Why Don't You Drink?

The most awkward question people feel entitled to ask

The frontier psychiatrist is a daily health-themed newsletter. The plural is currently an anachronism. It’s written by Owen Scott Muir, M.D., a child and adult Psychiatrist and Healthcare muckety-muck. Please subscribe to support this absurd endeavor. Today, I'm writing about a question people ask all the time, but probably shouldn't.

I don't drink alcohol. I have never had a drink of alcohol. I have had three sips of alcohol in my life. There were: one sip of wine when I was seven. One sip of Korean potato vodka when I was in college by accident. One sip of a mixed drink with my wife. I may have had a tiny sip of a tequila drink on a date 1 million years ago? It wasn’t consensual. I have never imbibed an entire alcoholic drink. I am 44 years old.

This does mean that I went through high school at an “elite New England boarding school,” college at Amherst college, my 20s and 30s in New York City, all of medical school, all of residency, and every night of my life without eve…