RINGO AGREES –
May 24, 2025 – To begin with, not drinking was just experimental, then it became a challenge. With time, I started to see the good in it. You never know how you’re going to react under stress or grief, and from an early age I had just ruled out drinking as a way to deal with these things. I also developed an ability to speak my mind or just have the balls to speak to new people sober…not needing something to help ease social anxieties.
I was the odd one out among my friends. They’d wonder why I was doing it and probably made fun of me, but I was never excommunicated from my circle. Still, when I went to university in around 2003, one guy said to me: “You shouldn’t come inside a pub if you’re not ready to drink and smoke in it”. People would often ask me if I was religious or if there were alcohol problems in my family. There always had to be a reason, like it wasn’t a choice to be sober. That’s what was so appealing – it just seemed so radical to be sober. And I have been ever since. It is largely a force of habit nowadays, not the teenage rebellion I felt back then, though I do still listen to Minor Threat from time to time.
