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Peer Pressure

K

Kenny3

Active Member
Messages
40
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Has anybody had this experience? Last Sunday I went into town to a pub with my brothers the first time since I got the diagnosis. (apart from the odd single pint here and there. Anyway I had three pints of lager interspersed with 3 soda waters. When my brothers saw me ordering soda water their reaction was "why drink soda water, you may as well drink all lager; 6 pints is not too different to 3 pints". I told them " Apart from being 3 pints extra, if somebody is on medication or has a certain medical condition, people should not try to get them to change a particular diet they happen to be on" I jokingly told them if they wanted to tell me what to drink, I would drink on my own. I think they realised that I was serious and they came to see my point of view
Kenny
 
Everybody who knows nothing about diabetes thinks they're an expert.
 
Start of session: Get it down yer it'll do yer good.
End of session: Bring it up it'll do yer good.

People have always known how to advise others on drinking.
 
Good for you for making a stand.

Many, many people allow themselves to be lured from the right decision, by pressure, or by just wanting to drink/eat/whatever.

Personally, I often fall into the 'What the hell, it is just this once...' but then my body wants/expects it the next day too, and that is harder to resist than just standing firm the first time. I have to keep being reminded about this!
 
Kenny3 said:
Has anybody had this experience?
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I would have to go back to my teenage years when I last felt any peer pressure @Kenny3 , well done for standing up to your brothers awkward stance
 
We don't seem to get the , "go on, have another one" treatment, but we do get an attitude that really annoys me. It goes like this, "so you can be a nuisance and demand extra salad in place of chips, but you sit there drinking red wine ……".
Other people's comments and opinions can be very tiresome, sigh.
Sally
 
Around alcohol - all the time!

I have been alcohol free for over 15 years now (a combination of factors saw me give it up). Even after 15 years I am still bemused by the way friends, family and strangers will try to pressure me into having an alcoholic drink I've not wanted or needed one for 15 years but if you say 'go on just one won't hurt' 5? 10? 15? times then of course I'll have one

I can get quite angry about it too I usually try a bit of reserving at that point and try to pressure the non smokers into having a cigarette with me (I am a smoker). The horror and revulsion they display is astounding yet they still fail to make the connection I have had many evenings out ruined by friends and family treating me badly when I don't give in to their pressure. They don't respect my choice either - I always get more than one alcoholic gift at Christmas and on my Birthday. ***? Why waste your money, do you think I would drink it just because you bought it????

In all the years I have been alcohol free I have always had a deal with myself that if I wanted a drink I would have it.

Sorry for the rant but I personally find this sort of peer pressure disrespectful. I'm glad your Brothers did come to respect your choice but if my experience is anything to go by be prepared for this to become a Groundhog Day experience with the rest of the world!
 
Jonathon Miller once said that all people are torturers. I don't think I quite agree with that but I think that most people are control freaks. They like to get their own way (and why not) or they want company so that they feel as though two people couldn't possibly be wrong etc. They come with built in artifice for this except in the case of salespeople who go to classes to learn it.

It is a good idea to learn to spot this in other people so that you can roll with it or refuse to follow the suggestions as you think fit and not as they think fit.

The experiment I once tried was to refuse one in every three suggestions for a couple of weeks to see what happened. You have no idea of the social pressure involved when someone in your office wants to sell you a raffle ticket for example. I was tough and held out and my name was blackened as a skinflint. Some of the refusals were hard to do such as not chipping in for a present for someone seriously ill in hospital. When suggesters fail in their endeavour they can get very mad.

I am now quite adept at seeing them coming and if I wish to I just **** a deaf'un and watch them flounder. Having said all that I am not the kind of person to refuse a free drink so I'm not helping am I.

Salespeople don't like me much.
 
Hi

From my experience, when I drink beer my blood sugars will reach a peak about 1hour (About 2.5 pint time) after starting drinking, and then will fall. They will then carry on falling, no matter how many beers I carry on drinking.

The peak level, will depend on 1) If I have done my exercise in the morning, and 2) Is this a consecutive day drinking...ie Friday and then Saturday.

The worst beers to drink seem to be cask beers, and Keg beers seem to be better. Luckily for me the "craft" beers seem fine. (Chico, yeast stain if you are into beers...Brewdog, Kernel, Beavertown and others)

I have done, multiple 15mins tests when drinking, much to friends amusement, so I can pretty much call the peak and when it will arrive now.

But yes, people shouldn't try to force people into drinking, or eating "A little bit of cake".
 
