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Ladies: how do you feel about drinking? Do you think overachieving women tend to drink more? We haven’t talked about this for a while, but it’s been on my mind with various news articles I’ve seen, and with the holidays coming up I thought we’d discuss.
(I don’t want to totally rehash my thoughts from our 2010 discussion on this, but I still agree with all of them…)
{related: women lawyers and drinking}
First, the articles and propositions I’ve been thinking about:
Women drink a lot, particularly high achievers. There have been numerous articles over the years (WSJ, Gothamist, Real Simple) about how high-achieving women drink — a lot. A reader linked to this fascinating article in The Atlantic about drinking as an escape from perfectionism.
It’s becoming more accepted these days that you can recognize a drinking problem (or at least, wanting to drink less) without identifying as being addicted to alcohol. Lisa at Privilege just updated her post about cutting back drinking — I think she’s gotten a ton of pushback over the years to the idea that anyone who “needs” to drink less isn’t an alcoholic.
{related: what to drink instead during Dry January}
YET, there have been numerous articles about how Alcoholics Anonymous really isn’t that great for women (see Jezebel, but also see The Atlantic), and there’s been an increase in articles and programs about how to drink less or otherwise drink moderately (Real Simple, Drink Smarter, Moderation Management, Moderate Drinking, Caitlin Padget). I often think about Gretchen Rubin’s theory on abstainers vs. moderators in relation to this, also.
Public health guidelines on drinking may seem… severe. One of the things that Lisa notes is that the recommended number of drinks per woman is no more than one per day or 8 per week; for men it’s two a day. (Forbes actually has a great roundup of the myriad — and conflicting — guidelines out there.)
{related: we rounded up 10 great mocktail recipes}
One glass of wine a day always strikes me as a nice goal — but I’m more likely to accomplish the “no more than 8 per week” by abstaining several nights. Yet when I saw this recent news story about champagne and dementia — suggesting that “moderate consumption” of three daily glasses of champagne made a dramatic difference in keeping dementia at bay, I thought, “geez, that’s a commitment,” mostly because I’m not a huge fan of champagne.
It now looks like that study was misreported and they meant three glasses a week — I suppose that’s more doable (pending further research, obvs). #goals
For my own $.02: I absolutely drink too much, at least by the “no more than one drink a day” standard. (I probably drink about 15 drinks a week on average.) I can’t think of a woman I know who doesn’t. Part of that is New York culture — and part of that is definitely Big Law culture, where I got my main drink on — drinking with friends from law school mostly, but also drinking with colleagues at afterparties and non-work outings.
(Another article I think about often: This poor woman lawyer, who got so drunk she almost wound up losing her arm. I consider myself extraordinarily lucky that nothing crazy ever happened to me.) I had no problem stopping drinking during my pregnancies or while nursing, but I was happy to pick it up again when we were done.
These days, I generally know my limit as far as hangovers go, and I don’t drink to excess often, but I’d still like to cut back — in addition to all those general health reasons, drinking is hands down the biggest saboteur to my diet.
(I’m back to WW, but in the past I tried the slow carb diet specifically because it allows two glasses of wine per day. For me it didn’t work — my husband lost 20 pounds extremely easily, while I lost and gained the same 2 pounds over and over again.)
As far as drinking and legal culture goes, a good friend and I were discussing this (she’s a former attorney), and she had these wise thoughts to share:
FWIW I do remember feeling pressure to drink as an attorney, but not as an escape – rather, I wanted to impress the older male partners at the firm. It seemed like a way to get in with the old school – have a scotch or two at the office at the end of the day, try to learn a few tricks of the trade, etc., show that I could hold my liquor ‘like a man.’
Similar motivation to wanting to learn how to golf – like that would have made a damn bit of difference!
Once my partner actually ordered me to drink wine at lunch we were on, and I came back and had to put my head down on my desk. I never got in with the old school anyway so my big plan failed.
