A glass of wine every night?

[grizeldagreen]

I've fallen into a habit of doing this pretty much every night. Just the one glass while cooking. I can make a bottle last over 4 nights doing this. So over a week it would be just less than two bottles. Does this sound ok from a consumption point of view?

To add I usually have a glass, eat my evening meal then have a cup of tea before bed! So it's not exactly a wild life. But I just find that a small glass of white wine adds something to my evening.

Have you ever been to southern Europe?

Of course one glass of wine a day is perfectly normal.

The fact that plenty of people don’t have one glass of wine a day doesn’t mean it’s not normal. It is very normal. Just as only having one glass a week is also normal. ‘Normal’ doesn’t mean ‘universal’. It means within a range of normality for the population in general.

OP, Mumsnet has some very weird and rigid ideas about alcohol and these threads always attract people who think anyone who has more than a single glass on an alternate Fridays is one step away from drinking cooking sherry from the bottle on a park bench.

You not need to beat yourself up over drinking one glass of wine a day.

Yeah loads of us have @roseyposey , why the patronising reply?

Have you ever been to southern Europe AND factored in all the other parts of he lifestyle BESIDES the alcohol, such as

• better weather means more people walk between places
• A stronger food culture means people are more likely to cook from scratch and take time to eat
• A healthier attitude to alcohol means people drink one or two glasses every so often, but don't "finish the bottle" like the Mumsnet "I must have my reward at the end of the day" types.

All of this leads to less calorie intake, more exercise, and less binging.

I don't think people in the UK can just sit there on their sofas opining about "Europe" all the time, while drinking far more in shorter spaces of time, eating way more processed food, and not bothering to exercise as much.

The mental gymnastics people do on this site to justify what they do in their lives is fascinating.

I'm arranging my son's funeral and my one small glass a day as an aperitif has just gone up to two small glasses a day. Not apologising. Sometimes you need to take the edge off the day.

I'm very sorry to hear about your son passing.

I don't personally agree about "taking the edge off" but I respect whatever suits your lifestyle.

I still stand by my earlier comments that all the people talking about "European lifestyle" only focus on the alcohol intake, and completely ignore the unprocessed food culture, and the higher aerobic exercise. I still stand by that.

And so is eating chocolate or crisps every day. How is this any different?

Do you want it or do you need it?

One a night very easily turns into a bottle a night

This is how it is different, @MrsPeregrine

https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/alcohol-and-cancer

Exactly. I posted the link to the cancer research site. I have a high level of fitness and a balanced diet. I don’t smoke or drink. I am trying to do my best to minimise my own risk of cancer (I said minimise, not prevent. I am well aware none of this makes me immune). I was unaware of the link between alcohol and cancer until quite recently. I stopped drinking for other reasons and now I’m glad I did and if anyone finds that statement triggering, then perhaps they need to take a good look at their own lifestyle.

People always underplay the amount they drink though. So I'd guess your only one glass a night is sometimes 2. Sometimes 3 if it's a birthday, sometimes 4 if it's Christmas etc etc.

Imo daily drinking is not a good baseline to have. No drinking is, with an odd couple of glasses here and there.

This. Alcohol is addictive i think we all know that.

Just have a few booze free nights a week and have a glass as a treat.

No it doesn't.

And if you are a healthy weight, eat well, have no significant health issues....how much harm is a glass going to do.

@JacquesHarlow No mental gymnastics required at all!

The OP enquired about “one glass a night”, not “I may as well finish the bottle” or “I am a couch potato who only eats junk food.”

She hasn’t told us about the rest of her life at all so it seems YOU are the one doing the Mental (in both senses) Gymnastics in the Hyperbole Olympics with your 100m sprint from one glass to a whole bottle each night.

PS I am not on the sofa, btw. I’m in bed. Looking forward to a glass of Malbec later after a two hour Pilates class. Hic 🍷

A doctor advised me that it's beneficial to have at least 3 consecutive alcohol-free days a week. I don't know how scientific that is, but it's an effective way of reducing overall intake.

There would be no point in me underplaying it. I do have one glass. It's all I have time for and then I can easily leave the bottle. I've had times in my life where I've drunk much more. During Covid I was doing nearly a bottle most nights and I'm aware how unhealthy that was. But it was a very odd time in life.

The cancer risk does worry me especially because I'm not especially active either. I am as a pleasant op said, a size 14 too which isn't small. So yeah I'm looking at all aspects of my overall health and analysing them which is the reason for this thread. It's not easy to give up the small pleasures you have in life which bring you a bit of comfort. Even if logically you know they are bad for you.

Visiting Europe and observing what others around you do has little bearing on what Southern Europeans actually do in their own everyday weekday lives. If you are visiting Europe you're a visitor. Hence you will probably be on holiday, and we all know that holidays are exactly the occasions that peope cut back on their alcohol intake, don't we? 🤔Even if you're a teetotaller out and about in S Europe, then just the fact that you're out and about in bars and restaurants mean that the locals around you are too. I don't think it's out of the ordinary to like to drink wine if you're out socially with friends and family.

You MAY be visiting S Europe to stay with friends or family. Well, those are the exact social occasions when people may crack open a bottle of wine, because it's a special family or friends dinner.

You MAY be visiting on business. In which case wine will often be involved with entertaining clients or visiting colleagues over a business dinner.

Ask your ordinary every day modern Southern Europeans, living in the city with jobs, cooking normal dinners within their household daily, if they drink wine every single day they are at home without guests and I would be very surprised if their answer is yes. If they do, they're likely to be older.

And so is type 2 diabetes, and the horrible complications from it.

My gran drank strong homemade wine every night for decades and died at 100

think she pickled herself to last longer😂

It’s 1/4 bottle per night. I would add in two alcohol free days per week to reduce your overall intake.

The op has just said she used to do a bottle a night. Currently a glass a night but I'd guess it could very easy swing in the opposite direction again.

Op, you've had a very unhealthy relationship with booze in the past, you are playing with fire imo.

Find other treats and rewards such as chocolate or a nice dessert.

I MAY actually live here!

Blimey. Just read the link you gave and I did not know this. Not bothered enough by the odd glass to risk this!

"Around 1 in 10 breast cancer cases are caused by drinking alcohol, that’s about 4,400 cases a year. The risk of breast cancer is increased even if you drink at low levels.".

I know. I recently lost a family member to oesophageal cancer - they were in their early 50’s and had recently cut down on their drinking - they’d drink most days, one or two and sometimes more if on a night out/holiday. Had a very active lifestyle, hill walking, cycling etc, and a lucrative career. It was a very sudden diagnosis and a quick death. May not have been related to alcohol at all but I guess we’ll never ever know.

Mitchell and Webb's 'slightly less than two drinks' sketch:

You need to do more with your day.