to him and said: “Well, this is not for me because I do not like alcohol and this tastes way too much like alcohol. But compliments for the efforts, I would not have picked this out as alcohol free. That is quite exceptional. ”

By the way, for anybody wondering what I just said there: I did not mean that. I do not mean to compliment somebody on serving something which tastes like alcohol but presumably does not contain it. Or only contains a little. Obviously one can argue that it might be a good product for blablabla whatever situation. But… they all come down to ‘not being able to go without the taste’ or ‘not wanting to feel left out’. And those are 2 thoughts which actually promote the addictive state of this society – to my not so humble opinion.

So I learned three things:

1: AF imitations are not for me.

2: I presume that using AF imitations keeps people in the ‘drinking mode’ – but obviously one has to find that out yourself. I would say: stay on the safe side of sorry.

3: I experienced peer pressure I did not know I was sensitive to. And I reacted like I was 14 years old all over. Patterns, patterns, patterns, sigh :-). I learned now, again, to trust my instincts and if a guy looks like an asshole, breathes asshole vibes, talks like an asshole, he probably IS an asshole. Or, when put that while taking more responsibility for my own presence: When a person scares me with his/her behaviour, it is good to take note of that, stay alert and see if there is any evidence for this feeling. If his/her behaviour continues to be/feel destructive to me, I must find a way to either put it to a halt or not deal with this person. If that is not possible; take some distance by going to the toilet or something, recompose and then go back into the situation.

I am happy that I am sober otherwise I would have never realised what was going on. 🙂 And also, I would not have noted that the principle of “You can take a kid out of high-school, but you can not take the high-school out of the kid.” Still works for me. I fear that I, at that age, became the bully who told others they were sissies when not drinking. Sorry to the world 😦

I am happy that I quit. I feel so much better. To that: I am back on the chocolate again. Not sure what happened. Feeling the heartburn, the palpitations and the lack of stamina it gives me quite clearly now. It brings shame.

A woman who loves herself would quit eating chocolate. I don’t want to. I want to stay small and insignificant and unclear and in the clouds. I don’t want to grow up. The upside is: if I quit I am so much more aware and effective and present. And I experience growth again and things NEW which I have missed. And then there is this small voice saying: “But I have never done something with the end in mind?! I can’t do stuff because it is good for me?! I can only not do stuff because it is bad for me and because I feel ashamed that keeping on doing looks bad.”

Now that is some info I will leave here to rest because I can not deal with knowing it, with realising it. Currently my head goes in flight mode. Hmmm, I guess that is what addiction is like. Interesting. And gone. Suddenly cleaning the house is really important! 🙂

Wishing you a good sober weekend!

xx, Feeling