Testing My Teetotal Tenacity

I can tell you it has been a tough week since Sober October started.  Not drinking is difficult.  And I don't mean in the physiological sense, but socially it can only be described as not at all fun.  Boring, in fact.  And hard to avoid.

I have, unusually, had two steaks this week and not one of them was accompanied by a rich glass of rioja.  We ate grilled sardines with garlic and lemon at the weekend, not washed down with a crisp glass of sancere.  And I have spent a few nights with friends, not enjoying an IPA or Hendricks, instead having a fourth cup of tea or third glass of tonic water.

As expected, the challenge of Sober October for me is not the abstinence in itself, but the repercussions of being teetotal.  That is not to say that my friends or family have been disparaging about me not drinking, but it has meant a change in plans or a cutting short of an evening.

Now, I did promise to explore more interesting non-alcoholic alternatives during October and have not done a very good job so far.  My liquid diet has so far consisted of tea, tonic water and juice.  And more tea.  At the weekend, however, while out with Dave in the pub I ordered a Virgin Mary.  This really is a good mocktail that won't leave you feeling short-changed.  It packs a punch with pepper, chilli and lemon juice, so you really don't miss the vodka at all.  I have also bought myself some specialist herbal tea from the market and will try this out later on in the week.

Finally, I thought you might be interested to learn where the word "teetotal" came from.  The internet tells me that it was first used by a worker from Preston in a speech in 1833 urging people to be totally abstinent (total with a capital tee), rather than the laxer form of abstinence first suggested by some in the temperance movement, who thought that abstinence should only apply to spirits, not beer.

On that same subject, my friend Bob Eadie was the first to teach me of the Gothenburg Public House System while we were out campaigning in deepest darkest Fife.  The system originated in Gotheburg, Sweden, in the 1860s as a way to try and curb consumption of alcohol.  The problem was that hard-working miners and other manual labourers were spending too much of their wages in the pub.  Knowing that it would be impossible to simply stop people drinking, the Gothenburg pubs were established as a kind of community pub with the dual aim of trying to discouraging drinking but also whatever profit was made from drinking was ploughed into community projects.

The system took a strong hold in Scotland, hence why there are so many pubs now called "Goths" in Scotland, particularly around the mining communities.  At one point there were more than twenty in Fife.  While the environment in these establishments was unwelcoming, and gambling, dominoes and other games were banned, the profits funded charities, clubs, district nurses and buildings like community centres, libraries and cinemas.  Most of the goth pubs in Scotland now are just goth by name, but there are a handful that follow the original Gothenburg principles.