In terms of moderation — at the moment my husband and I try not to keep full bottles of liquor in our home, and we’ve found that we really don’t do well with a Bota Box (even though it honestly is one of my favorite wines as far as taste!), but we indulge in cocktails when out, occasionally buy a few airplane bottles of whiskey, tequila, or gin to keep in the house, and almost always have at least one bottle of wine available.
Pictured above, some ideas on how to moderate your drinking: Caloric Cuvee, [sold out] but similar, and Wine-Trax; all $9-$19 at Amazon. I’ve also talked about how much I love the beautiful cocktail glasses from The History Company because they’re generally smaller!
I also try to focus on portion control — I have one glass that holds exactly 4 ounces of wine, and I try to use that whenever possible. (Almost every other wine glass we have easily holds double that!) I’ve searched in the past for glasses specifically focusing on portion control, and it looks like there are more options available now, as well as the more comical options that existed in the past.
As of 2021, I’m getting much better about drinking mocktails!
Some of our favorite non-alcoholic drinks and things to add to plain seltzer (we love our Sodastream!) include:
I don’t know, ladies — what are your thoughts? Do you drink too much? Would you be embarrassed if someone else (e.g., your parents or a younger sibling) found out how much you drink? Do you have rules around drinking? (One of my big ones when younger was “never drink alone.”) Have you ever tried to moderate your drinking, either successfully or not? (And: any plans of attack for the holiday season?)
Psst: we’ve also talked about what your drink says about you.
Updated images via Stencil. Originally pictured: Amy Schumer’s Football Town Nights.
Sarah
My husband stopped drinking a little over 4 years ago, and that drastically reduced how much I drink. Where we used to easily split a bottle of wine every night, now I go to open a bottle of wine and think “am I going to be home for the next 3 nights so I can finish this before it’s turned?” often the answer is no so I’ll turn to the soda stream for some carbonated water. I’ve definitely noticed that it’s so much easier for me to get up and get going in the mornings. I’ve just started a new career path (was practicing lawyer, now am a real estate agent), so it’ll be interesting to see how different the social cultures are.
I’m shocked to see how few people are noting the cost of drinking. If you’re having 10-20 drinks a week (and especially if your partner is doing the same) that’s easily a couple hundred every week or two you could be saving. I’d encourage everyone to keep an actual tab of what they’re spending per week on drinking, perhaps even add in your uber reciepts if you’re taking one because you wont drink and drive. Multiply that by 52 and then think about how much nicer that cocktail would be if you were drinking it on a beach with that vacation you’ve saved up for by cutting back on booze.
Compound interest
Or multiply it by 30 years invested. Seriously, 15 drinks a week over your career = an extra million in retirement funds. Even drinking the cheapest stuff.
I’m not saying go cold turkey, but damn. I must run in borimg circles but i legit did not know that people drink this much on a regular basis.
Anonymous
Well, that assumes you’re buying all your drinks at full price at a bar, right? I’d ballpark wine + tax + tip at $14/glass at a standard restaurant in my city.
But, I’d estimate that between work happy hours and open bar client receptions and other times where the drinks are cheap ($1.50 each for the beers at home or at tailgates), I probably spend just a few hundred a year on my 8-10 drink a week habit. We all have things we splurge on. If that isn’t going to drinks, it’s going to pedicures, handbags, new furniture and dinners with friends. I just prioritize the social experience of drinking more than the material goods on that list.
Wildkitten
15 drinks a week of two buck Chuck is $10.
Anonymous
Right. And two übers home a month runs me $50. And I hate beach vacations.
Idk, I don’t know why the assumption is being made that high achieving women can’t afford to buy alcohol? Like, I pay rent, and my student loans, and save for retirement and emergencies- I got plenty of room in the budget for wine.
