AIBU to think drinking every day is normal?

[BitBehind]

Just that really.

I grew up in a household where both parents drank every night. Always wine with dinner and then sometimes gin or whisky afterwards.

They were never smashed. But they definitely drank every day without fail and often a little wobbly before bed. I didn't think much of it.

Now I always have wine in the evening. Soon as the kids (toddlers) are in bed it's my routine to come down and have a glass of white wine in the quiet at last. And then maybe one more with dinner. And maybe one more after dinner. Small glass. 3 max. I never go out drinking anymore so that's it. I'm never drunk but also would find it hard to not have that glass at the end of the day

Is this normal? My partner says it's definitely not.

how I wish it were true that a large glass of rose in the garden whenever it’s above 20 degrees is as healthy as eating cabbage.

LOL at the “European” thing as I totally recognise this.

My parents were high functioning alcoholics and they also endlessly defaulted to the “but Europeans do this” excuse. They would always say it was normal on the continent to have wine with your evening meal.

So it’s fine to drink like an alcoholic French or Portuguese person but not like a Glaswegian.

I knew this was self-serving bollocks in the 1980s and it’s still bollocks now.

They would always say it was normal on the continent to have wine with your evening meal.

It's normal for my dad, who lives in mainland Europe. He now has brain damage from the excessive drinking and is a shell of who he used to be. Thing is, he is quite old, but he's unhealthily old. He acts like someone 15 years older than he is. Oh, and he's now losing bowel control so periodically he shits himself and my mother has to clean him up.

But yes, drinking alcohol everyday is so much fun and definitely the way to enjoy life.

Not just for health reasons, but doesn't drinking everyday take some of the joy out of it?

Come Friday evening I'm really looking forward to my glass of red wine and it feels like a treat. But I don't think I'd get that feeling if I drank weekdays.

I don't think you are an alcoholic. I know many people who drink most nights, and they are absolutely fine to go without so aren't dependent, its just routine. Saying that, it obviously isn't good to do that, and I think a starting place is to just set alcohol free nights, which it seems is what you are already doing.

These types of threads often have the sanctimonious "I don't need alcohol to relax or have fun". Unless you are an alcoholic or excessive binge drinker, this applies to most people who enjoy a drink too! ...I love a drink, there are situations where I feel having a drink enhances the experience, e.g nights out, parties, pub quizzes to name a few, and there are some situations where my enjoyment isn't influenced by alcohol at all, such as country walks, brunch with friends, watching a good film, having a catch up with someone over a coffee.

Acknowledging that having a drink enhances some situations does not mean you have a problem. You still enjoy life without a drink, you just enjoy some aspects of life with a drink.

@WisherWood I also have a stepdad who is European and has downed at LEAST a half bottle of wine every evening as long as I can remember. He currently has the same health issues (including incontinence) as your stepdad, except mine has midstage dementia as well.

@WisherWood
Sorry, I meant your dad, not stepdad!

If the thread is full of people projecting because of their own issues, isn't that indicative of how widespread the problem?
Few people develop strong opinions about drinking behaviour apropos of nothing, because they're uptight, joyless or abnormal.
Concerns around alcohol are generally rooted in first hand experience of the misery it brings when used in excess and its telling that these threads attract so many people who, if your theory is correct, have that experience.
No one ever harmed someone on MN by telling them they drink too much when they've asked. I think there's more of a risk from other drinkers projecting their own norms tbh, as it can encourage the denial of someone who should really cut back.

OP define normal...i dont understand why people judge people for drinking a glass or two of wine at night but smoking 40 a day is ok!! 🙄

This is just bizarre. Who on earth thinks smoking 40 a day is ‘ok’? Even most smokers don’t.

You don’t have to take my word for it though, why not start a thread:
‘I smoke 40 cigarettes a day. Is this normal?’ See what kind of replies you get!

I grew up with parents who drank a lot 'socially'. Only now am I beginning to understand that this isn't normal. I used to drink every night too, when I was younger. Since having children 11 years ago it's more like a few glasses over the weekend. Eldest dsis is married to an alcoholic who has just spent 3 months in rehab. Other dsis drinks every night and often smells of stale alcohol in the mornings but holds down a responsible job. I married a heavy drinker who has now been forced to stop.due to pancreatitis.

Alcohol abuse comes in many shapes and sizes, and often history repeats itself. We develop our attitudes by learning from others. Drinking every night is not normal. It's what heavy drinkers tell themselves is ok to attempt to minimise the damage being done, to them and to those around them. Normalising the degree of alcohol consumption as 'just a few glasses in the evening/ with dinner is the first step on a slippery downwards slope. You're a role model to your children and it's our job to stop the cycle.

I think this thread is fascinating. One way or another it’s touched a nerve with lots of people including myself. I’ve not had a drink at all since I first read the thread and feel happier as I was already worrying about our frequent alcohol consumption, so am grateful for it. I notice already that I feel much happier if I don’t drink and am now feeling like I don’t really want to engage with alcohol at all!

interestingly I thought the wine helped me to wind down after a stressful day at work and then with children, but actually I’m noticing I’m far less stressed without it.

Honestly, OP, you have had two glasses of wine in a week. You had many days of not drinking with no issue. The posters calling you an alcoholic are insane, literally bonkers.

Nope. Those assumptions are also based on correlations.

Many medical studies show some positive benefits from drinking wine (in reasonable amounts).

No definitive study has shown an overall nevative effect from moderate daily wine consumption. Quite the opposite, mostly.

LOL at the “European” thing as I totally recognise this.

My parents were high functioning alcoholics and they also endlessly defaulted to the “but Europeans do this” excuse. They would always say it was normal on the continent to have wine with your evening meal.

