1. I see your point, that it is odd to have a drinking feature about not drinking, but I must say I find it sort of refreshing. There are still plenty of drink-recipe-and-the-cool-places-to-drink-them features in all sorts of print and digital media for those who do imbibe (Esquire and GQ are particularly completist in this area).

   I think it’s cool that there is finally representation for the growing sector of the population (to which I belong) for whom the amount of alcohol they can handle without it adversely affecting the rest of their life turns out to be none.

   — Donny Sparrow · Dec 16, 12:23 PM · #

   ---

2. Gawker had a post about it a couple hours later: http://gawker.com/5111105/no-one-gets-drunk-anymore-in-new-york?skyline=true&s=x

   — Alisa · Dec 16, 01:15 PM · #

   ---

3. @Donny: That’s all fine – not against people advocating responsibility. I’m no drunkard. My objections, however:

   1) The overwritten, overshare-y, “let me tell you about my problems” tone of some of the posts, which is silly and obnoxious;

   2) In the post about New Yorkers being more sober, see the update I added to the post above. Maybe it’s true, or maybe you’re just getting old or getting invited to the wrong parties.

   — David · Dec 16, 02:45 PM · #

   ---

4. You got that right — the part about “Proof” being about NOT drinking. What a downer it’s been so far.

   Kind of how like the “Lives” page in the Sunday magazine used to be about genuinely colorful incidents and adventures in people’s lives. Then it changed to depressing anecdotes about gloom and regret.

   “Proof” is jumping to that stage right at the start, looks like. I guess that’s something.

   — Bonwah · Dec 16, 04:15 PM · #

   ---

5. The tendency to turn drinking of any sort into a seedy subculture, particularly among evangelicals, is a horrible cultural error, in my opinion.

   When churches say they “aren’t against drinking” but ban alcohol from any church-related functions, they’ve made a liar of themselves.

   When any culture makes complete abstention from alcohol the only acceptable option, it has made three drinks and fifteen morally equivalent options. Teetollerism eliminates the option of moderation.

   If you choose not to drink yourself, that is fine. James 4:17 and all. The problem comes when you make your indiscretion the standard for everyone else, and you subvert a proper prudential enjoyment into something we have to hide from the other deacons…

   — Mark P · Dec 16, 05:39 PM · #

   ---

6. Well, I don’t think that a singular blog observing the (perceived) trend of less drinking in NYC is by any means “the standard”.

   Furthermore, these essays, as David pointed out, are quite personal in nature (perhaps excessively so, as he aptly noted) and though I’ve not read them all, I didn’t see anywhere where they prescribed total abstention for anyone but themselves, while enumerating the personal reasons they came to this conclusion. Moderation, in these cases, doesn’t seem to happen.

   Whether Churches take a position, official or unofficial on drinking is perhaps an interesting academic debate, but not really the topic being addressed by the Times new blog, or by David’s blog entry covering said Times blog.

   But I’ll continue the tangent by saying that it can often be personal experience that creates a negative view of drinking, including among evangelicals. Certainly in my own Church, seeing the sheer number of lives and families adversely affected by alcoholism could make it seem “seedy”, and perhaps lead to an official policy of temperance at Church functions. These “indiscretions” may not in fact be the standard, but I think they may be common enough to warrant restrictions. Teetotalism may eliminate “moderation” from your Church picnic, but it might also eliminate any number of unwanted consequences as well.

   More purely academic musings: alcohol is one of the trickier waters for the Church to navigate. No, alcohol on its face isn’t sinful, but drunkenness, a likely direct result of its use, is sinful. And why was it so important that John the Baptist, unequivocally one of the greatest people of God in the Bible, never take strong drink?

   But my main point remains—this Times blog is the exception, not the rule. While it might not be very well written, and might be making sweeping generalizations about an entire city based on a few personal anecdotes, it’s still just one blog taking the opposite view of most other culture sites, mags, and blogs. That’s not such a bad thing, is it?

   — Donny Sparrow · Dec 16, 08:00 PM · #

   ---

7. On the subject of church drinking, I think it may make sense to admit that drinking is perfectly fine, but ban it from church functions because of the possible presence of past alcoholics.

   — Timothy · Dec 16, 11:19 PM · #

   ---

8. Don’s right: this doesn’t have much to do with churches and drinking, so I won’t continue that tangent.

   But, in reply to your last paragraph, Don:

   “But my main point remains—this Times blog is the exception, not the rule. While it might not be very well written, and might be making sweeping generalizations about an entire city based on a few personal anecdotes, it’s still just one blog taking the opposite view of most other culture sites, mags, and blogs. That’s not such a bad thing, is it?”

   No, of course not. The Times blogs are usually quite good; they usually bear evidence of time and thought being put into them. I would love to read an interesting blog about alcohol and society, or alcohol and New York City. But I’ll tune out quickly if it’s just personal musings on the benefits of teetotalling. I’m sure it will pick up some diversity as it goes on, but, until then, it’s not really worth the time.

   — David · Dec 17, 03:43 AM · #

   ---

9. Apologies if that seemed too tangential. The temperance movement came from within the Church, so I tend to associate such things with that movement — on this point probably wrongly. I’ll move back to the more general discussion.

   Hardly anyone proscribes teetollerism directly, but the attempt to add something of the illicit, the seedy… to preach about the horrors of excess with abstention as the only offered alternative… is essentially a more insidious version of the same thing. Equivocating drinking and drunkenness serves that purpose. Drunkenness is no more a direct result of alcohol than obesity is the direct result of eating rich food. Both are problems of immoderation.

   Perhaps one cause of teetollerism is that the only clean line is total abstention. Clearly, when you’re smashed, you’re drunk. But what about everything shy of hammered? That’s a lot of ground, and there’s no clear definition on where “drunk” begins. Even if there were, it requires discretion and judgment to know which drink will put you there. As a handful of the “Proof” posts suggested, better to steer altogether.

   The problem with that mentality – of creating artificially bright lines to simplify problems – is that everything over the artificial line becomes hazily associated with the wrong. The distinction between our safe boundaries and the actual boundaries evaporates. And that attitude can become pervasive, where our own safe lines become the standard itself.

   — Mark P · Dec 19, 01:01 AM · #

   ---

10. 8UKLUL <a href=“http://jqwjdiitfiyp.com/”>jqwjdiitfiyp</a>, [url=http://zwyrblnvwztw.com/]zwyrblnvwztw[/url], [link=http://drmsexfykwwe.com/]drmsexfykwwe[/link], http://ionatpkxsnse.com/

    — xdocya · Jan 5, 10:11 AM · #

    ---

11. hi
    s09vky7×4e421cjr
    good luck

    — Richard Calderon · Jan 9, 11:14 PM · #

    ---

Commenting is closed for this article.