Justified

Justify: To provide an acceptable explanation for; to make an argument to prove that one is in the right. 

I have a Facebook account which I try to avoid.  While I enjoy the occasional  humorous reflection there is too much ill will and political bullshit and general mendacity for me.  I do check in from time to time to see if there are any funny cat videos but that's about it.  Imagine my consternation one day to see a distant A.A. friend holding a bottle of some kind of non-alcoholic beer.  He included a long, somewhat defensive sounding post about why it was OK for him to drink a non-alcoholic beer.  He's a smart, considering guy so his rationale was well-thought out.  And it sounded to me suspiciously like an alcoholic drinking alcohol and justifying it.  A lot of people chimed in with a lot of atta boy, good for you kind of comments but they also sounded like they were justifying drinking alcohol.  One guy said he just really enjoyed a nice hoppy tasting beverage after work, that you can only drink so many seltzer waters.  I'd point out that there are many thousands of other non-alcoholic drinks out there but this crowd was on a roll . . . 

After much reflecting I posted this on his page: "I think the non-nonalcoholic beer crowd would point out that regular beer is typically 5% by volume while nonalcoholic beer can be as much as .5%. Very low alcohol, yes, at no more than 10% of the alcohol of most regular beers but it still does contain alcohol. Perhaps it's like comparing a shot of whisky with a shot glass that has 90% water and 10% whiskey.  To me drinking 12 oz of non-alcoholic beer is the same as just taking a couple of sips of regular beer.

My general philosophy about social media can be summed up by saying: "My page - my prerogative."  Everybody gets to post whatever they want and if I don't have anything supportive to say I generally leave it alone but I felt strongly enough about this bullshit to chime in.  I'm assuming if this guy was interested in my opinion he would have asked for it . . . which he did not.  The next time I checked in I was flinching a little, ready for some flame-throwing.  Nada.  Nothing.  Not a peep.  For the next few days I looked at my post which was totally, completely ignored.  Who knows why?  Although I wonder if my rationale was a little embarrassing for the non-alcoholic beer crowd.  I mean . . . why the fuck would you even do that?  It would be like me saying I found this vegetation that looks like weed, smells like weed, tastes like weed, and has 5% THC content - very low, but still present - and I was smoking it in a 3 foot long purple bong.

 I guess the great thing about quitting drinking is that it's an individual decision.