Episode 265
Title: Alcohol: Sober Or Stupid?
Host: Dr. Nicole Rivera
________________
Transcription:
What's up guys, Dr. Nicole here. Welcome back to another episode of Integrative You Radio. So I have been a little resistant to talk about this topic. You know, I think at the end of the day, everybody has a right to choose what is best for them, but a lot of the circulating content is honestly making me a little fucking crazy.
So here we are talking about the sober curious trend. And the thing that. Can't stop running in my mind as I am seeing this, this sober curious trend, because that's what it is at this point. You know, I think that if we use common sense, we know that the consumption of alcohol is not great, you know, for a multitude of reasons.
It's Essentially a toxin that we are consuming to alter our reality to change the chemistry of our body that is going to create. Um, issues from the perspective of stressing our organs, creating inflammation, affecting our blood sugar and altering our behavior. And so, you know, there are certain individuals that it alters their behavior and it removes their fears and it removes their resistance and allows them to be them.
Those are, you know, the people that are fun drunks. And then there are individuals that it's going to bring up all of their deep seated Trauma, all of their unconscious fears and belief systems and issues. So, you know, when we want to sit back and think about the consumption of alcohol, you know, It's about how you use it.
And I'm not sitting here being an advocate for alcohol, but my perspective is different because of the fact that I have now been in Italy for almost a year. And this isn't just about Italy. This is about European culture and its relationship with. Alcohol with wine with it being part of the culture and that's what keeps playing in my mind that needs to be discussed is the culture of alcohol.
The culture of alcohol consumption in the U. S. is so unbelievably toxic and it is something that you almost don't even realize until you go to other places in the world and you realize that the relationship is completely, completely different. And since I've been in Italy, What I realize is that, and this isn't even what I realized, this is what I've blatantly observed.
And I want to be clear, I have not been in one place. I have been to over 20 different parts of Italy. Maybe even more if you want to include, because I've been to Sicily, but I've been to 10 different places inside of Sicily over the course of a couple of weeks. Like, I have visited many, many, many parts of this country.
And I've also been to France. I've been to Switzerland. I've been to other places. I've is
probably, um, you know, the U. S. 's sister country. There's, there's a lot, there are definitely some similarities. But when you get into France, Switzerland, Italy. It's a very different culture. There's very different roots that still live inside of the culture. And I'm going to, like, this is going to sound crazy to you guys.
I have not seen a drunk person in my life. All of the places that I visited in over a year, I have not seen a drunk person. I have not seen a person stumbling. I have not seen a person being belligerent. I have not seen a person that doesn't know where they are, that can't call a cab for themselves. I have been in Paris, like I have been in Rome.
I have been to Florence. I haven't been in big cities and I have been out at later hours. Definitely not past midnight, guys. Sorry. So, you know, maybe it's a different ball game once you're out past midnight, but in America, you see drunk people out and about all hours of the day. If it's a Saturday or a Sunday and you're out at a restaurant, there are drunk people.
There are people that are drinking in excess. It is not the same here. It is not the same in a lot of European cultures. And that is something that has been so eye opening to me. And yes, they drink at an earlier age. They're able to drink at 18. If you want to get into Germany, they can drink pretty much by the age of 14.
They don't have this toxic relationship with alcohol because one, they're being brought up with a healthier relationship with it. It's not being like, don't drink, don't look at it, don't do this, don't do that. If anything, families are like, You know, if you're a young teenager, have a little bit of wine, you know, it's Christmas or it's a holiday and they're not making it a big deal because at the end of the day, the more you want to take something away, the more that it's desired.
That's just human psychology. And so, you know, when you talk to Europeans and they're like, it is so wild that you guys can't have a, uh, a legal glass of, uh, of wine or, or a drink until you're 21 years old, you know, how is that playing in to this very, very imbalanced culture of alcohol consumption? And as I mentioned is the idea of drinking in excess.
You know, I observe everything and we go out quite a bit here to eat, you know, out for an aperitivo. And when you're sitting there, you do not see people ordering quickly and you don't see people ordering in excess. You don't see, you know, tables of two or three or four people going through multiple bottles of wine.
You're seeing two to four people. Share one bottle of wine. You're seeing, you know, if people have one to two beers over the course of two hours, you're not seeing, you know, 10 beers over the course of two hours, which is a normal cadence in the U. S. And so you also don't see people going out just to drink and get drunk.
People are going out for an experience of food and very often they choose to pair that food with water. Mainly wine, to be honest, it's, I was saying to my husband when we first got here, I'm like, it's really not that easy to get a cocktail. Like and if anything, there's not a lot of places that make a good cocktail because it's not common.
