AIBU to think my sister is overreacting about our drinking?

[ByJollyQuail]

Just after some outside opinions because I'm genuinely not sure whether my sister has a point or whether she's being overly judgemental.

DH and I have been together since university and are now in our early 50s. We have two sons. Our eldest has just finished university and starts a graduate scheme in investment banking in London in a few weeks. Our youngest gets his A-level results in a couple of weeks and, hopefully, will be applying to study Economics and Maths and will be going to university sept 2026 after taking a gap year travelling. He plans to go after Christmas and is using money we saved for him to spend on whatever he wanted, he’s chosen to go travel all over South America solo we plan to meet him in a few countries.

DH retired early a couple of years ago. He's not old enough to draw his private pension yet, but we'd planned well financially and he reached the point where he simply didn't need to work anymore. I still work two days a week because I enjoy it.

We've always been sociable people and, if I'm honest, we've always enjoyed a drink. Even back at university we were the ones organising nights out, and that side of us has never really changed. We travel a lot, go away for weekends, love jazz bars with live music and dancing, go out for meals, have friends over regularly and I absolutely love hosting dinner parties. Our house has always been the one where people gather.

Life has changed recently though. Our boys are adults now and quite rightly have their own lives. They both have girlfriends, they're building their own futures and we've naturally had to take a bit of a back seat as parents. That's exactly how it should be, and we're proud of them, but it does mean our lives are much quieter than they were when they were younger.

In a few weeks our eldest will move into London for work, and next year our youngest will head off travelling before university, so it'll just be the two of us most of the time. We actually like each other's company and have always enjoyed going out together, so that's never worried either of us.

The issue is this. My sister stayed with us for a long weekend recently. One evening we had friends over for dinner. We opened wine while I was cooking and everyone had a couple of glasses over the course of the evening. The next night we went to the pub with friends and I had three glasses of wine over several hours while DH had a couple of pints and a whisky. The following evening we stayed in, cooked dinner together and shared a bottle of wine while watching a film.

A few days after she'd gone home she rang me and said she was actually worried about us. She said she'd noticed we seemed to drink every day and thought we'd normalised alcohol to an unhealthy extent. She even used the word "alcoholics", which completely took me aback. I’ve said to her we just like having fun, we aren’t drinking at 8am every morning, we aren’t arguing, we like good alcohol that’s all and we don’t really have any responsibilities.

The thing is, she's not entirely wrong that we drink most evenings. If I'm not commuting into London the next day I'll often have a couple of glasses of wine with dinner. If I'm off the following day we might share a bottle. If we're out with friends we'll drink then too.

Neither of us has ever missed work because of drinking. We don't drink in the mornings, don't hide alcohol, don't become unpleasant after drinking and we can easily go without if one of us is driving, we're travelling somewhere or we're doing something where drinking isn't appropriate.

My sister barely drinks herself. She might have a glass of prosecco at Christmas or a wedding and that's about it, so perhaps her idea of normal is very different from ours.
DH thinks she's being ridiculous and says we've simply reached a stage in life where we have time, disposable income and enjoy good food, entertaining and a drink together. He says we're not neglecting anyone or anything because there really aren't many day-to-day responsibilities anymore.

I wasn't worried until she said it, but now I'm wondering if we've drifted into drinking so regularly that we've stopped noticing it.

AIBU to think she's overreacting?

Get a life.
Buying a lot of wine for a party does not mean you have to drink it all.
You buy in excess for you and your guests to ensure that you do not run out.

If you tot up the units that is quite a lot and would certainly be considered to be a lot by any health professional. However, your level of socialising is very good for you so it's up to you!

This I have now done.

She is not unhappy, she just wanted to know what other people thought about her sisters comments. Well she got that in droves.

You do you OP, and enjoy your wine.
Cheers. 🍷

It's worse than a few years, often a pile on on some threads. If I read old threads, it was more supportive then.

Let's forget about that and focus on your issues. You're struggling with a sense of purpose since the kids have grown up, and are lonely esp with your husband turning into a MAMIL. You need some new hobbies/activities for yourself, ideally some of them will be social. Exercise, volunteering, arts - any of these? I spoke to some people who do volunteer gardening and they love the gardening and the social side of it.

The drinking: it is too much and it can still affect your health, sometimes it creeps up on you. Your body and liver need recovery time. Can you have alcohol free nights? You don't have to drink just because others/your husband are. Can you switch to alcohol free wine/beer/cider. Especially the beers can be great. You can even get a non-alcoholic dupe for gin now! You don't need alcohol to be social and if anyone is pressing you to drink, that's their problem, not yours. For socialising, can you have some non-alcoholic drinks in between the wine?

Your relationship - is it worth talking it through with a counsellor? If this is making you sad, it's going to make the drinking worse.

Gosh some of these comments are a bit po-faced.

I think your sis is being OTT, it sounds like a convivial couple of days but nothing crazy.

But! It would probably be better to cut down a bit if you’re drinking most nights. 3 sober nights a week should be do-able and if it isn’t… perhaps time to review your relationship with drinking

Read ALL of OPs posts

The sister? Of course it is! If a family member of yours is behaving in a way that could make them ill/damage their relationship/kill them prematurely, you don’t think it’s any of your business?

