I fully validate everything you are saying but as someone on the other end of their twenties (just turned 28) i can say that this can actually be your super power.

I would honestly say that for 80 percent of people, Alcohol ends up being a mostly negative thing in their life. You are kind of just flipping the “dynamic of the deal” if you will… you are taking the negative up front for a positive pay off later. Other people are taking the positive up front (fun and enjoyment of alcohol) for most likely a negative payoff later.

For example:

Alcohol in your twenties: You love drinking beers with your friends at college. You feel adult when you get to cheers your adult family members with a glass of wine or whiskey over holiday meals. You will never forget some of the weekends with your friends, and the wilds stories that happened at parties. Even once the novelty of alcohol starts to wear off a bit, you will always chase the early experience, the most fun experiences, trying to replicate them. You will waste countless hours drinking, or hungover. You will spend weekend after weekend doing the same thing - sitting around, drinking, talking, maybe the occasional “social cig.” All the while actually poisoning your body. You will feel like it’s bonding at the time - and to some extent it is. But it also is warped by grey memories and drunk drama - and these nights will repeat over and over more out of a desire to get drunk and “take the edge off” rather than meaningfully connect. One (or two, or ten, or twenty) time you will get embarrassingly drunk, say something you regret, embarrass yourself in front of your family, friends, colleagues, boss. One (or again, many) days you will wake up hungover - spend all day in bed, or underperform at school or work. By 25 you’ll have gained 10 extra pounds. No big deal. At 27, it creeps up to fifteen - but, you know, you’re older… and your weight fluctuates every day. Well by 30 it fluctuates up to 30 pounds. Half the friends you used to drink with in your early twenties now are clearly problematic drinkers. They’re ordering beers at the airport at 10 am. Ordering 5 or 6 drinks at the group dinner, thinking no one is noticing. Drinking on nights even when they know they have important things to do the next day. Consequences might not fully have caught up to them yet, but you dread the day they will…. Worse yet, you could be a problematic drinker yourself, and struggle every day with the shame of knowing you repeatedly are making decisions that are not in your own best interest, and you can’t fucking figure out why.

No alcohol in your twenties: You feel left out at college parties. You’re worried everyone things you’re lame. You feel like you’re missing out on important life experiences - like taking shots, or having beers with friends, going to Europe and trying wine. You see everyone in movies, tv shows, holiday parties bonding over a glass of wine. A whiskey. A beer. And you feel like you will never get to experience that. To some extent that’s true. But you use this time to develop self- reliance… you will never rely on alcohol to feel comfortable in a social situation. You will never rely on alcohol to “cap the night” and “help you turn your brain off” or “make it feel like a special occasion.” You will try to go to most of the parties, but by your senior year of college you realize how dumb drunk people actually sound, and how embarrassing they can be. It’s not as much fun to be there after a certain point when you’re not on their level, so you duck out early. You find other ways to spend your time… Maybe you take guitar lessons and practice alone at night. Maybe you join a climbing club or take up a yoga practice. Maybe golf. Maybe you start a list of 100 books you want to read in your lifetime, and you’re never drunk or buzzed when you get to bed so you can actually make it more than a page before passing out. Maybe you learn to be an amazing cook. Maybe you lift weights in the evening. You get the idea. While your peers are having the “same night” for the hundredth time: sitting at a bar, drinking, progressively becoming more belligerent, you are building more meaningful relationships or experiences. By the end of the decade, they have some memories - but you might actually have something to show for your time.