Pamela Dolan wrote a great piece about holiday drinking last week, and invited other Belief St Louis contributors to chime in, roundtable-style. I thought I’d take the bait, though it’s not obvious what I, a teetotaling Mormon, could add to a discussion about drinking in St Louis, a city awash in the influence of Anheuser Busch. Faithful Mormons eschew all drinking, and that prohibition is absolute: no exceptions for holidays or special occasions, not even an occasional glass of wine. I have been an active Mormon all my life, and like many other life-long Latter-day Saints I have never tasted a drop of alcohol, even in college. Now in middle age, my habits and identities are so firmly set that the thought of having a drink at a party or tasting a sip of wine would never seriously cross my mind.
