Shame Based Drinking

June 4, 2010

Yestereday I wrote an article about a new dieting fad called Shame Based Dieting which is all the rage on Facebook and Twitter. Bottom line: You just post every bite of food you eat and hopefully, that will be humiliating enough to help you resist eating it in the first place. I personally like this idea.

I think a bit of accountability along with some good ol’ negative reinforcement goes a long way and is sometimes just enough shame-filled to keep you on your diet. The weekly weigh-in at Weight Watchers is a very important (shame-based, I might add) method that many people report as a key in their weight-loss success.  The fear of getting on that scale with the lady with the clipboard standing nearby keeps them accountable.

So it occurred to me ( in my typical “taking it down a notch” style) that it might work equally shamefully in a few other areas of our lives. One that spontaneously occurred to me was Shame Based Drinking.

Raise your hand if you like to drink.

How about if you like to drink more than drinking likes you.

Or how about if drinking sometimes reduces your willpower so that you eat more than you planned.

Does your drinking sometimes create problems in your relationship?

I bet some of you are drunk right now! (or maybe I sound drunk right now)

One of my all time favorite back against the alcoholic wall questions is: Have you ever woken up and vowed to stop drinking…. and then couldn’t?

My favorite quote from one of the funnest lady’s in our gym is “I don’t have a drinking problem, I have a quitting problem.” Which I think sums up many people’s relationship with alcohol as we age. It sneaks up on us, our tolerance for alcohol goes up, our hangovers get worse. But do we stop? Heck, No!

SO what I propose is Shame Based Drinking. Start posting on Facebook exactly how much you drink, if possible, while you are drinking it. Be honest. Be blunt. And why stop there. Let’s describe the hang-over, say on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being you did not drink at all and 10 being that you puked. No, 9 is you puked, 10 is you ended up in the ER. 8 is the bed-spins, slurred speech and black outs. 7 is a horrible headache that four aspirin won’t dent. 6 is same as 7 but you are able to make it to the gym. 5 is disruptive sleep and it only hurts if you move your eyeballs. 4 is an intolerance of your children (or any children but especially your own)and overall grouchiness. 3 is one drink too many. 2 is not shame-filled enough to even post.

We could even take it a step further (as I like to do in my Workout World) and buy ourselves one of those CVS over-the-counter breath-alizers and get down to some actual statistics.  I think it’d be extremely and effectively shameful to post “I had a blood alcohol level of .16 and still drove the kids carpool home last night”  or how about this ” I’m a pilot and I’m heading out for my next flight and uh-oh! My Blood Alcohol Level from last night is still twice the legal limit!”
Stay with me in this line of reasoning: If people actually posted these facts, I think they might be forced to face the reality that a bad future may be awaiting, whether it’s their friends who shame them into their sober senses or the authorities, without actually having to go through the bad reality of a car crash or accident.
I mean would you rather be humiliated ……or kill an innocent passer-by?
Now this line of thinking led me to my next fantasy which was, how perfectly shame based would it be if we all had an automatic Blood Alcohol Level display on our forehead (or on our ankle, like Lindsay Lohan) and everyone we encountered would notice how drunk we were just like they’d notice how yellow our teeth seem.
I think I am on to something,
People. Let me know if you’re in.
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Posted by Penny | Filed Under Blog 

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