Families are all different I guess. My brother used to drink too much. I told him so. I didn’t sit him down for a big weepy heart to heart or anything like that, just mentioned it when alcohol came up in conversation. I asked him if he ever had a night off and he said no, and I told him I thought he was drinking a lot and that it wasn’t at all good for his health. After a while he came to the same conclusion for himself and now hasn’t drunk at all for well over a year. He looks and feels better and younger.

Exactly what my point was!! Although doesn’t sound like the OP is quite on the level Oliver Reed was (I hope…)

You do you, I am 60 used to drink everyday could go without choose not to. I really went off alcohol last year now only had a drink twice in a year!!it still surprises me. You sound fun and active people are so judgy its getting like the US everyone thinks you are an alcoholic if you have more than one.

Blimey, that escalated quickly!

The OP went from 'middle class, socially acceptable drinker' to incoherent drunk in the space of one evening.

If this is actually a real thread then the OP has a lot to unpick. She isn't a lay-down-in-the-gutter-black-out-drunk (yet) but nobody starts out that way!!!

But he does after the round?

As posters keep advising; read all the OP's posts.

OP, I think your sister may have done you a favour because you have questioned whether or not you drink too much. You may think she's interfering, but it comes from a place of love and care for you.

My sister-in-law drank too much and she was extremely good at deflecting any comments anyone made about her drinking habits. Very high functioning with a great career but also very opinionated, so would not listen to anything she did not want to hear and point blank told us that her many health issues were nothing to do with the alcohol, it was the menopause. She was early 50s.

Then one evening she was so ill, vomiting etc that her other half called an ambulance. She was taken in and put on all sorts of machinery. She died 10 days later without ever regaining consciousness. We were advised that it was down to the alcohol - her liver had stopped working. We miss her so much and her parents and other half are still devastated 3 years later.

Then what's your question. What do you want from the thread you started?

The ops done a runner.

There are 5 paragraphs there of completely irrelevant information, I have no idea what the point of then was.

If the question is just regarding whether you drink too much or not, all that's needed is how much you drink over how many days. Context doesn't matter if you are just assessing how much you drink.

Interesting that you feel that the irrelevant information is relevant...

I did read ALL of them. My view remains unchanged! My view is about the drinking, not the relationship!

Your drinking isn't her norm. She is being judgemental.

Yes, your level of drinking will all add up but you're not drinking because you NEED it. Also, it sounds like your sister was with you for a fairly sociable few days.

I know people who assume I drink regularly and a lot but I don't really. I used to drink a couple of glasses a night while watching telly to wind down but I cut that back for financial reasons and because I've put on weight in my 40s and I was doing more exercise so wouldn't have a wine pre training and really didn't fancy it after getting home from the gym or a run. Switching to a cup of tea of an evening or a water / soft drink helped, partly because I'd always go foraging for snacks with the wine!

My kids are similar ages to yours with an additional 14 year old thrown in the mix but I'm at least a decade younger than you and a good deal poorer. I read your description of your life and I'm just bloody jealous! We can't afford to travel, my middle child's chosen a degree apprenticeship route so he doesn't have the debts and fees, decisions are made based on finances not on what we just really want to do. We're working full time and will be for the next two decades plus so I think our empty nest will feel different to yours.

My mum's sisters don't drink as much as her and they're no healthier or happier than her. But also, my mum doesn't drink a lot either.

I genuinely don't think that you have a problem with alcohol. I think you could do a little test by cutting back a bit, not by doing Dry January or Sober October but just not approaching wine as a routine.

You and your husband sound like you both have full and joyful lives and isn't that what we all want for ourselves and our loved ones?

Do you hide your drinking? I don't think you do. I'd recommend reading (or listening to the audiobook - it's available on Spotify) to Thirst by John Robins which will help you see that difference between alcoholism and enjoying drinking alcohol as part of your varied life.

Lots of very judgey and holier than thou people in your comments but hey, this is mumsnet and that's exactly what will come out of the woodwork whatever question you ask.

Annual pure alcohol consumption averages about 10.4 litres per person in France compared to 9.7 litres in the UK.
These are averages so of limited help.
Broadly speaking in the uk the number of non drinkers is expanding, but so is the number of heavy drinkers.

I do see the OP seems to have settled down with mumsnet and a bottle of wine last night, and ended up pissed, which is… ironic.

Maybe OP got upset by all the comments here but that’s not really an ideal reason go get drunk on your lonesome!

I think my view is still that OP should try cutting down and if that’s really hard it’s time to take a long look in the mirror. I do also think there was a fair bit of po-facedness before OP descended into her slurred posts (if one can slur a post!).

And for the third time, I was just pointing out that the claim that ANY French person would think the @ByJollyQuail‘s drinking was perfectly normal is nonsense. That doesn’t mean there’s no alcoholism in France though. I never said that.

The point of those paragraphs was to make sure we know that the OP is middle class. Because problematic drinking is often seen as more acceptable in the context of jazz bars and dinner parties as opposed to the local Wetherspoons or sitting in the park with a bottle of White Lightning.

I was responding to your musing/question ‘It doesn’t necessarily tell us what the drinking levels in the population are.’

I told you

I actually associate alcholism very much with the middle classes and social scramblers, but perhaps that's because I pay attention 😎

I think it was supposed to show how very functional they are, so they couldn't possibly be drunks.

But I actually don't think any of it's real. Her later posts seem very much like someone pretending to be drunk, performative nonsense. I think she was just bored, making up stories.