CountC
Oh man. I used to drink A LOT. A bottle of wine a day. I drank because I hated my job and was unhappy with who I was and where I was in life. I stopped drinking to blackout and drunkeness after an ex-bf pointed out (after we broke up), the few times he had needed to take care of me and my violent reaction to this. That was over a year ago and I haven’t had more than 2 or 3 drinks in a sitting since and it’s far more common for me to go a week with having only one drink. I do not want to be the person I was/am when I drink too much. At first my friends were completely weirded out, but no one cares after about the second time you decline that second drink at HH or whatever. They love that they have a DD (when it works out), although I don’t feel obligated to hang around just to serve as DD. I also have had no issues at networking or professional functions getting one drink and nursing it or just getting seltzer water.
I used to tell myself it was important at networking functions and that I wouldn’t get ahead if I didn’t keep up with the boys. I was lying to myself. I was making excuses that made me feel better about drinking to excess as much as I did. My career has not at all suffered because I stopped drinking at events or because I only have one event. My friendships did not suffer because I stopped drinking to excess although the dynamic may have changed. I don’t mind that change however, because I have no interest in staying out in bars or spending all that money on booze anymore. My priorities have changed and my priority now is being healthy, happy, remembering my life, and not using alcohol as an escape mechanism.
At one point in my life 15 drinks a week would have been completely normal, but I do not think that normal is always good.
CountC
This does sound a bit judgy, but it’s how I feel and what worked for me.
Carrie...
Well said.
Proud of you.
Sydney Bristow
Good for you!
CountC
Thanks!! I feel SOOO much better now.
Batgirl
Interesting topic! I used to drink a lot more than I do now (well, that’s cheating because I’m pregnant now). But in the past few years, since I met my husband, I’ve cut back a lot. Mostly because he isn’t a big drinker and it made me rethink some of my habits. Don’t get me wrong, I never really drank what I considered to be a lot, but cutting back has been interesting.
So when I was in college, I could easily have 10-15 drinks a week, mostly from going out Thurs, Fri, and Sat night and having 3-4 drinks at a time. In my mid-to-late 20s, I probably did more mid-week happy hours with 2-3 drinks at a time, and another 3-4 drinks on weekend nights. Still, I would guess I probably had about 10-12 a week at that point.
In my early-to-mid 30s, I would still do the happy hours, but drink a bit less because I would get hangovers. So maybe 2 drinks at a weeknight happy hour and 3 max on the weekend (and probably not both weekend nights).
Now, solidly in my mid-30s, and married to a not-a-big-drinker guy, I tend to have a big glass of wine (maybe with a follow up half glass) on a week night about once a week and then will add in a happy hour and/or a weekend drinking night (pre-pregnancy, that is). Total, we were probably talking about 5-6 drinks a week, rarely more than 2 of those drinks being anything other than wine.
It was easy enough for me to stop drinking while we were TTC and now that I’m pregnant, but I definitely miss the social aspects of it…and honestly, the taste of delicious cocktails and wines. But virgin cocktails sort of help. And I know I’ll have the rest of my post-pregnancy/breastfeeding life to have fancy wine and cocktails again.
I made the point above that drinking is more than about being drunk or having it affect your personal/social life. It can cause a lot of other problems for your body — the most important of which are not at all weight-related! So while I’m not planning to cut out alcohol entirely, I do see some value (for myself) in having cut back a bit, even if I didn’t have a problem with it before.
Anon
The whole discussion reminds me of the sheer shock many of my ex-pat friends have had when their doctor over here runs through the drinks/week recommendations, and more specifically “what counts as a unit.”
It still blows my mind how many people get snitty about other people’s choices to eat fast food or smoke, but have A+ rationalization skills when it comes to their own drinking.
Fascinating!
I am single, 34 years old, and drink 1-3 drinks perhaps 2x/week. I live in a major city. When I push the limit (3 drinks on two nights in any given week) my body definitely feels different, and not in a good way.
This makes me think of all the threads where fellow ‘rettes describe their truly Herculean efforts to drop a few pounds! I’d be happy to lose 5 pounds but overall I’m happy with my body. I’m sure my body would look and feel significantly different if I was drinking more than 6 drinks per week! Not judging anybody who does drink more – I’d love to drink more – but I’d rather be able to wear a smaller clothing size.
