With the party season almost upon us, our columnist and Loose Women presenter Jane Moore asks, will you be enjoying a drink?
WORDS & IMAGES: JANE MOORE.
When you work on TV, you’re often asked to contribute an insightful comment to, say, charity websites or magazines, about your favourite childhood memory or what you’d tell your 16 year-old self.
On other occasions, they might ask you to list what you keep in your handbag or fridge. All pretty lighthearted stuff.
But the other day, an interviewer rather floored me with this killer question: “What’s your relationship with alcohol?”
Crikey! For once, I was lost for words and it took several seconds for my whirring brain to churn out a reply. “Sporadic”, I ventured eventually. Which is true. I don’t drink when I’m alone and, if I ever feel I have been overdoing it, I can easily go at least a fortnight without touching a drop. Lucky me.
But others aren’t so fortunate, and before they know it, something that started out as a “take it or leave it” scenario can harden into a worrying habit.
A recent study of 433 mothers has shown that the “wine-mum culture” that many of us have joked about can sometimes lead to problematic drinking which, in turn, leads to memory loss and feelings of remorse the next day.
Dr Erin Hill, who led the study of British and American mothers by West Chester University in the US, says: “There is a light-heartedness around wine-mum culture where women joke about having three glasses of wine after a long, hard day with a toddler, for example. But the potentially negative effects of drinking too much alcohol are a risk and should not be overlooked.”
We’ve all done the narrative of how we “deserve” a drink after a long, hard day and I’m particularly guilty of sending humorous, wine-related birthday cards to my friends, which they dutifully giggle at.
But many of us will have one or two in our wider friendship group for whom alcohol consumption has graduated from a bit of fun to no laughing matter, and it makes me monitor my own “relationship with alcohol” more intently.
I have never had a drink to “wind down” after a stressful day. If anything, I sometimes use it to pep myself up in social situations – particularly if I don’t know anyone at an event and have to mingle with strangers whilst indulging in dreaded small talk. But whether it’s winding me up or down, does that still make me dependent on alcohol?
I ask a frien