So it’s fine to drink like an alcoholic French or Portuguese person but not like a Glaswegian.

I knew this was self-serving bollocks in the 1980s and it’s still bollocks now.

It's not alcoholic to drink small quantities of wine with meals. Do you think everybody in the whole European continent who could afford wine was an alcoholic for most of the last couple of thousand years? And if so, how did we manage to progress science and everything else in the way we did, that the entire world is now benefiting from? If everyone was drunk, how dod the best thinking ever done happen here?

If the thread is full of people projecting because of their own issues, isn't that indicative of how widespread the problem? Few people develop strong opinions about drinking behaviour apropos of nothing, because they're uptight, joyless or abnormal.

Concerns around alcohol are generally rooted in first hand experience of the misery it brings when used in excess and its telling that these threads attract so many people who, if your theory is correct, have that experience. No one ever harmed someone on MN by telling them they drink too much when they've asked. I think there's more of a risk from other drinkers projecting their own norms tbh, as it can encourage the denial of someone who should really cut back.

Again, do you not see how this is projecting?

This is entirely the point.

Of course. Its an emotive subject both ways. But clearly comments based in projection that minimise potential issues with alcohol are more harmful than those that encourage cutting back, given the latter never harmed anyone.
Obviously the OP can ask for opinions on whatever she likes, but anyone concerned about their drinking would do better looking to objective guidelines to assess if they have a problem than try to measure against a 'norm' on MN; where as you say, threads typically attract a lot of people with skin in the game on both sides.

Well if you say you drink half a bottle a day and two bottles over a weekend, that’s approximately 45 units a week 🤷🏻‍♀️

@BitBehind
How are you doing OP?
Have you checked out the alcohol support threads? I suggest having a read.

Normalising the degree of alcohol consumption as 'just a few glasses in the evening/ with dinner is the first step on a slippery downwards slope.

I think this is the key thing that some people aren't getting. Sure, many people will have a glass or two of wine with a meal most days or almost every day and avoid full blown alcohol dependence. They'll avoid the worst effects of alcohol consumption. Something else will get them before the alcohol does.

But there is a substantial group for whom this is not the case. To get the same hit, their consumption levels will go up. It will very gradually increase until they're measuring in bottles, not glasses. And you may never actually see them drunk. You can to a degree function whilst you're alcohol dependent. You're not going to be on a park bench shouting at pigeons. You might well be holding down a respectable job. But this doesn't stop the health problems from creeping in the further on you go.

So for anyone who drinks alcohol every day, I think it's a good idea to have the occasional dry spell to check the brakes still work whilst you're at the top of the slope, not halfway down it. Alcohol dependence has a nice, wine drinking, middle class face as well as an ugly, cider drinking, elderly tramp face. In fact the only thing separating the two may be a couple of years and a nasty divorce.

Alcohol dependence has a nice, wine drinking, middle class face as well as an ugly, cider drinking, elderly tramp face.

Exactly the point I've made, too.

This is not aimed at OP herself but at others on this thread: if someone said said they drank 3 large cans of cider (440ml, regular strength) every night of every week some people's replies would be very different, despite them being the same in alcohol terms as the 3 x small glasses of wine.

Trying to normalise drinking every single day, with a total weekly units consumption of at least 3 x the recommended maximum level, is ridiculous.

There's also a deep-rooted unwillingness to understand that alcohol dependence - 'needing a drink' - is alcoholism, as unpalatable as that label may be to some. It doesn't just mean someone who can't get out of bed without downing half a bottle of vodka or can't stop drinking once they start.

Drinks companies have done a real number on us!

therelease.co.uk/alcohol-motherhood-and-the-media

In lockdown I got into a habit of having a nice drink after work. We are in Ireland so I was working from home from March 2020 right through to September 2021 and it felt like holidays really without the lengthy commute. All those extra hours in the day!
Throw in some nice weather and it's BBQ season, and you've got to have a beer or a chilled wine with a nice steak, right...?
So a beer in the evenings became two and three, ramped up to 5 or 6 on weekend night and while I didn't feel I had a dependency, I knew health-wise I was probably excessively drinking. So I cut out all on a school night and found that when I did have a weekend drink, it was one or two rather than the 5 or 6 previously, which was great!
I did find that I was sleeping better, more rested the next day and less bloated with clearer skin so that was an additional encouragement to keep going.

Like you, I think a glass of wine while making a nice dinner is a nice pleasant way to spend an evening. But not for a quick supper like beans on toast or an omlette. I drink tonic water with a splash of lime, or cranberry juice over ice, or just plain ice water.
Best of luck with the alcohol free journey!

Re middle class drinking I've really noticed (especially when I've been trying to cut down my own drinking) that TV dramas are the worst for normalising people sloshing the wine every night. They have these really slim, glamorous actresses playing the part of someone who'd be twice their size if they drank that much.

It's really tempting as well (or maybe I'm just suggestible). But it's really normalised in the way that smoking used to be on TV.

There's also a deep-rooted unwillingness to understand that alcohol dependence - 'needing a drink' - is alcoholism, as unpalatable as that label may be to some. It doesn't just mean someone who can't get out of bed without downing half a bottle of vodka or can't stop drinking once they start

True- there are degrees though. Some people can't ever just have one drink, or cut down to drinking at a lower level and some people can cut down to having a few units a week and can just have one or two drinks in a sitting.

Everybody is different. I don't think what your doing is excessive. We have neighbours in their 70s who have wine delivery's and their recycling bins are full of wine bottles each week.
I used to binge drink when I was younger but now I don't drink at all. I do the same as you but with a cup of tea! I can't function without my tea lol. Part of the reason I don't drink is because my entire life up til the age of 21 was affected by my dad's drinking and I don't want my family to suffer the way I did