E
I definitely drink too much when I go out on weekends. I’m 26, I like to have fun, I do have fun. But it definitely involves too much alcohol. Reiterating with what Kat said.. nothing bad has happened to me, my safety hasn’t been compromised, but yeah I realize I need to do much better when it comes to moderation. I’m not partying every single weekend, but it seems to average out to 2-3 times a month.
I rarely drink week days but really my biggest motivator is to save calories. I travel a lot for work which means a lot of big team dinners or just nice, expensed dinners and most of the time, I won’t have a single drink, but occasionally I’ll have a cocktail. If I’m flying home in the evening at the end of the week, I’ll also have a drink on the plane because the high altitude buzz is kind of fun and it makes the flight go by a lot faster. Occasionally, if it’s been a rough week, I’ll have a beer when I get home on Friday to unwind.
While I’ve acknowledged that I do drink too much on weekends, I sadly haven’t made a huge, consistent effort to cut back. I’ll be good for a while but then I’ll have a night where I have a few too many. I definitely need to get a grip on that. But then at the same time, I don’t consider myself dependent on alcohol. Idk I need therapy or something.
Wildkitten
I think we all need therapy – every last one of us.
Josie Pye
I was a social drinker (maybe 3-5 drinks/week) until age 28, when I had some major GI surgery that left me unable to drink more than a few sips of alcohol without some really unpleasant consequences (and I’ll leave it at that). I really love wine, and I’ll have half a glass if there’s a bottle that is going to be amazing, but usually it’s just not worth the price I pay later on. At first I resented it, but now I just see it as part of life…some people can’t tolerate dairy, I can’t tolerate alcohol. The only people who consistently give me a hard time are the ones who are trying to make themselves feel better about how much they drink, and honestly almost nobody notices or cares.
Anonymous
I drink a lot socially (prob 12/week). I like wine, I can afford my drinking, and it doesn’t impact my work. A lot of the drinking is with my coworkers, though I don’t think it would be an issue if I didn’t. Maybe this is my age (27), but at this stage, I have no plans to cut back. I acknowledge that drinking is unhealthy, but I’m not trying to live a 100% healthy life. I certainly don’t rationalize it or think that everyone drinks the same amount I do. I have fun and I like it.
Anonymous
Should add – I’ve never thought of any ties between overachieving and drinking but I think it’s probably impacted by overachieving women working in a culture that has more drinking events (especially free ones), and having more disposable income to spend on alcohol
Wildkitten
Yeah. I’ll stop when I’m pregnant, but aside from that, I enjoy wine.
Anonymous
This topic makes me a bit leery. I don’t seek to make anyone feel the least bit judged by contributing. But I find I want to tell a bit about my personal experience with alcohol.
To be perfectly honest I think I had a drinking problem in my 20’s. I blacked out and/or vomited in public a number of times. If you asked me how many drinks I had on any of those occasions I wouldn’t be able to tell you because I would’ve lost count. It was probably worst in law school. I graduated at nadir of the legal market and struggled to find a job, and medicated my stress by drinking a bottle of wine in one sitting several nights a week, plus a beer or two other nights. I almost never went an entire 24 hours without drinking. The amount that I was drinking was not healthy in any way.
Then I moved to a different city and just fell into different habits, in large part because I had to drive more (new city has horrible public transit) and just couldn’t get too hammered to function as much because then I wouldn’t be able to get home. So I started drinking significantly less. It’s only looking back that I can see that I had a problem and that I wasn’t dealing with my emotions so much as trying to numb them. I haven’t quit drinking, and I don’t intend to. I genuinely enjoy red wine, or a nice sour beer. But these days rarely drink more than 5-6 drinks per week, generally over the course of 2-3 nights, and most nights I don’t drink at all. I’m happier and healthier for a lot of reasons than I was when I was in my 20’s, and, for me personally, drinking less is a huge part of that.
