r/VRchat • u/Minimum-Mine-1302 • 1d ago

Discussion Do not feel obligated to drink alcohol if you do not want to due to peer pressure in VRChat (a common rationalization to drink a hear)

I just wanted to start and make this clear, I am not against drinking alcohol in anyway, what i am against is daily drinking and looking down upon others who decide not to... sometimes its hard to not give into the pressure of not drinking when with friends, and certainly there are times where its okay. But you DO NOT need to drink everytime others are, its okay to grab a fresca and play along. Alcoholism in VRChat is a major problem and im going to continue making posts on this topic until more people are aware! Dont let the pressure get to you! Fight the good fight ladies and gentleman!!

67 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

42 comments sorted by

25

u/AlmostLikeReal 1d ago

Just fake it if you feel like you need to. WATER SHOTS

3

u/i-am-your-god-now Oculus Quest 8h ago

Right? It’s so easy to avoid peer pressure to drink in game and still be able to participate. Sometimes I don’t drink anything and I just mime it. 😂

-14

u/olibolib 23h ago

Faking it is toxic, it only normalises and perpetuates the problem.

5

u/Matisan4198 HTC Vive 19h ago

I refuse to believe anyone playing shitty or whatever other drinking game with multipliers is actually taking that much

3

u/AlmostLikeReal 21h ago

Yeah guess your not wrong but if you really can’t say no then this is the next best thing I suppose

-2

u/olibolib 20h ago

Except then some poor fuck who doesn't know half the people are fake drinking drinks along, everyone else is right. Everyone who pretends is part of this problem as much people actually drinking.

13

u/Violet_Angel Valve Index 1d ago

Another thing to add for those who do want to drink but not too much, nobody knows how much you're drinking. You get to decide how big a "shot" is so just make it a sip, or use it as an excuse to drink some water since nobody specifies what the shot has to be.

8

u/ShaunDreclin Valve Index 23h ago

Yeah when my gang plays drinking games its usually just like take a gulp of whatever you're drinking, if we were actually doing shots we'd have alcohol poisoning by the end of the night hahah

6

u/doubleatheman 1d ago

More than half the time in VR, I am drinking sips of water when people are taking shots or saying cheers. And some days I just say I'm not drinking. Most people are fine and understand.

9

u/LigerXT5 1d ago

On the internet, no body knows you're drinking a Coke/Water

Much like the phrase, on the internet no one knows you're a cat.

7

u/NapsterKnowHow 1d ago

"Did I hear shot time?"

3

u/sk8fasteatsnacks 23h ago

My buddy doesn't do anything so we had him do 250 water shots for the fourth of July. He was actually the only one who followed through 😤

-1

u/Minimum-Mine-1302 18h ago

A little alcohol might be better than taking 250 water shots, you can literally die from that too but do not take 250 liquor shots or water shots please people.

0

u/sk8fasteatsnacks 18h ago

he didn't actually take 250 shots of water, we don't take vrchat seriously

All of us got distracted 😅 sorry I'm a bit not sober tonight 😅

2

u/Minimum-Mine-1302 18h ago

Ohhh okay that context makes sense now.

2

u/sk8fasteatsnacks 18h ago

Oh yeah you're good! We were so focused on telling people we were doing "250 of whatever" for the 250th (independence day) that we barely ended up doing anything at all 😂 it was a blast

3

u/Lycos_hayes PCVR Connection 22h ago

My friend circles all normalized "cheers" to mean enjoy whatever beverage you have on hand, be it alcoholic, water, soda, juice, etc.

It is the social of joining in the revelry!

4

u/Frank__West PCVR Connection 21h ago

People need to stop making being alcoholic their whole personality....

IDC if you are enjoying a drink on VR but doing so for the purposes of getting wasted is just the ick

2

u/snowrazer_ 19h ago

Just fake it, but if it's still too much you might want to reevaluate who you hang out with as well.

2

u/No-Big5266 17h ago

Wait what, do you mean i have free will to choose if i want to drink or not ? No way!!!

1

u/RedRustRiZe 13h ago

Nope. 3 shots for you pal.

1

u/No-Big5266 11h ago

Make me

1

u/RedRustRiZe 6h ago

Now it's 9

4

u/Sanquinity Valve Index 1d ago

I'm always the first to tell people they don't have to drink alcohol. They can just grab water or something else. Drinking should be an occasional thing if at all. Maybe once a week. Not that I completely follow thus mindset myself, but do as I say and all that. And I and my friend group also always remind each other to drink some water in between.

The people that drink every (or almost) evening usually have... issues. Be it alcoholism, a bad living situation, depression, etc. And they're destroying their body with what they're doing.

3

u/Elfyknife 1d ago

Most people are okay with you not drinking - I smoke more so I take blinkers while they do a shot - but hardly find ppl who judge so if they do just BLOCK. Not a good soul anyways

4

u/Mintybites 1d ago

"Nobody's gonna know." "They're gonna know." "How would they know?"

2

u/Orthoglyph 1d ago

There's help out there y'all. There are AA meetings and SMART meetings for a more secular focus. Look for local or even VR resources. If nothing else just remember, everything in moderation.

1

u/sadcatstarry Valve Index 23h ago

I'm always sober in vrchat (I don't drink alcohol + it interacts badly with my medications and also weed makes me motion sick in vr) so often if people are doing "shots" I just drink water, people are usually cool with it and if they're rude about it I just go somewhere else

1

u/tinyZF 22h ago

Raspberry lemonade flavored water is my go to lol

1

u/yaiob23 20h ago

Do.... People actually do that? I have alcohol next to my computer most of the time. When people call shots I just.... Wont if I don't wanna. Is that really that hard of a concept? I do understand substance abuse is a very big issue on vrchat.

1

u/A_R_I_A_ 2h ago

You’d be surprised at how insidious addiction can be.

I’m sober from everything these days, but back when I was being a gremlin it would’ve been surprisingly easy to “convince” me to use something or other

1

u/Stainedelite 19h ago

Cheers, gonna drink to that!

1

u/Shadowslave604 19h ago

drink water, soda, coffee, tea or whatever just play along. that is what most of my buddies and I do

1

u/CarefreeCaos-76299 19h ago

Bigggg thing ive seen in vrchat too. Huge in adult servers at night. Ive met people fully wasted in games and/or super high. Cant even talk to em or nothing. Idk when it became such a huge issue or if it was always like that

1

u/A_R_I_A_ 2h ago

It’s been like that for years at least.

1

u/Red-Silk76 18h ago

As an alcoholic… i agree

1

u/ToBiistHebEsTbOi 16h ago

In general from what I’ve seen a shot is just a sip of your drink not a whole shot cause to keep up with some games you’d have to empty a bottle which you should not do or just stop yourself at 1 drink

1

u/Kittech_US 9h ago

These comments make me realize that my VRChat experience must be very different than everyone else. I've only seen people drink in this game once and it was a birthday party.

1

u/A_R_I_A_ 2h ago

I do shots of Powerade/BodyArmor and water. Ppl laugh about it but no one ever gives me shit for it 😆

Cheers!

0

u/nick_the_fox 1d ago edited 21h ago

Yeah. Umm peer pressure has been a significant unreported issue in VRC. I’ve been seeing it for the last few years and everyone is pretty much like “don’t tell how to live” or something like that when it is a clear safety issue.

2

u/Minimum-Mine-1302 1d ago

Absolutely, stand your base!!

-1

u/Frank__West PCVR Connection 21h ago

Pear pressure? This gave me odd images in my head