EBOOK
About
"Four drinks isn't a binge. That's après-ski on a Tuesday."
Alcohol has informed every phase of Veronica Woodruff's life. Growing up, her parents' addiction took the family from wealth and privilege to destitution and eventual homelessness. Bartending provided the income she needed to complete her education and start her career as a scientist; drinking brought friendship, romance, and adventure. Booze lubricated the gears of her professional and personal life for decades.
Combining research with memoir, Veronica charts the evolution of drinking culture in North America, from the morality-based lens that led to Prohibition to the science-based approach that underlies today's sober curious movement.
Blind Drunk: A Sober Look at Our Boozy Culture
By Veronica Woodruff
Introduction
Brandi Woodnutt has come to meet me for lunch following her morning at the local craft brewery, Coast Mountain Brewing, where she's been honored with her own signature beer, the Woodnutt Brown Ale. Brandi is an entrepreneur and restaurateur who owns restaurants in Whistler and nearby Squamish. She also owns a Whistler hair salon and is an investor in Coast Mountain Brewing. A tall, stunningly beautiful woman, her effervescent laugh and easy-going, casual demeanor belie her keen business sense. Today, she is dressed in a pink hoodie and logo wear from the brewery, her nails lacquered in a retro mix of orange and pink fluorescents alternating with black-and-white checkers. Brandi and I worked together in the hospitality industry years ago and have been trading stories of our youthful debauchery. The irony of meeting a friend named after a distilled fruit wine to reminisce about the culture of Whistler's bar scene and discuss trends in non-alcoholic cocktails is not lost on me.
"We have seen a real shift in how people drink at the Raven Room," Brandi says, referring to her Whistler restaurant. "Now people come to drink a beautiful cocktail. The cost isn't a barrier, because they aren't coming to have a dozen drinks. They are coming to enjoy one or two carefully crafted beverages, with or without alcohol." She goes on to describe her recent trip to the annual Tales of the Cocktail conference in New Orleans, reporting that emerging producers of non-alcoholic spirits are embracing a shift in drinking culture. Entire sessions were devoted to harnessing the opportunities in this teetotaler and 'sober curious' movement.
In the decade I was bartending, from 1998 to 2008, the hospitality industry generally ignored people who didn't drink. When someone asked me for something non-alcoholic, I would offer a soda water or something childish like a Shirley Temple. Now, bars and restaurants are providing an increasingly creative assortment of no- and low-alcohol options because patrons, particularly the coveted younger demographic, are demanding it. In an August 2024 Gallup poll, 65% of American adults aged eighteen to thirty-four agreed that alcohol consumption negatively affects health, a 13% increase over 2022 results. Roughly the same number advocated for moderation over abstinence. Multiple books, podcasts, blog posts, and articles are devoted to a sober curious movement that is reflected in declining sales of alcohol, particularly beer and wine. However, the same poll found that, while almost nine in ten American adults describe alcohol use as "very harmful" (33%) or "somewhat harmful" (53%), an increase over the previous year, consumption levels have remained relatively consistent for the past thirty years.
Why do people continue to drink even when they believe it may be harmful? Is it a moral failing, as Alcoholics Anonymous would have us believe? Is it a disease? The latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) lists substance use disorder as a mental illness. Is it a neurobiological malfunction? Is it pervasive advertising from the alcohol industry? Is
Alcohol has informed every phase of Veronica Woodruff's life. Growing up, her parents' addiction took the family from wealth and privilege to destitution and eventual homelessness. Bartending provided the income she needed to complete her education and start her career as a scientist; drinking brought friendship, romance, and adventure. Booze lubricated the gears of her professional and personal life for decades.
Combining research with memoir, Veronica charts the evolution of drinking culture in North America, from the morality-based lens that led to Prohibition to the science-based approach that underlies today's sober curious movement.
Blind Drunk: A Sober Look at Our Boozy Culture
By Veronica Woodruff
Introduction
Brandi Woodnutt has come to meet me for lunch following her morning at the local craft brewery, Coast Mountain Brewing, where she's been honored with her own signature beer, the Woodnutt Brown Ale. Brandi is an entrepreneur and restaurateur who owns restaurants in Whistler and nearby Squamish. She also owns a Whistler hair salon and is an investor in Coast Mountain Brewing. A tall, stunningly beautiful woman, her effervescent laugh and easy-going, casual demeanor belie her keen business sense. Today, she is dressed in a pink hoodie and logo wear from the brewery, her nails lacquered in a retro mix of orange and pink fluorescents alternating with black-and-white checkers. Brandi and I worked together in the hospitality industry years ago and have been trading stories of our youthful debauchery. The irony of meeting a friend named after a distilled fruit wine to reminisce about the culture of Whistler's bar scene and discuss trends in non-alcoholic cocktails is not lost on me.
"We have seen a real shift in how people drink at the Raven Room," Brandi says, referring to her Whistler restaurant. "Now people come to drink a beautiful cocktail. The cost isn't a barrier, because they aren't coming to have a dozen drinks. They are coming to enjoy one or two carefully crafted beverages, with or without alcohol." She goes on to describe her recent trip to the annual Tales of the Cocktail conference in New Orleans, reporting that emerging producers of non-alcoholic spirits are embracing a shift in drinking culture. Entire sessions were devoted to harnessing the opportunities in this teetotaler and 'sober curious' movement.
In the decade I was bartending, from 1998 to 2008, the hospitality industry generally ignored people who didn't drink. When someone asked me for something non-alcoholic, I would offer a soda water or something childish like a Shirley Temple. Now, bars and restaurants are providing an increasingly creative assortment of no- and low-alcohol options because patrons, particularly the coveted younger demographic, are demanding it. In an August 2024 Gallup poll, 65% of American adults aged eighteen to thirty-four agreed that alcohol consumption negatively affects health, a 13% increase over 2022 results. Roughly the same number advocated for moderation over abstinence. Multiple books, podcasts, blog posts, and articles are devoted to a sober curious movement that is reflected in declining sales of alcohol, particularly beer and wine. However, the same poll found that, while almost nine in ten American adults describe alcohol use as "very harmful" (33%) or "somewhat harmful" (53%), an increase over the previous year, consumption levels have remained relatively consistent for the past thirty years.
Why do people continue to drink even when they believe it may be harmful? Is it a moral failing, as Alcoholics Anonymous would have us believe? Is it a disease? The latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) lists substance use disorder as a mental illness. Is it a neurobiological malfunction? Is it pervasive advertising from the alcohol industry? Is