I was certainly “functional” when I had a drinking problem, in that I did reasonably well in law school despite the enormous amount that I drank and had no problem maintaining friendships or keeping up with my responsibilities as an adult. But functional or not, I had a problem, and I don’t want to go back to that place.
Lisa
Kat, I just want to thank you for your honesty, and for bringing this subject in the context of over-achievement. And for mentioning my posts. The only reason to tell embarrassing controversial things on the Internet that I can think of is to help other people.
Middle
I think 15 drinks/week sounds pretty normal. I’m a lawyer in the Midwest and in my mid-30s. My weeknights could consist of absolutely no drinking or 3/4 to a whole bottle of wine in a night, depending on if I’m in the mood to drink. More than a bottle of wine and I feel it the next day. I am perfectly fine saying no to any drinks at all, but once I have the first glass, it is really hard for me not to put away the whole bottle. I have two young children who will not let me sleep in, so I can’t have more than a bottle and expect to be functional the next day – so my weekend drinking mirrors weeknights. I never feel like I need a drink and have weeks when I have none or maybe one bottle the entire week. Then I have weeks when I drink perhaps four bottles throughout the week.
Alleyne
This is a great question. Partially because people are so uncomfortable with it… Also, most people vastly underestimate how much they drink per week (yes, your doctor knows you round down by 50% when they ask…)
The social aspect is big. I never thought about how much I drank when I was in college or living with friends who drank frequently, but now that I live with a 1-3 drinks/week mate, I feel like even half my former amount is “a lot”. Guess a lot depends on you frame of reference.
Lynneny
I really like wine, but I have a passion for chocolate, and there just aren’t enough calories in the day for both. So most days I indulge in chocolate, and I might have a glass of wine once a week.
I also have to be able to keep track of when the next train is, and how long it’ll take me to get to the station from wherever I am in the city. Not an issue with chocolate, but when I was younger and drank more, I missed a lot of trains.
TK
Anyone have any thoughts on professional women drinking to obvious intoxication at events vs. men doing the same? In my experience professional women are judged much more harshly for drinking in public than their male colleagues with identical jobs. Monday morning there’d be fist-bumping and high fives between the boys who got, “so wasted” last weekend, simultaneously with whispers at the water cooler about women who ’embarrassed themselves’ by getting ‘sloppy drunk’ at the same event.
anon +45
One thing nobody’s touched on is wine-drinking as a prestige hobby. I’m in California, & this is definitely a thing, esp. higher up the corporate ladder. If you know about wine, you look smarter & more sophisticated, blah blah blah. Wine-tasting trips in Napa & Sonoma as corporate off-sites / company celebrations / customer events are common, & knowing which wine to choose with dinner at a restaurant with execs / customers is always important.
You don’t have to drink a lot in quantity to be knowledgeable about wine, but, like anything, it takes practice. You can’t spit it all out! I’m not saying wine-drinking is required in California, but it’s one of those intangible niceties that may add to your extracurricular resume. Also, I was raised having wine with dinner, & I’ve become something of a collector in my older age, so I’m never giving it up!
Taxidermied Party Animal
I thought I’d see way more comments like this one!
I have a drinking problem and I need to purposefully restrict my drinking to keep me out of trouble. But I can’t fathom abstaining completely – too many fine wines are deservedly experiences in their own right.
Anonymous
I am a former addict, and a current BigLaw senior associate. Talk about things that don’t go together super well. I used to work in the entertainment industry before I went to law school, and drug use was all around me and I made bad decisions.
People I have worked with for a while know why I don’t drink since I teach CLEs on substance abuse issues, but sometimes there is a lot of explaining. People can be really weird about it. But I do I wish that drinking was the focal point of so many of the social events associated with my law firm, as I really never stop having the desire to drink/use. The holidays are always worse for that as well.
Anonymous
*wasn’t the focal point…..Freudian slip?
LT!
