Welcome to how to play The Not Drinking Game. This page has a few purposes. You can use the game triggers below for:
Drinks on a cheap night in
Exercise
Moving money into a savings account
Anything else you find rewarding
If you’ve ever played a drinking game with your favourite series, you’ll know that certain stories and characters really lend themselves to getting hammered. You can guarantee that in every episode one character will do X, or Y will happen before the 40 minutes is up.
This got me thinking though that these recurring nuggets can be a catalyst for anything you want to do more of… I’m increasingly drinking alcoholic-free, so a drinking game is probably not on that list. I’m not sure how you drink responsibly while playing a drinking game…alternate with water??
I present therefore a list of the best TV shows not only to enjoy the best drama, best comedy, and best supernatural television around, but also to give you plenty of catalysts for whatever action you want to take. The game is yours!
The boring bit: this page contains some items marked affiliate links at no extra cost to you. If you sign up for a free trial or purchase via those links, I earn a commission from the seller that I pray goes some way towards covering the cost of hosting the blog etc. Since I’m big on analysing value for money rather than big on big spending for its own sake, I obviously only recommend anything I think is genuinely good value and will save you money overall long term. I hope you save on your spending priorities that way.
Use it to dent your sofa less…
I first linked to this page via my How to Get Fit Fast (For Free) recap because there’s no reason why any of these can’t be an excuse to jump off the sofa and do a lap of the room instead. You could also do push ups, star jumps, mountain climbers, squats, wall sits, burpees…whatever you want.
(If you alternate this with alcohol under the guise of drinking responsibly, then I expect you will also be drinking your way to the bathroom quickly).
If you have a large enough room, then you can turn this into an indoor game of tag: the first person to recognise a catalyst does a lap of the room and everyone else has to follow and try and overtake them to sit down first. Helmets not included.
Use it to pay yourself…
The other way to use this page is to pick an amount and move that amount of money into a savings account every time a trigger is hit. Don’t say sitting on your arse watching TV doesn’t pay. (Or running around the room watching TV either).
If you have any other ideas for game triggers, or what to use the triggers for then leave a comment on the How To Get Fit Fast (For Free) recap linked above and I’ll see what we can add. The list is already pretty long for each show and should serve you well regardless of the episode. If the lists get too long then you’ll spend more time looking at the list than doing anything!
Playing regularly or with others makes it easier to not miss a catalyst though. Share this page with friends even if you can’t get together in person and let me know via the hashtag #savelikeabear if you play together virtually, or tag me @savelikeabear if you post about it on Instagram etc.
Want a Click to Tweet to share on Twitter easily? Click the link below:
I might also add Angel, The Last Kingdom, Kingsman: The Secret Service, The Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter to the below if you have any suggestions for those (aff links).
Join the mailing list at the bottom of the page to stay up to date with everything new on the blog. I am always working on new resources like this one, plus the weekly blog digest includes extra savings tips. Commenters and subscribers get first dibs on my attention if you want to enhance this page with your input.
What if I don’t have access to these shows?
The Harry Styles section at the bottom mostly relies on YouTube for free, or you could brainstorm your own catalysts based on whatever you watch usually. Given my TV of choice on primetime Freeview, I guess my catalysts would be any time George Clarke can’t stand up in a room (so tall!), or any time Sarah Beeny tells her volunteers to “be bold!” with their interior design…
Buffy is currently airing nightly on E4 during the week, but they are already towards the end of series two as I write this, so be quick to tune in! Five episodes a week is quite a pace to maintain. I think it’s rated 12A, so if you want to play this with anyone under 18 and 11pm is too late to run around etc., you’ll need recorder space on a DVR.
Season 14 of Supernatural is also airing on E4 currently (and if you’ve never seen it before, it’s not as family friendly. Same goes for Vikings. Gilmore Girls will rot your teeth in comparison).
Otherwise you can watch Buffy, Supernatural, Vikings and others at the moment as part of a free trial of Amazon Prime (aff link). They’re all available on Prime Video for I don’t know how long, plus you get to try the other Prime features like free one-day delivery.
If you’re studying, you can get a SIX month free trial and then monthly Prime Student is 50% less than the standard monthly cost (aff link).
If you prefer to invest in boxsets, or are trying to swap your pay TV subscriptions for boxsets that will stand the test of time then these images are affiliate links for all the shows below:
Just a heads up that Vikings and Supernatural are active shows and so the boxsets only include up to their most recent series so far obviously. Assume that the below links are affiliate links also. Harry Styles’ inclusion will become clear below if you need an excuse, not that my own priorities are skewed or anything…
Are You Ready To Play The Not Drinking Game?
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Complete Series 1-7 20th Anniversary Boxset on Amazon
Giles cleans his glasses
A vampired gets dusted
Someone says “vamp”, “Hellmouth”, “the Apocalypse”, or “Buffy”
Any pop culture references (good luck!)
