When Did Trick-Or-Treating Turn Into A Pub Crawl?
Standing at school drop off, I overheard a few other parents talking about Halloween preparations last week. One was mentioning he would break out the golf cart this year to streamline the trick-or-treating for the parents to be a little more comfortable. Then someone mentioned putting a beer keg on it to up the ante. Everyone laughed as we all stood around waiting for the bell to ring and the kids to line up to go into their classrooms.
I started to think about this phenomenon… when did trick or treating turn into a “pub crawl” for parents? Has it always been like this and I’ve just never paid it any heed? Or is it a newer phenomenon in the wake of Big Alcohol and mommy wine culture. This concept that parents need alcohol to make an already exciting experience even more pleasurable.
The topic came up in a sober meeting too; something I call “the noticing.” When we quit drinking or get sober curious and start to see things we never before realized. That alcohol is everywhere. That we are so brainwashed by exhaustive marketing and messaging that alcohol is a required accessory to a good time. That we get so comfortable with this narrative, questions or concerns over the what and why can get reactions of defensiveness and rage.
I posted a short Tiktok to this question about Halloween and the pub crawl experience and received hundreds of comments, some rude and dismissive. “Karen,” “You sound like a lot of fun,” and “Why the fuck do you care” were a few of the more memorable ones, though I don’t dare go back and look again. And again, my thoughts drifted back to the noticing of sobriety. How easy it is to be defensive towards alcohol and its seemingly unquestioned presence at every holiday, event, and social experience. A necessary tool on dates, to mourn breakups, or to extinguish boredom. Drink when we are happy, sad, heartbroken or lost in the parenting time-lapse abyss.
The noticing is finally recognizing alcohol for what it really is and also bearing witness to the cognitive dissonance so many people experience around this widely accepted drug. It’s not bad or good — it’s just noticing. Seeing things differently for the first time, like wearing glasses after years of accepting life in soft focus.
Notice the social patterns around drinking. Question them, even. Ask yourself what’s wrong with this picture. This framing of alcohol to each other and our children. Notice our culture’s increasing of normalization of heavy and binge drinking culture and seek to understand why and how we got here. And best of all, get excited.
Because more often than not, after the noticing comes the reckoning.
This is an excerpt from my latest Substack post. Check out the full post here: https://celesteyvonne.substack.com/p/when-did-trick-or-treating-turn-into
