Wine o’clock?
I’ll be totally honest with you – I’ve struggled over the past few years to consistently stay within the 14 units of alcohol health guidelines, but the reality has been that I’ve never had a good relationship with alcohol. It has quite literally been toxic. A relationship about as healthy as Joe and Love Quinn in You…
Like most of my generation in the UK, I would get drunk in my teens, developed a surprisingly high tolerance by the time I got to university (for my economics degree – not nutritional therapy!) and in my sales career alcohol was a big part of the culture. Throughout my twenties and thirties, alcohol was still a central part of the social scene and glamourised consistently in the media. More recently the alcohol industry has been targeting the 30 -40s plus demographic pretty aggressively.
I have never drunk every day, nor have I ever felt the urge to drink in the mornings or had the shakes, and so it’s easy to still think everything is fine. It’s as if there is a clear and definitive line between an alcoholic and someone who drinks more than they should. Amongst many reasons to feel let down by the And Just Like That revival of Sex and The City, was the clumsy and cliched portrayal of Miranda’s drinking. This was a golden opportunity to reach women in the grey area of alcohol issues or problem drinking, but in reality it gave so many of us a pass. I mean I’ve never carried miniatures in my handbag, so I couldn’t have been that bad?
Miranda, And Just Like That. Buzzfeed
The stigma and shame around alcoholism and drinking problems is so prominent that it pushes and keeps many of us in a state of denial. For many people I believe that alcohol issues can creep up over a period of time – decades even.
It's no exaggeration to say that casual alcoholism is almost promoted for women now. Women over 30 are definitely the target market of the alcohol industry. For example, even the local pub is offering bottomless Prosecco brunches and the amount of “wine o’clock” and “mummy juice” jokes in memes, birthday cards, coasters etc is quite scary. Most of us have laughed at some of these, but this trend reached the stage of almost cringeworthy basic-ness that has made me want to rebel against it. However, I was probably acting like an embodiment of this at times.
I had failed repeatedly with consistent alcohol moderation and realised the most stress-free solution was to cut out the alcohol for a while. As I write this, I have gone 4 months without alcohol and would describe myself as sober curious. I don’t know if I’m going to stay alcohol free forever – but right now, I can’t find a reason to justify having a drink again, and the benefits of going without far outweigh the downsides for me.
It’s not always been easy, but I’ve got through this, and it has been such an empowering experience, which I look forward to sharing with you soon. Once of the most significant changes I can share right now is that the stress and self-loathing of failing to moderate has now gone and that is incredibly liberating.
One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced has been sharing the fact that I’m not drinking and justifying that choice. Despite a growing sober movement, there is still a huge stigma with admitting that you struggle to moderate one of the most addictive substances there is (alcohol sits in the top five along with heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine).
I should add that I have zero judgement for anyone drinking alcohol if it’s something you can safely modify. I’m always committed to being as honest as I can with readers and clients, and I feel that this is an important topic to talk about. I believe that it’s time to be totally honest and objective about alcohol and its impact on health, as well as the challenges and benefits of sober curiosity. I’d also like to share tips in upcoming blogs that I’ve found helpful.
An extremely important note to end on is that if you feel that you have alcohol addiction, please talk to your GP. Addiction is outside of my remit. Total withdrawal from alcohol can be dangerous for some, and addiction is something that they can offer support with.