You know, cocktails are reserved if you are going to go out for music or dancing later in the, you know, in the later, later hours. Overall, it's more wine. Consumption than anything else, and that kind of brings me to the second point is that, you know, there is an art to it, and there is the the art of of wine, the art of wine pairing, the art of wine being a focal point of a beautiful tasting menu or a beautiful dinner like there, there is an art to it.
art to that. There is a beauty to that. And again, these people are not going out and going out to a 5, 6, 8, you know, course tasting menu because they want to get hammered off the wine pairing. They're going out and they're looking for this experience that is enhancing their taste buds. It's opening You know, it's opening flavor profiles that they maybe haven't experienced before.
They're looking for the beautiful art of the food and the wine that are creating this, you know, this harmony in their mouth, essentially. There's so much beauty to that and the fact that most of the wines here are biodynamic by default because the winemakers in European countries, a lot of them are small production.
They're families that are creating this wine. They're literally picking the fricking grapes by hand because that's the way they've always done it. There is so much. Heart and soul and love that is still put into the winemaking process because they're preserving the roots of their family. They're preserving the history of the winemaking process that their family started generations ago, and they want to put out a product that enhances the experience of a dinner that enhances the experience of a holiday.
That's what it's about. And so I think that we're doing a huge disservice to American culture by creating this divide, this polarization of drink, don't drink. What about educating people and showcasing what it looks like to look at alcohol from a different perspective, to look at it from a perspective of art, to look at it from a
Of generations being preserved in families to look at it from how does this open different parts of your brain by expanding your, your flavor profile or your taste profile? How do you create a beautiful dinner experience with the most perfectly paired wines? This is what's going to create the change.
We think that, you know, they decided, Oh, there's a, uh, imbalance, uh, relationship with alcohol. So let's make the drinking age 21. That didn't help anything. If anything, it perpetuated a bigger problem. It perpetuated a bigger desire of why can I not have this, especially in those curious teenage years where your brain is so curious about everything.
And. You, we put alcohol on a pedestal, and this has perpetuated the very, very, very toxic culture around alcohol consumption. And literally, you go to other countries, and it fucking blows your mind when you're fresh out of America. You're just like, how, how is there? Like, it's such a non issue. Like alcoholism, it exists, of course, but it's such a non issue compared to the U.
S. Like, I think back of times, I'm like, you know, I could have been classified as an alcoholic with how much I consumed, but how much I consumed was nowhere near what other people consumed. It was just alcohol, you know, it was the way that we went out. Oh, let's go out and have drinks. Here we just go out and it's not about drinks.
It's, it's about, let's go walk around. Let's go. Maybe we'll go have a spritz while we're walking around. Let's go have an espresso. Let's go have a cappuccino. Let's go have a beautiful dinner. And if that dinner. You know, is something that we want to pair wine with, then we'll do it, but it's not a focus of, of going out, you know, growing up.
That was like, you know, us girlfriends calling each other on the phone was, you know, where are we going tonight? And if, and, you know, are we going to bring your own, are we going, you know, are we meeting up at the bar? That's another thing. There are no bars. You can't sit at a bar and drink. If the next time you come to Europe, observe that.
That is something that I said, I didn't notice it right at first, but then I was like, Oh, There are no bars. You can't sit at a bar. And again, I'm sure that there are late night spots that do have this feature. Even some of the bars that, um, they're, you know, they're classified as bars. Um, the one that I love in Positano, it's tables, it's tables and you sit at a table with whomever you're with.
Like you don't sit at a bar. They don't, that's not part of the culture to sit at a bar by yourself. And just drink, drink, and drink, and drink, and it's sitting at a table because alcohol is really about. It's not even about, it's part of bringing people together for food and conversation. And it's such a small part, it's not a focus.
So that is definitely another interesting observation. Like, you know, how many times have you seen or been the person that you're having a rough day and you go sit at a bar and you're just trying to unwind with a glass of wine or a cocktail? You can't do that here. Because it's just not, it's not a thing.
And so these little things actually are, are things that they don't think about here, but they're things that are deterring people away from overconsumption of alcohol. And even when you are out for an aperitivo, You know, it's Italy. Things are at a slower pace. You, you honestly can't really get drunk even if you tried because it's just no, no server or waiter or waitress is, is thinking about coming over to your table because you need a new beer every 20 minutes.
They're just, if the mindset is completely different, it's just, you're here to sit outside or sit. At a table and have conversation and, you know, and enjoy a drink slowly. So it's definitely something that I feel very passionately about because I, I don't think that we're fixing the problem by creating this, this polarized movement of don't drink alcohol.
And, you know, alcohol is, there should be warning labels on the alcohol, the way that there are cigarettes. Yeah, no shit there should be. It's fucking poison. You know, like, that's the thing, the other part of this that I find so interesting, and, I always have the most interesting conversations and where I gain knowledge.
I'm always, I'm just such a forever learner, but when I lived in Charleston, I went to this, um, uh, what was it called? Natural nails place. And I would go there, you know, when I had holidays or different things that I wanted to get my nails done for. But then I go, um, It just so happened that the, uh, individual that I would always go to, it was a male, and he originally was in the alcohol industry.
