Ever woken up with the queasy paranoia that you said the wrong thing to the wrong person at work drinks the night before? Ever felt that it seemed unsociable not to get drunk at a friend’s birthday? Ever had a hangover that only a Bloody Mary with brunch could cure? If that sounds familiar (and it did to me) then you probably already know that you ought to cut back. But, at the same time, you probably don’t really want to. Drinking is fun, celebratory and enhances confidence on your good days, as much as it relieves stress on your bad days. We are societally programmed to drink, thanks to the ubiquity of alcohol in film, music and television, not to mention on our Facebook and Instagram feeds. Our family gatherings wouldn’t feel right without wine, and our urban families are built on booze. Whether bonding with colleagues, a new partner or ’mum friends’ - it always involves alcohol.
You might believe, like I did, that nondrinkers are smug and boring. Even words that mean not drinking - like ‘sober’ and ‘dry’ - have alternative meanings of ‘humourless’ and ‘boring’. And soft drinks sound considerably less fun than hard. Am I right?
As a tobacco lobbyist announces in the satirical film Thank You For Smoking: “Cigarettes are cool, available and addictive. The job is almost done for us.” You could say the same about alcohol. Except, unlike smoking, drinking is not only socially acceptable, but socially expected.
Of course, there is a dark side. As a causal factor in more than 60 medical conditions, including not only the obvious like liver disease, but also everything from depression to cancer, alcohol now costs the NHS £3.5 billion per year. That’s £120 for every single tax payer. Perhaps surprisingly, it’s the higher tax payers that cause the most problems. Alcohol consumption increases alongside wealth, with almost one in five people earning over £40,000 per year drinking alcohol at least five days a week, and more likely to ‘binge’ on their heaviest drinking day. (Oh, and binge drinking is anything over three pints of beer or two large glasses of wine. Yep.) If the medical stats don’t hit a nerve, then allow me to appeal to your vanity. A large glass of wine has as many calories as a chocolate bar, and the added sugar in alcoholic drinks is breaking down the collagen in our skin, causing wrinkles and sagging. And you already know that you’d be a better colleague, partner, friend or parent without that hangover. Undeterred, British people drank 40 million litres of prosecco in 2016. With alcohol, sugar and carbonation constituting the hat trick of dentistry’s worst nightmares, it’s enough to make all your teeth fall out in protest.
But I’m not just here to throw terrifying stats at you. I’m here to help.
There are a million books out there about cutting alcohol out of your life completely, but most people don’t want to do that. I certainly don’t. Who wants to attend a wedding, birthday party or - god forbid - a date stone cold sober? I love the fizz of the bubbles in champagne when toasting a friend’s celebration, or the kick of an ice-cold gin and tonic on a hot day. In today’s all-or-nothing culture, where everyone is either a gin-slurping, devil-may-care hedonist or a joyless, clean-eating teetotaller, people seem to have forgotten that there is a middle ground.
Moderation might sound deceptively simple, but it’s really far more complicated than abstinence. You might decide not to drink too much at that work event or friend’s party but, after one or two drinks, your willpower and decision-making skills go out the window. Lasting change is particularly challenging since moderation requires constant awareness of your behaviour and decisions.
One of the most common reasons for drinking too much is doing so without really thinking about it. Accepting a glass of wine because everyone else is having one, or pouring yourself a drink at home every night, purely out of habit. Mindlessly doing something because you’ve always done it is a tough habit to break, but it can be done. It’s going to involve clearing your head and paying conscious attention to your thoughts and behaviour.
Mindful drinking is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the opposite of drinking without thinking. Mindfulness has had a lot of press in recent years and, if you’re anything like me, you’ve probably tried meditation, and given up on it. The benefits of meditation are extremely seductive: reduced stress, improved concentration, more productivity and the ability to make better decisions are just some of the main ones. But I don't have the spare time - or indeed the patience - to sit around and think about my breathing. I certainly tried, but I found it impossible to clear my mind when it was so full of things that I need to do. Now I've learned that you don't have to sit in the lotus position for 20 minutes every day to bring mindfulness into your life. And I’m going to show you how incorporating mindful awareness into your everyday activities will make your journey of moderation not only easier, but something that will come naturally.
Moderating your drinking will improve your mood, your digestion, your skin and your body, as well as sharpening your brain. Everything from your bank balance to your sex life will be better. It also automatically moderates other bad habits, like social smoking, hungover binge eating and mainlining coffee to get through the day after a night of fitful drunk sleep. We live in tense times, and people see alcohol as a stress-buster but, actually, the link between excessive alcohol and anxiety is inescapable.
Not only will you reap the benefits of having a more moderate relationship with alcohol, but also bringing mindfulness into your life will improve your concentration and decisiveness, give you a stronger sense of empathy and make self-control a breeze.
At first glance, I might seem an unlikely advocate of moderate drinking. I spent my teenage years in a beery haze in the ladette-era 1990s, and my twenties downing cheap white wine as a keen young journalist. I have vomited on tube platforms and out of taxi windows. I have done more than my fair share of drunk texting and ill-advised rants at the office Christmas party. Waking up after my 30th birthday, I realised that my lifestyle was beginning to impact on my body, mind, skin and career. I had friends who hit their 30s and became health freaks, cutting out alcohol entirely, but that felt extreme to me. I had never been arrested for drunken behaviour, or lost a job or destroyed a relationship because of booze, or had any kind of rock bottom moment at all.
Writing this book has been a journey for me because, through extensive research and interviews with psychologists and behaviour change experts, I realised why I hadn’t been able to cut down in the past, despite wanting to do so: I had failed to commit to a plan for life. And you do need a plan, because this isn’t something that’s going to happen with no effort on your part. But believe me, it’s worth it.
Mindful Drinking: How Cutting Down Can Change Your Life by Rosamund Dean is out now (Trapeze, £12.99). This month, it is available for 99p on Kindle as part of Amazon’s New Year New You promotion. Buy it here.
Book Club Questions
Have you ever woken up feeling like you never want to drink again?
What do you think are the psychological reasons that make it difficult to cut back?
What would the reaction of your friends and family be if you decided to moderate your drinking? How would you deal with that?
Grazia Book Club is a Sunday series where we share an extract from a book that we're obsessed with, and that we think you'll love. You can share your thoughts on the book by using #GraziaBookClub