Spike, Angel, or really any male character is topless
Someone stutters (they love a good stutter on Buffy and there’s nothing wrong with that)
The Scoobies walk and talk around school/in college
Any instance of British slang
Magic is used
Someone does research
Whenever a character drinks (including blood, ugh, ick)
There’s a demon about
Someone cries
Any foreign language words
There’s a live band on a stage
Buffy breaks something
A previous guest star or regular returns
Supernatural
Season 1-13 Boxset on Amazon
Dean eats; repeat every time he talks with his mouth full
Dean or any other character boozes
There’s a death
There’s a demon
The Impala is in a scene
Sam and Dean stay at a motel
Someone says “son of a bitch”, “salt”, “cremated”, “awesome”
Someone cries
Castiel takes an expression literally
Sam/Dean are wearing flannel
Sam and Dean use rock star aliases or a fake badge
Any pop culture reference
Someone does research
They mention John, Mary, Bobby, or the Colt
Dean mentions porn, or flirts with someone
Sam and Dean break the law
Sam and Dean are digging
Dean calls Sam Sammy
Teen Wolf
I am shocked and dismayed that this modern classic is sold out(!) on DVD, but you can still watch on Amazon Prime Video.
*caution! Observing all these may give you more than a hangover, or you will have a lot of savings but probably no money to live off…
Stiles falls over or walks into something
Someone is shirtless
There’s a death
Someone says “alpha” “full moon” “Scott”
Any instance of Derek whomp e.g. he’s injured, betrayed by a girlfriend, a relative or pack member dies
Someone shows their wolfy eyes, teeth, or claws
They play lacrosse
Someone is bitten
Lydia is the smartest person in the room (so every time she appears)
Greenberg is mentioned
We see Stiles’ jeep or baseball bat
Someone does research
There’s wolfsbane
Allison uses arrows
They are at school, in the woods, in the hospital, or in Beacon Hills’ tunnels
Someone cries
Gilmore Girls
The Complete Series 1-7 Boxset & A Year In The Life on Amazon
They mention coffee
There’s a town meeting
Rory reads
Rory or Lorelai have a special male friend (they date more than Mindy Lahiri)
Suki is clumsy
Kirk appears in a new job
The town troubadour appears
No one dies…
It’s Friday Night Dinner
Stars Hollow has an event
Every pop culture reference (double up if you don’t get the reference)
Vikings
Seasons 1-5 Boxset on Amazon
Someone mentions the Gods or Valhalla
There’s blood
Ragnar mentions farming
There’s sexy times
The Seer makes a prophecy
Shield wall
Someone says “Ragnar Lothbrok”
A character drinks
Someone gets backstabbed
A main character dies
Someone is shirtless
Ivar scares the living crap out of you
Harry Styles
You’ll likely require some assistance from YouTube to incorporate Harry into The Not Drinking Game. Try these links/catalysts:
Every time the audience sings tasted/wasted on his behalf
Every fruit reference during his second album Fine Line
You can see water in any of his music videos
Harry is wearing either a pearl necklace and/or suspenders (any video)
During this Howard Stern interview Harry says any of the following:
“like”
“right”
“um/er”
“kinda”
“I don’t know”
“Okay”*
*I um, er, kinda like think he’s okay, er, i mean really great, so I don’t know, but I’m probably joking, you know, right? BASICALLY: I’m not trying to troll Harry.
I take no responsibility for your health if you fall down a subsequent black hole on YouTube, but you can include Harry saying any of these if YouTube kindly recommends more videos to you:
“It’s a family show…Or is it?”
“It’s my birthday”
“straight vodka”
“Tina! She’s gay”
Or he asks an audience member for their name…
Good luck!
I definitely wish you luck if Harry is trying to work out an audience member’s name.
I suppose you could just try listening to Fine Line* for the fruit references. Besides that, his self-titled first album* is one of the few albums I also listen to end to end, but I’m not gonna lie, the fruit references are a bit bare on that one. Not a sentence I ever thought I’d write…
Amazon Music Unlimited has a 30 day free trial* if you want to take him for a drive past your eardrums that way.
If you’re looking for free entertainment generally, don’t forget you can get a 30-day free trial of Prime Video too, but students will want the six month trial of Prime Student instead.*
I’m increasingly listening to podcasts which has introduced me to a whole world of audiobooks. Plus I try to mind that some of us “watch” TV with audio descriptions by default, so I’m trying to not always take the most obvious medium to consume a story for granted. Regards whether I should add The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings to this list, these are all available with a free trial of Audible.* I’m wondering what difference it would make to the catalysts to use the audiobooks instead of the movies. Let me know your thoughts!
*If it walks like an affiliate link, and talks like an affiliate link… You know the drill.
