Why don't you just drink one or two drinks in an evening? That's mostly what I do.
There are also alcoholic drinks that are unambiguously more delicious than non-alcoholic drinks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framboise is better than any soda.
You're going to be at a social weakness compared to others if you must always be at a baseline mental state during times of socialization. Alcohol makes socialization come faster via the lowering of inhibitions, making you ok to talk more, more comfortable interrupting other people, more comfortable letting your own words flow, etc. It's not better at accomplishing this than a benzodiazepine (and is in fact strictly worse) but they don't surf Xanax shaken with a twist at bars and networking events.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framboise is better than any soda.
But how do we know it would not be even better without the alcohol? Or is the notion nonsensical?
It's been over a year since I graduated from college, but only recently have I felt like I'm officially entering the "adult world." Navigating the social arenas of the adult world requires the same basic skillsets as the college world, but a lot of the rules are different and I'm struggling to learn them. Among them is how to drink socially.
As a general rule, I don't drink. I don't like the taste of alcohol. I don't like paying the exorbinant prices that alcohol costs. I don't like the feeling of my brain slowing down and making it harder to string sentences together. I don't mind the physical disorientation - that part's pretty fun. But that part also seems to be slightly frowned upon in an "adult" setting. I'm not opposed to it for any particular moral reasons.
When I do drink, I prefer to get it over with as fast as possible, whether I'm officially drinking a "shot" or not. In college that at least had a sort of "daring" quality that was respected. But it's pretty obviously taboo at classy cocktail parties and even somewhat taboo at "casual adult" parties.
So there's a few separate questions I have:
1) Are there any good, cached buzzword phrases I can use that'll make it socially acceptable to not drink? "I just don't like it" seems to draw disdainful stares, and while I haven't tried it I get the sense that saying I'm morally opposed to it would make me look even more like a stick in the mud. Saying "it's ridiculously expensive" makes me look like a cheapskate.
2) If I must drink socially, is there a breakdown of the general social conventions I should be aware of so I don't need to have them pointed out to me over the course of the next few years?
3) Is there any particularly interesting analysis of *why* drinking is so important to social interaction? Knowing the underlying causes might at least give me some better appreciation for why I have to learn this other than "because!"