I’m not the type to drink alone, are you? I’m not the kind of women who drinks every night and neither, presumably, are you. No. Women like us drink socially, right? We drink like the French, except more, with food and with friends. Hmmm. We…did. But things have changed.
This is not the place to document the progressive horrors that are raining down across the world and the disappointments on our very doorstep. We are now old enough to say, ‘I never thought I’d live to see this’ and mean it. Which, in itself, is anxious-making.
And so it seems, women like you and me are drinking rather more regularly and committedly that we did. Even in my 20s, when I was the poster-girl for binge Britain, I had four nights off a week. These days, not so much. I didn’t drink last night but only because I couldn’t remember the last time I had a ‘dry night’. And I’m not alone. Grown-up women everywhere seem to be watching the clock and, at the earliest reasonable opportunity, turning to the bottle.
We’re not falling down drunk; it’s a couple of large glasses of wine or stiff vodka/gin and tonics. Just enough to give ourselves a tiny holiday from… ourselves. And the world. And the worry.
And because it’s not gallons of booze and crashing hangovers, there doesn’t seem to be a reason to stop. And that’s bad, isn’t it? Cancer, belly fat, Alzheimers, blossoming into a full-blown alcoholic rather than merely a microholic? Bad. The thing is, I don’t know about you, but I’m not planning on cleaning my act up anytime soon. I’m a grown-up. And this is one of the perks…