He was working for a big time distillery in Kentucky and we just got to talking about different things and he pretty much explained that because he knew the industry that I was in and, you know, I, I was just saying, I was like, you know, so much alcohol now is. It's not what it used to be. You know, back in the day, gin was made from juniper berries, and it was like a plant derived alcohol.
Um, nowadays, he was explaining that pretty much all alcohol, gin, vodka, bourbon, even bourbon, because obviously he, he was in Kentucky where, you know, bourbon, They, if it comes from this bourbon district of Kentucky, it could be called bourbon, but now there's places all over the country that are saying that they produce bourbon, even though it's not out of Kentucky and, you know, he's like, one, there's a lot of loopholes now, but two, he's like, everything being put out there is a compound liquor.
That's yeah. Flavored as whatever it's being marketed as. So essentially everything is this corn grain derived liquor that is similar to what we would call everclear, a very, very low, low, low quality grain alcohol produced from genetically modified corn and grain. And that is then getting flavored with chemicals like propylene glycol to be gin, to be vodka, to be bourbon, to be whiskey.
So that's the other part of this that people aren't talking about is that, yes, it's harmful. It's more harmful than it ever has been. And it's because That's what you're drinking. You're not drinking what you think you're drinking. You are drinking the most insane, toxic chemicals. You're getting exposed to chemicals, flavor agents, dyes, because if it's a compound liquor like Everclear and it's being then classified as bourbon, bourbon is brown in color.
They're obviously using very specific agents to make it brown in color because it's not naturally brown. So that's the other part of this. And then don't even get me fucking started on the seltzers and the toxic shit. Anytime something has to go into a can or a bottle, they have to use major preservatives and chemical agents in order for it to be stable in a can or a bottle.
I had a friend, um, who, he actually created this, um, what did he call it? He called it shit. Cause it was sand, Sandy hook, uh, iced tea and it, you know, like maybe a different iteration of a Long Island iced tea. And I remember, you know, I was good friends with his sister and you know, everybody raved about this drink that he made.
He would make it for barbecues, summer holidays, et cetera. And, uh, somebody caught wind of it and they said, this is amazing. And, you know, you should bottle it. And he threw in the towel because in the bottling process, they completely changed the recipe. They added a boatload of chemicals. They made it, it had to be carbonated in order to be, um, able to be, uh, bottled.
And he's like, this is not, this is not what I. Used to make like this is not a product that I feel passionate about. And this is, this is garbage. So he was just like, I don't feel passionate about this anymore and decided to not move forward. So, you know, kind of a side tangent, but the point is, is that, you know, Yes, alcohol is very toxic, but the irony is that when you come to a place like Europe, especially Italy, and you have a glass of wine, one, you're not getting buzzed off wine immediately and you're also not getting a headache.
You're not getting a stomach ache. You're not having that experience. You're truly experiencing the art of wine. You're truly experiencing what it was intended for, which is to enhance a meal. Because it's not filled with a bunch of shit. And the same thing goes if you're going to have a cocktail here.
It's just that the standards are completely different. So, this is about changing the culture around alcohol and not just telling people just don't drink. Because curiosity will kill the cat. Curiosity will still exist. And so if you are, if you have a family and you have kids that are growing up and they're part of the U.
S. or they're in the U. S. and they're seeing, they're observing this toxic culture, it's your job to educate them, to help them understand some of these things, to understand that alcohol is perceived differently in other countries, that alcohol is really something that can enhance a meal, that there is a beauty in an art when you learn about it.
The production and the creation of, of winemaking, like there can be some really beautiful things that come out of that. And this isn't just about consuming alcohol too, because that's the only way that you can go out and spend time with your friends or to sit at a bar on a weekend and binge drink. Like that's not what this is about.
Yes. That is a very toxic behavior. And it's just, and it's. It's something that is creating so many fucking problems culturally in the U. S. It is creating, like alcoholism is almost normalized at this point. You know, going out and having 10 drinks in one night is almost like, Oh, I had a good time. I feel like shit the next day.
And I have to eat a bunch of shitty food to try to make my stomach not hurt. Like it's just, it's a crazy idea when you really, really think about it. And I do think experience is the teacher of all things. Um, you can't. You can't. You don't know what you don't know until you step outside. And if you haven't had the opportunity to come to a place like France or Italy, come and observe, bring your kids and let them observe so they can see that There can be a very different relationship with alcohol, with wine, with drinking, that is not resulting in using alcohol for, you know, depression or mental health issues, or, uh, the only way that you could feel brave or fearless in your life, or the only way that you can get together with your friends.
Like, that is, that's the problem, in my opinion. So there's my rant and I hope this is informative and I really hope that this can inspire better conversations, especially if you're parents around this topic, because I do think that this, you know, polarization of drink or be sober is going to create its own set of issues in either the immediate or the future.