My way of dealing with it isn't nice - but it works. On my mobile I've got some pictures taken of people whose toes / feet have been amputated. If I feel I'm being bullied in to eating or drinking something I don't want I jjust show the bully the pictures and they ALWAYS shut up. Some people just don't know what the outcome can be.
 
@Kingofnowhere

Oh, I'd happily go for a drink - I seem to be able to tolerate most wines and spirits.

The bullying I experienced was at work and it came from people who thought they were being nice to me. I worked in a care home setting for adults with severe autism and my very caring co-workers hated to see me go without my share of the chocolates, gateaux and other high carb treats that the service users' parents kindly brought in for us - or for the nice pies, suet puddings and jacket spuds that staff would make for everyone's dinner. I think they thought I was a bit of a hypochondriac until I showed them the pictures - then they finally gave up. I even tried using my monitor to test staffs' blood sugars to give them some idea of what I was furtively doing in the quiet room several times each shift - which kinda backfired because of the half dozen people I tested I found two with very raised BS who are both now (properly_ diagnosed and injecting insulin.
 
I was only diagnosed September and so far have found it easy to get out of going to the pub with the beery crowd. My mates are V. good about it. The only gig I have gone to I had a pint of cider and a soda. Next round I asked for a soda. I had barely touched my pint. Got another pint and a macho macho man "I DONT buy pop". (He drinks several cokes during a normal day). I gave the pint to my mate and went to the bar for a soda myself. Needless to say I was not looking forward to the next rematch on the 10th. Your idea about the pics is great. I shall let him have a couple to keep.

It is the cake tyranny that causes me the most bullying. For some reason there seems to be someone in every group who thinks "cake" is "necessary" anytime more than 2 people gather. I turn down the offer ever so nicely but that seems to make it a challenge to them. I have already been told a great number of times they know X number of diabetics who eat NORMALLY. Like it is normal to keep making and eating cake!

At the gardens I volunteer I have suggested we try salad ingredients three times so far. Everyone has politely not heard. After the festive break I shall retaliate with salad leaves anyway. Well that is a plan anyhow. Plenty of water under bridges meantime.

Guys and chocolates are the other pressure. So far I have managed to escape without hurting feelings but "why" must it always be chocolate. Heresy to say this but I have never been that fond of the stuff anyway. I would much rather have a plant.
 
@covknit Good for you on not drinking the cider - have you tested after drinking any? Just wondered because if I drink cider I get the same BS affect as if I were drinking lucozade.

If it is a very close person who wants to buy you the chocs then wait until it isn't a 'sensitive' time then tell him nicely but strait that choc doesn't do it for you but a nice plant does.

My husband used to be this way with, of all things, Baileys - urghhhh - I hate it. He thought it must be a great treat for me and I used to give it away to a work mate who loves it. Yes, it upset him a bit when I said about a month before Christmas one year that I couldn't drink it any more because of the effect it had on my BS but that I also didn't like it. He now buys me bottles of gin or Prosecco (no affect on my BS) and / or small slabs of Hotel Chocolat really dark chocolate instead.
 
 
dear Kenny 3
it is never easy to stand against peer pressure so well don to stick to what you wanted to do ,with family and friends it is also about educating them as well as learning yourself and that takes time.
my experience was with my sister when i went for a meal and she was cooking and wanted me to eat the same as everyone else
which was a high carbohydrate meal ,i said i was happy to bring something she could microwave at we were sorted , she is fine know as she has a better handle on it
regards
James 2
 
My mother in law always insisted that I eat her lovingly prepared puddings after dinner-I always refused. One day in front of an elderly aunt & other family members, she became particularly irrate about the fact that I refused to eat her puddings--& I got somewhat fed up. In front of the whole family (including my suddenly mute husband) I got the old glass & metal syringe, with the excessively long needle, out. I filled the syringe with a few extra marks of insulin (exaggerating its filling up & getting rid of bubbles etc). I lifted my skirt up and gave myself an injection.. Outlaw mother passed me the pudding bowl & I ate some of it--adding that I couldn't eat any more without another injection.....!!!!! Outlaw mother took the bowl from me & stated repeatedly "Good girl!" Funnily enough this never happened again!!!!
 
...oh &...father in law later developed type 2. I tried to be as helpful as poss re food much to the consternation of the mother in law who told me " I know all about food. I used to work in a sausage factory!" LOL!!!!! I didn't bother any more!!!
 
prancer53 said:
...oh &...father in law later developed type 2. I tried to be as helpful as poss re food much to the consternation of the mother in law who told me " I know all about food. I used to work in a sausage factory!" LOL!!!!! I didn't bother any more!!!
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