This may turn into a love letter to booze, so let’s just start here: I’ve never been a heavy drinker. Addiction and recovery is not, thankfully, part of my story. I've always been a lightweight, a cheap date (maybe it’s time to retire that phrase), and have practiced moderation. I was a teen idiot, like most of you (admit it) — piss beer in red solo cups, underage candy girl cocktails (remember Sombreros, Brandy Alexanders, pastel potions with umbrellas?). But I had kids young and hit the brakes early.
In my thirties, I settled into a fairly reasonable and comfortable routine of occasional wine with dinner, a cocktail at a party. Then I got older and wine with dinner was a nearly nightly habit. Then, I got even older, and my body did what aging bodies do — it rewrote all the rules.
Anecdotal info (because we never get research) suggests a dip in tolerance for women in the middle. Midlife and menopause changed my relationship with alcohol and I’m not happy about it. There’s a newly installed warning system, sensitive to anything fun. Alarms are going off constantly:
Too many onions! Too much garlic! Gluten is bad now! Put down the wine! No more salt! All of this is subject to change!
I have many friends who are questioning their midlife drinking, feeling like shit and adjusting habits. The older we get, the harder it is to ignore the body. Insomnia, heartburn, aching joints, spinning rooms. The messages get louder as the middle starts to whisper about the end.
I wish I could be one of those ladies who drinks without consequence. Do they exist?
🍷🍸🍹
I love a drink. A cocktail, a goblet of wine. A few fingers of amber warmth, or a coupe of bittered bubbles. A spritz on a hot day, gin and tonic at the beach. I still think about that French 75 on Christmas Eve. I’m in love with the ritual and the throwback sophistication of a cocktail, or a glass of good wine with dinner. It’s punctuation in a day, a welcome gear shift.
A lifetime of low tolerance keeps my consumption down and I’m picky. Beer is not my thing and I don’t like the boxes of red that Steven brings home. A cocktail is a rare treat. I don’t drink to get drunk (fitful sleep and deep regret happens long before drunk). I drink just a little, to loosen the knots, shrug off the day’s constraints.
I take breaks — dry days, a week off here, a month there. I’ve flirted with dry January and sober October. When I drink my little bit, it’s usually fine. Sometimes though, this post-menopausal body will object and I never know when to expect it. The glass that was fine last night suddenly sends me spinning after just a few sips. Another bullshit feature of midlife, along with the rest. Hence, the breaks. Listen to the body. I’m learning.
Sometimes, the breaks are easy and welcome. Others, not so much. I think, I’m not going to drink tonight, and Steven shows up with a “nice local rosé” (I live in the Finger Lakes, so this is actually a thing we can say). Or I find tonic in the back fridge, remember the new bag of limes in the kitchen and, we need gin.
I’m no stranger to the dark side of drinking. I bartended and waited tables, made an ocean of Manhattans and popped many corks. I’ve lost people to alcohol and watched every single person in my life try to figure out how to manage it, with varying results. Drink less, never drink, take breaks, measure. Denial is popular. Alcohol is always calling the shots. I know people who won’t touch it, and many who have ruined, or are in the process of ruining, their lives with it. I’m appropriately wary.
We all seem to be negotiating a relationship with drinking: I have friends who only drink on Fridays, or only have "this tiny carafe" each night. Every other night, only on weekends, only one, only after 5pm, before 8. Never mix, never alone. We’re all thinking about it. Anyone who says they aren’t is lying. Many of the young people in my life have either quit drinking or are sober curious. They’re thinking about it.
Headlines lecture us about the dangers of alcohol, lie about the benefits, and offer tricks to manage it. During one of my long breaks, I was greeted with this in the newsfeed:
“Are you missing out by not drinking?”
Yes! Yes I am! How do you know and why are you yelling at me?
Last month, I abstained from alcohol for 15 days. I know this because I use a red sharpie to make a dot on the calendar for each drinkless day. It’s a system to minimize my wining, but also to see it. I’m a visual learner and the red dots throughout the year give me a sense of patterns. I love a drink, but too much, too often, messes with my body, my head, and my self-esteem. If my sleep is rough or I just feel like shit, the red dots will sometimes tell the story, help me understand. They also cater to my need for gold stars and achievement.
I enjoy a glass of something even more after a break. Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder. That nice local rosé is especially nice after a dry period.
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Malcolm Gladwell wrote in The New Yorker:
“Nowhere in the multitude of messages and signals sent by popular culture and social institutions about drinking is there any consensus about what drinking is supposed to mean.”
His Drinking Games is a fascinating essay, I suggest you read it. The subtitle:
“How much people drink may matter less than how they drink it.”
I suspect that how much matters quite a lot, but it’s important to interrogate the why, when, how, and with whom of our drinking habits. And readjust those habits when our brilliant bodies send messages.
Here in the (late) middle of life, I’ve needed to change the way I drink and the way I think about it. I’m more discerning about and careful with alcohol. I listen to my body now, even if I don’t always agree with it. It knocks me down, otherwise, so there’s no choice if I want to move forward.
That said, the warm sun is getting low as we tip into a lush late afternoon. The white chairs are arrayed pleasantly on the broad green lawn. It was going to be a night off, but I could drink the hell out of a G&T right now.
“There comes a time in every woman's life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne.” — Bette Davis
I think I’ll be having this conversation with myself (and with alcohol) for the rest of my life, alternating red dots and permission. What does drinking look like in your midlife? Do you drink? Did you quit? Do you want to? Do you have rules? Favorite cocktails? Mocktails? Drop a comment!
Cheers! 🥂
Lisa
Things to share:
Back in January,
started an open thread about this issue over on . It’s a goldmine.- wrote the best essay I’ve ever read about drinking (and not drinking).
- is a fun newsletter if you want to learn why you like what you like.
I want The Book of Cocktail Ratios by
. And don’t miss for food, travel, books, and more cocktails.Nothing to do with drinking, but I’m loving Denise, Heaven’s Receptionist.
Hey Lisa! I feel I could quote this whole letter back to you with all the points you make that chime with my experience. I bloody love the ritual of a drink. I love two. But these days, mostly no more, as midlife has done to my tolerance for it and the next-day hangxiety what it sounds like it's done to you. I say all this, but we are enjoying beautiful weather here in Scotland this week and I am currently en route to Edinburgh to see an old friend for dinner and then we go on to an anniversary party... The thought of my 2hr commute back home this evening is weighing heavily, though. Wish me luck! 🤞🥂
"It was going to be a night off, but I could drink the hell out of a G&T right now." This! Yes! It's so easy to abstain in the morning when the world is all dewy and full of promise. But at 5:15 pm, with another day under your belt and a soft breeze in the garden, it's hard to conjure that resolve. In fact the resolve itself starts to feel like just another cultural ruler (weight, diet, etc.) with which to rap our own knuckles. You've really done a marvelous job here of describing that difficult dance we do with alcohol at midlife, particularly if you've never been a "problem" drinker. Maybe you should stop, but maybe that's needlessly puritanical. I meet so many people in midlife for whom abstinence seems almost like a religion: I don't drink any more; I've given up desserts; We don't eat bread. I am suspicious of all or nothing thinking in the absence of demonstrated necessity. But abstinence in all its forms does seem to fill a void for some folks at midlife. I think perhaps I'll abstain from abstinence. Thanks for a great read.