The Drunken Seattleite: Why We Drink the Way We Do!

Reason #1

There is a season, so we’ve heard, called summer. Supposedly, it lasts around three months and boasts a bright sun, blue sky and temperatures high enough for us to shed the flannel. Something called spring comes right before it and seems pretty tolerable too.

To those of us in Seattle, this talk of sunny skies and bare legs is just an awful rumor spread by visitors from mythical, foreign lands (like Spokane or-gasp!-San Diego). The dream of hanging outdoors without the inevitable “nose frost” accumulation is just unreachable. 

Normal human activities like walking in a park or having breakfast on a porch are just not plausible. The triple threat of a grey, cold, wet environment herds Seattleites to a little thing called a bar. We go there to get off our Craigslist couches, and we stay there because it’s warm. 

Stumbling home at closing time is a lot easier to do because you’re sloshed. The wind off the Sound doesn’t freeze your heart into a solid piece of ice like it did before we took those shots of God knows what. 

So in Seattle, we drink because we’re cold. We drink because there is no sunny side of the street.  We drink because our Puget Sound lives experience only two seasons:  cold and really cold. We wish we had another choice.

Reason #3

The Seattle Freeze: Is this a lame play on words addressing the frigid demeanor of the common 206er dubbed by a pompous visitor?

Supposedly.

True? Oh, so true.

The social disease so many Seattleites are plagued by causes a façade of niceness flanked by an elitist, go away attitude. It is not because we don’t want to be friends with you, because we do. It has to with not knowing the intentions of a new person, and avoiding any intimacy with that person until we are completely sure we want to go there.

That’s where alcohol comes in. The warm burn of gin and tonic melts that freeze into a puddle of a friendly stranger. We like to drink because we’re nicer when we drink. It’s as simple as that.

Check out what a professional has to say!.

Reason #5

When the sun-yes it does exist-actually decides to come out Seattleites need to celebrate.

And how do we do that? We move from the dark caves we call apartments into the light. We slip off our barstools and stroll on down to the neighborhood park. We pour champagne into plastic bottles, spread out a blanket and cheers each other to the unbelievable weather.

When Seattleites are finally able to relinquish their jeans and show off those blindingly white legs it’s a good thing. The four days the sun decides to come out for longer then 30 seconds gives us a chance to soak in all the vitamin D we’re so deprived of. Sunlight and a balmy breeze make us happy and when we’re happy we raise our glass and get tanked.

Cheers.

Seattle does other things besides drink though....

Pho MadnessWork It OutReal SeatteMake that Money
Ok, maybe not…Beer, Beer, Beer

Reason #2

People in Seattle go to shows. Not Broadway musical shows, but concerts of all sizes.  A long time best friend of Seattle is music. They’ve been hanging out for years. Rad music, decent music and straight up sucky music can all be in Seattle. It’s a union that may never be broken.

Besides the most popular Seattle cliché of tormenting downpours and 4pm darkness, the “killer” music scene is right there too. If you are hip, alternative or at best alternatively hip, you dig music. If you live in Seattle you either know someone in a band or are already in one yourself. This means you go to shows. You go and you drink. Why? The venue serves booze so why not. It takes a strong Seattleite to be at your best friend’s boyfriend’s cousin’s show at the local dive bar and be sober.

Whether we’re all dressed up in American Apparel’s finest ready to groove at a Girl Talk show, or suited up in our ripped skinny jeans and knock-off converse pumped for the sold out kings of Leon we’re going to need a drink to get motivated. It’s sad, but true. Seattle may be best buds with music, but music will undeniably be brothers with the sweet nectar of booze. 

Reason #4

We drink because if we don’t we’d be on something else. Seattle is the land of Cobain and Hendrix; two guys that clearly weren’t part of the D.A.R.E. program. As musical icons, their legacy has a huge influence on those wishing they had even 10 percent of the talent they possessed.

Seattleites are no stranger to the wonders of mind-altering drugs and the magical things they can make us feel. But, Seattle also is a city where people are intelligent enough to realize that those magic moments aren’t always the best idea. So, rather than pounding a bag of heroin, we reach for a beer. Or a bottle of wine. Or half a glass of Jack.

We drink to avoid all other possible vices, and it works. Usually.