Donald Trump hasn’t had a single drop of alcohol his entire life. At rallies, state dinners and parties, and even during toasts with world leaders, the US President reaches not for champagne or whiskey but for his favourite beverage, Diet Coke, a drink he consumes so often that the famous red button used to summon it returned to the White House in his second term.
“I’ve never had alcohol,” he once told reporters at the White House. “Can you imagine if I had, what a mess I’d be?” “I’d be the world’s worst,” he added. “But I never drank. I never drank. OK?”
Trump has often spoken about his lifelong aversion to alcohol. The US President insists his teetotalism is one of his defining traits and once even called it “one of my only good traits.”
The American President, in his public comments, has reiterated that he doesn’t have any longing for alcohol and has never had a drink. The only drink that dominates his daily consumption apart from Diet Coke is water, but alcohol, everyone close to him agrees, is simply not part of his life.
It’s not simply that Trump avoided alcohol because he didn’t want to be the ‘world’s worst,’ as he once put it. Behind his aversion lies a deeper, painful family story that he has often spoken about.
Donald Trump was born on June 14, 1946, the fourth of five children of Frederick Christ Trump Sr. and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. His mother was a Scottish immigrant who arrived in the US in 1930, and his father, the New York–born son of German parents, raised their family in Jamaica Estates, an affluent pocket of Queens. With two brothers – Robert Trump and Fred Trump Jr, and two sisters – Maryanne Trump Barry and Elizabeth Trump Grau, it painted a happy family picture.
How alcohol claimed Fred Jr’s life
However, Fred Jr, one of Trump’s brothers, was an airline pilot who struggled with alcoholism, something that took his life at a young age of 42. In fact, after getting into the web of alcohol addiction, it was Fred who repeatedly told his younger brother, “Don’t drink.” And Donald listened. The US president described his brother as a “great guy, best looking guy, best personality, much better than mine.” However, tragically, his life was cut short due to overindulgence in one of the world’s unhealthiest beverages.
Fred Trump Jr. died from a heart attack caused by his alcoholism at the age of 42 in 1981. Due to his over-reliance on alcohol, he also lost his pilot job and thereafter followed a significant decline in his health.
“He saw how alcohol affected his brother, but even more, he saw dad’s disapproval,” Trump biographer Gwenda Blair, who wrote a book about the Trump family, told Politico. “Donald wanted to take over the family business, and it wasn’t hard to figure out that you shouldn’t do what Dad didn’t like.”
Trump’s no alcohol, no drugs rule for kids
So impacted was Trump by his childhood trauma that he said that from the moment his children could speak, he lectured them: no alcohol, no drugs, no smoking. His son Don Jr. once admitted to a period of heavy drinking before quitting entirely, in an interview with New York Magazine in 2004. Still, Trump maintained publicly that he believes his children do not drink.
Those who observed Trump during his formative years say the experience shaped not just his habits but his entire attitude toward drinking and the people who indulged in it.
“From the time my kids could practically speak, I would say that: ‘No drugs, no alcohol, no smoking,’” Trump told Forbes in 2010.
“I have a lot of wealthy friends who have kids with great potential whose potential was destroyed because of alcohol and drugs. They got into the drug culture, the alcohol culture, and it destroyed their mind for the long term,” he said.
What can alcohol consumption do to your health?
While behind Trump’s abstinence is his deep fear, rooted in a childhood tragedy, that if he drank, he could destroy everything he aimed to build, the decision to steer clear of alcohol could be shielding him from a range of illnesses.
The World Health Organization has repeatedly emphasized that no level of alcohol consumption is completely safe, noting clear evidence that alcohol is a Group 1 carcinogen.
Earlier this year, the US Surgeon General urged clearer public messaging and stronger warning labels similar to those used in tobacco, and warned about the long-term dangers posed by alcohol.
