One of the major acclaimed perks of being an American studying abroad is the freedom to order a drink at dinner, go to a bar with friends, and be able to walk the streets with alcohol in your system without the fear of the authorities reprimanding you.
When you’re under 21 in America, there is no consequential difference between having a casual wine night with friends and blacking out in a club. Regardless of how much alcohol is consumed, what the intent is, or how responsible you may or may not be, alcohol is technically off limits with no exceptions.
As an individual who grew up in the states and was never introduced to another drinking culture until now, I became complacent with the understanding that alcohol was technically off limits until your 21st birthday. Alongside that complacency, I became equally as accepting towards the unspoken agreement with my peers that, once you hit about 16 or so, it’s okay to binge drink since there was no other way around the legal limitations. Being raised in a drinking culture whose boundaries impose themselves on Americans but, on an international scale, don’t exist for others of the same age, promotes the justification for rebellion.
In the nature of rebellion, it can’t exist in small quantities. To the underage American, there is oftentimes no such thing as a couple beers. Or a casual glass of wine. Or an informal drink with dinner. But instead, it tends to exist in handles of cheap vodka and unidentified buckets of jungle juice.
Being a 20-year-old myself, I was eager to see that if alongside the shift of legal alcohol consumption from 21 to 18, there would also be a cultural shift in the way people perceive its role.
In the United States, alcohol is conventionally reserved for Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Obviously, it’s present at plenty of other times as well, but this is when it is most evident, especially to those that are young adults. During these times, it’s encouraged to be consumed in high quantities at small intervals. The stigma around alcohol has nothing to do with intelligent conversation, an exchange of ideas, or a cultural activity. Instead, it promotes partying, binge drinking, and gluttony.
But, if a 19-year-old in the states were to have a pint of beer alongside homework when talking with a professor, or mid-afternoon on a weekday, it would attract a second look.
Here in the United Kingdom, I’ve realized that I’ve been more cognitive of the mindset around drinking than I have been towards the technicalities of now being able to. What’s disorienting is not my ability to order a drink when I go to a restaurant, but the settings in which drinking is both available and promoted.
Here, the mentality towards the British pub feels like the equivalent of the American coffeehouse. Both are places to go, potentially get some work done, recharge for the rest of the day’s endeavors, engage in some thought-provoking conversation, and have a low-maintenance but enjoyable time. Both places are promoted to any age range at any time of day.
However, the main difference is that as much as the American coffeehouse aesthetic is easily accessible in the UK, finding the casual pub in the US is much less frequent. When people here choose to drink, even those just barely allowed to legally consume alcohol, it’s not with the same excessive intent.
Instead of drinking as the primary objective in people’s social engagements, as in the US, it’s merely a factor in interacting with others here. There feels no need to consume it in excess because there aren’t the same repressing environments that make that kind of behavior feel necessary.
Here, a pint of beer or glass of wine is a casual aspect in environments that foster stimulating, engaged, and promotional interaction. In America, alcohol serves as a tool to regress from genuine interaction and transition to ravenous rebels drinking excessively just for the sake of drinking.