What a timely post…I often struggle with whether or not I drink too much, since alcoholism runs in my family. Over the past month I’ve been (successfully) paring down # of drinks per week when at some point I counted backwards for that particular week and realized I’d had about 22. It doesn’t impact my life at all (except perhaps to cause snoring which in turn annoys the heck out of my husband), but I do worry that I use it too much as a crutch to get me through the evenings. Crappy day at work? Have a Manhattan! Need to work on a paper? Have a bottle of wine, it’ll go faster! Watching a movie? Oh, this Scotch is delightful!
Thus far this week, I have had five drinks. Two glasses of wine on Sunday, two whiskey cocktails on a flight Tuesday, and another glass of wine on Wednesday. It is Friday and I have a bottle of wine in the fridge and a paper to write, but also have plans with friends tomorrow night and booze will certainly be present. I wouldn’t say I’m *struggling* per se to not have any of that wine tonight, but I know it will certainly make the fact that I’m holed up writing a paper about a very dense economic application of bioethics much more palatable. But I want to come in under ten drinks this week (last week’s total) and a couple of glasses of wine tonight and whatever happens tomorrow night will not get me to that goal.
On the other hand, it’s been so reassuring reading these comments, save those from the judgey-judgertons of the group. Maybe I will have some wine tonight.
And PS, speaking of overachieving: .
LT!
weird. i said “And PS, speaking of overachieving: raises hand.
Anonymous
I didn’t really drink until i was in my mid 20’s and already in a professional job. I held it together during the day counting calories (400-600) so I could drink the rest and not gain weight. I was physically active running every day and taking part in sprint triathlons. I would often drink to the point of blacking out a few times a week and didn’t mind vomiting frequently. I would have horrible regrets of breaking furniture and acting (happy) and wild. I loved how i felt as alcohol took over and I felt relaxed and happy.
When I was sober, I was often restless and bored, like I needed a project or had to accomplish some great goal in life. I also gave up drinking during my 2 pregnancies but started drinking heavily a few times again while they were toddlers. This time it was harder, as I didn’t have the time to sleep and recovering from a hangover. As my kids grew up there were times I gave up drinking and would start again.
Last time I drank to the point of a blackout I ended up being taken advantage of by a business contact at a conference. I have no recollection of the night after my 2nd glass of wine and think he slipped something in my drink. I have never told anyone. I blame myself for drinking and impairing my judgment. That was years ago and I hat to think of myself as a victim which is why I had kept this all to myself. I do not anyone to feel pity for me.
Anyways, I have recently started drinking again and this time I do limit myself to 3-10 drinks per week. I feel like I am in control and will never drink to the point of a blackout again. I also have seen members in my family crumble with legal issues related to DUIs , I have compassion for them because I cam completely relate but get scared that a night of drunkenness could impact others.
NancyD
Just read through all the comments here and I have to say I am really stunned by the number of posters who drink beyond the amounts that the medical profession has stated as limits for health reasons—and seem absolutely OK with their choice to do so, week in and week out. I can’t imagine these same posters feel/act the same way about smoking cigarettes or eating lots of junk food. What does that tell us?
Happy Gal
I gave up drinking completely one year and 3 months ago. It was one of the best things I have ever done. I had found my intake sneaking up on me. Many mornings I would swear I wouldn’t drink, then end up stopping in the way home for a bottle anyway. It was weird at first, but I joined an online group called “Hello Sunday Morning” out of New Zealand for support. HSM is just a bunch of folks giving up drinking for 3 months, one year, or forever. They have alcohol abuse issues that run the gamut from mildly annoying to serious, and I like the kiwi lightness of spirit. Other great resources include the U.S. -based Yahoo Group the “Boozefree Brigade”, the English “Soberistas” community, the “Bubblehour” podcast, and the “Mrs. D goes Without” blog– which has links to all sorts of other great blogs by people trying to be alcohol-free. If you can’t imagine a life without wine, I’m telling you from the other side that life is great, fun, full and rich without it.