Why Pubs Order More Potatoes for St. Patrick’s Day
Hint.. it’s Not Because the Irish Love Them
Did you know that pubs, restaurants, and bars stock up on potatoes for St. Patrick’s?
Yes, the Irish, and others, do like potatoes. But the strategic ordering of this food staple for St. Patrick’s Day has nothing to do with an expected new influx of Irish clients for this day—all of whom want to eat potatoes. It has to do with the sad reality that St. Patrick’s Day has become not just a day of drinking but of celebrating drunkenness.
A day of intoxication
Just look at the marketing found on T-shirts, hoodies, beer coasters, and painted on bar walls:
· Eat, drink and be Irish
· You can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning
· I don’t get drunk, I get awesome
· Let’s get ready to stumble
· Drink until you start seeing the leprechauns
· God created whiskey to keep the Irish from conquering the world.
Necessitating - hangover prevention
The potatoes we spoke about, this is careful preparation by restauranteurs for their clientele who are set on utilizing a common hangover prevention strategy, soaking up the booze, by eating French fries, stuffed potato skins, even mac and cheese.
Why? To quote the Chicago Tribune Orders of macaroni and cheese skyrocketed the most, leaping up 231 percent in orders in the hours following the city's overconsumption of green beer and Jameson. Hash browns rose 214 percent because not even a hangover can sway us from our Irish devotion. Go us.
Intoxication has consequences
Weight gain
All those carbs have to go somewhere.
High-Risk sexual encounters
Again, let’s look at the messaging…No other day invites such frequent and intimate contact with strangers, who are frequently intoxicated, as is demonstrated by the sayings such as:
· Kiss Me I’m Irish
· Rub Me for Luck
· Let the Shenanigans Begin
· No Pinchy, Pinchy
· Get Lucky Here
Leading to unwanted sexual encounters even sexual assault…
Keeping yourself safe by going home with someone you know, and want to be with, are decisions that are clouded by alcohol use, and severely challenged by being intoxicated.
Getting a ride (from someone you know or can trust) is best. Why? Norms are changing and not for the better. Women in general are drinking more and teenage girls are currently drinking more than their male peers. When women are under the influence, they may be less able to detect the possibility of sexual assault and seek safety.
Buzzed driving is drunk driving
I can almost hear you saying you know this one….
80 percent of all drunk-driving deaths involve drivers who are nearly twice the legal limit
Drunk walking…
But this one may be new to consider.
Yes, you do deserve a good time
How can you have a good time and be safe?
This is a time to use your resilience, yes those inner resources, to determine what is best for you, and make a plan, that works for you!
Consider, enjoying the experience of staying sober and having fun. Maybe even make this a personal challenge to see if you can do it, noticing what it takes, in you, to keep to this plan.
I‘m not saying be alone. No, don’t isolate, find a Sober St. Patrick’s Day Celebration in your community. Or if you can, come to join us at Sober St. Patrick’s Day Foundation in New York City. Register for free and come march with us in the parade.
Make this a year where the Irish toast to your health, Slainte, serves as a reminder to stay healthy—keeping yourself and those you love, safe!
Wishing you Erin go Bragh–long live Ireland—and you!
Excerpted from Psychology Today 3.15.21 O’Gorman, P. On St. Patrick’s Day, Be Truly Radical—Celebrate Sobriety: Why During an Addiction Epidemic Within A Pandemic, Choosing Sobriety is Smart.