MIL drinking 'concern'

What was you doing that could have embarrassed members of your family?

Stand up for yourself. And tell your DH to get a backbone too and have your back.
Your DS needs a word with. Interesting that your MIL didn’t have a word with your DH….next time her double standards emerge I’d ask her “where your internalised misogyny comes from”….”I do not appreciate being criticised on my holiday” just find some words you are comfortable with.

I don’t think 4 drinks is a lot. If I’m on holiday I could easily have a couple with lunch and a couple with dinner and I’d be nowhere near drunk or even “merry”.
And in that situation, if my family behaved as yours have, they’d be given short shrift.
But perhaps you were drunk op? I can’t tell from your post why DS called you embarrassing. What he just being a dick or were you a bit worse for wear?

no it's not unreasonable to enjoy your holiday.

no one knows the situation, but as you present it, your family are being rude and ungrateful.

if they were genuinely concerned about your boozing then they should raise it in a more thoughtful way.

personally I'm pleased to have given up, as in retrospect I don't think it brings anything positive. maybe knock it on the head in the future

I would be telling both MIL and son that this is how you holiday and if they don’t like it a) they should go home b) they will not be invited again. I have to say I’d be tearing a strip off DS for sticking his oar in…

Maybe he is actually concerned. 4 drinks is a lot.

Why on earth would you a) invite your MIL and FIL on holiday and b) pay for them? It's obviously not the first time she has displayed behaviour like that.

Tell her that if she is upset by you having a couple of drinks, she is welcome to leave and go home. The fact that their son has been drinking more than you with no judgemental remarks from her makes it clear that she obviously enjoys goading you.

Were you visibly drunk and acting that way?

It's a well known phenomenon that people consistently use the phrase "a couple of drinks" when theyve been absolutely trashed or done something illegal after drinking alcohol. I am not suggesting you have done this, OP, just that the linguistic term "a couple" is literally a well known phrase that is often used to mask far more than 2.

Of course on holiday you are perfectly entitled to drink alcohol and let your hair down but if more than one person is noticing how its affecting you then I would be considering there's a bit more to it. Why would your son call you embarrassing if your behaviour was completely normal? it doesnt make sense.

If you are acting like you are pissed then it really doesnt matter how many you've had does it?- it's still clearly more than you can handle and you should probably pace yourself more and reign it in a bit.

I assume a lot of this is bound up in your MIL's old fashioned and sexist ideas about drinking/decorum/what's right and proper about 'ladies' and alcohol. Note how she said you were setting a bad example to your daughter, yet nothing seems to have been said about your husband's example to his son.

Do you drink 8 units in an afternoon on the regular?

or was this a rare occasion so you have less tolerance for it?

As a rare occurrence id say it’s not an issue.

on the regular and urs affecting your home life and work life and having adverse consequences - it’s an issue.

LOL calm down, nothing in your response was actually relevant anyway, as the points I made were accurate.

You attempted to claim it was irrelevant if the mil had taken a freebie holiday and then tried to humiliate the OP while on the freebie holiday.

I explained why you were wrong. YW.

LOL calm down, I was referring entirely to the OP, no need to make it all about your own drinking habits, which I obviously know nothing about and care about even less.

Comparing two different numbers that the OP supplied is hardly an accountancy-level “totting up”. And you’re the only person calling the OP a lush. What others (including apparently the MIL) have said is that she could possibly slow down a bit lest she give her kids the idea that sinking four drinks in a couple of hours and getting sloppy is a good way to drink.

And I stand by my opinion that splashing money around doesn’t mean nobody is allowed to say anything about how you behave.

Came for the judgy comments and was not disappointed. OP next time don’t waste your annual leave or your money and go on holiday with your husband, the rest are old enough to have their own holidays if they want.

Oh, do you have a drinking problem? I notice that you are (yes you definitely are) attempting to pretend you think I have one, which is why I have to assume projection.

But I don't drink, except maybe four or five times a year, birthdays that sort of thing. Sorry to disappoint you. No need to try to pretend you don't believe me either :)

Anyway, all that aside, your over excited comments aren't relevant to what I said. So perhaps address them to someone else obsessed by totting up the numbers and trying to prove the OP's a lush.

Maybe she is, maybe not. That's not relevant to the fact that MIL should have shut her mouth and if she was worried at all not taken the freebie holiday, or spoken about it after the freebie holiday, not during it as an attempt to humiliate the OP.

So that's that.

When it comes to rewriting the narrative to suit, it seems like you and the OP might be two peas in a pod.

2 drinks with a lovely meal /= about four drinks in a fairly short timeframe and “a bit of a concern” and a bad example /= “a lush who needs help”.

I’d be interested to know how much of this holiday and meal the OP has actually paid for all by herself and whether the MIL is in fact “milking her for all she is worth” as you excitedly speculate.

Given her son said she was embarrassing, it sounds as though the OP is the one humiliating herself in front of her family, possibly by being sloppy and loud. Not the end of the world by any means but nor is it behaviour you want to normalise to young adults on a low-key family holiday.

Go all inclusive next year OP and really show her how it’s done 😄

I think both mil and ds need to be told he who pays the piper calls the tune.

Having said that 4 g&t's in 4 hours would see me very drunk, but I'm a lightweight.

If your 20 year old DS agrees then I think yes it probably is a problem based on the fact 20 year olds are often still in the phase where they respect anyone who wants to drink.
And you DH is clearly drunk.

Maybe the two of you should have a think about your drinking and if it is excessive

If your 20yo son is telling you that your drinking is embarrassing, you’ve had too much. Whether it’s four or two or eleven, it’s more than you can handle.

Your “about” 4 tells us everything we need to know, btw. As does deflecting onto MIL and DH. Curb yourself.

I picked up my 4 year chip last night.

Very relevant in fact, because either MIL was just being a cheeky cow and humiliating her in front of her family for no particular reason, while accepting OPs generosity. Or she thinks it's fine to accept the generosity of a woman with a drinking problem, go on holiday with her, milk her for all she's worth - all the while knowing her dil is a lush who needs help - and humiliate her in front of her family.

Either way, not acceptable behaviour.

If OP drinks too much, a free holiday with OP as your generous host has paid for and you have happily accepted is not the time or place to humiliate them in front of family.

In fact that time is never.

The time to bring it up would have been when she mil was offered the free holiday, or after the free holiday. Not during it.

You don't take freebie holidays from women you want to humiliate in front of their family.

I am wondering if there is more to the story here? Absolutely fine to have a couple (or even 4) G+Ts while on holiday if that’s the end of the story.

But if (a) she’s felt the need to pull you aside (is the “getting out of hand” comment about that one occasion, or your drinking in general?) and (b) your DS agrees, then that might suggest this is more a pattern of behaviour?

I say this from a lived experience of living with someone with an alcohol problem and who did not realise how awful they were on a daily basis after having “just a couple of drinks” now and again.

Just don’t go on holiday with your MIL again. She should not be criticising you and not her son.
Why were you paying for everyone else at dinner?

Yeah. This.

Sounds like a few drinks in a fairly short amount of time, and if your 20-year-old felt it led to an embarrassing change in behavior, you might want to take an honest look at whether you actually are sinking the booze a bit fast.

Whether or not you paid for the holiday is irrelevant.