I could never stop at just one. A glass of wine was never enough. It was always two, sometimes three, and occasionally four. There were nights when an entire bottle disappeared before I even realized it.
How did I get here?
Drinking creeps up on us. It can start as an occasional indulgence and, over the years, morph into something far more entrenched. In my 20s, it was purely social – something I did with friends. By my mid-30s the mommy juice had started, a nightly glass (or two) of wine became my well-earned reward after long days balancing work and parenting.
In my 40s, the strain of a high-powered job and motherhood was eased with two (or three) glasses at the end of the day and on weekends the wine was opened at midday.
By my 50s the wine had become self-medication – my comfort, my companion, my escape.
Decades of drinking was affecting my health, and at the age of 55, I got breast cancer. I was unaware of the strong link between alcohol and breast cancer, so my drinking continued.
In all honesty, I did try to cut down, but it never lasted long. I even did Dry January but was counting the days and white-knuckling it until February when of course I would drink even more.
It was only when I tried to alter my deeply entrenched habit that I realised I had become dependent.
My Decade of (Failed) Moderation
Women who drink too much feel a lot of shame and I certainly did, too. Why couldn’t I just “have one” like my husband would urge me to do? I finally admitted to myself that I had become dependent but decided to tell no-one and “fix” the problem myself.
There followed a decade of trying (and failing) to moderate – again and again. I felt ashamed and broken – why did I have no “willpower”? Why couldn’t I drink “normally” like my husband and some of my friends?
My decade of (failed) moderation is in fact quite common.
A survey by sobriety group Tempest interviewed hundreds of women in recovery and asked them how long they struggled alone before they reached out for help.
The average length of time was an incredible 11 years!
7 Warning Signs of Alcohol Dependence
Sign #1: You’ve Tried (and Failed) to Cut Down
When I started to worry about my drinking, I decided to cut down. This was easier said than done, and I spent at least a decade trying (and failing) to drink less. It was exhausting and demoralising, but I just couldn’t imagine my life without wine!
Moderate drinking for women is described as having one drink or less in a day and binge drinking as consuming at least four drinks in one sitting. It’s pretty easy to go above these numbers.
If you’re a wine drinker, then a bottle and a half of wine a week is your low risk guideline. Of course, if you want to be really healthy, then it’s better not to drink at all!
If you can’t drink within these limits, then you have crossed the line into dependence. The good news is that it’s much easier to quit than to cut down, and you’ll eventually feel happier and be healthier without it!
Sign #2: Thinking About Alcohol Is Taking Up Mental Space
If you spend time thinking about alcohol, that’s a sure sign you need to make a change.
Are you planning your next drinking session or recovering from it? Are you worried that you feel “under par” most days yet not quite joining the dots between your health and your daily wine habit? Would you like to quit drinking but have no idea how to go alcohol free? Do you worry about losing friends, missing out on fun and having to come up with excuses if you don’t drink?
All sure signs that you need to take a break from alcohol to test your dependence. Alcoholism is a slippery slope, and it’s far easier to step off before things get too serious. One of the (many) advantages of sobriety is that you free up your mind to think about more interesting topics than how many units you drank last night!
Sign #3: You Make Drinking Rules
Perhaps you’ve created a list of rules around your drinking, like only drinking after 5 p.m., sticking to beer and wine or limiting yourself to two drinks in social situations. Do you wake up some days with a headache and decide that you won’t drink that day? Yet 5 p.m. comes round and you feel so much better that you can’t resist pouring that glass of wine!
These drinking rules might work for a while and may even be a sign that you are simply a responsible drinker. But if you keep making and breaking drinking rules then that’s a sign that you have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol and need to consider a lifestyle change.
Sign #4: You Drink Every Day
Consuming alcohol every day or more than three times a week is another sign you should consider taking a break. It’s almost impossible to stay within the low-risk guidelines if you drink every day and you are creating a habit which will get harder and harder to break.
The advantage of taking a significant break from alcohol (like 66 days) is that it gives you a fighting chance to “reset” your drinking patterns. You may find that after you’ve taken a break from alcohol you are able to drink just a couple of times a week which will make keeping to the guidelines so much easier.
Many people who need a detox from alcohol don’t realize just how much they need a break until they take one. Take note of how you feel during your alcohol break. For example, do you feel sick or weird in any way? You might be going through symptoms of withdrawal, which is another sign that you need to make a change.
Sign #5: You’re Noticing Physical Changes
Our bodies are highly sensitive and intelligent and will do their best to let us know when we are drinking too much. However, once we get dependent we tend to “push through,” and we just accept that we don’t feel great.
Once I hit 60, I felt exhausted but convinced myself that it was my age, nothing to do with my serious daily wine habit.
Now that I am 70+ and have been alcohol-free for a decade I am full of energy!
Ditching the booze is one of the best things we can do for our health and happiness as we get older. After all, alcohol is a factor in 60% of falls, and falls are the leading cause of injury-related deaths in people over 65.
Read: Six Reasons to Ditch the Drink after 60!
There are some clear signs that your body is telling you it’s time to take a break from drinking, like changes in your skin, weight changes, acid reflux and heartburn.
Alcohol can cause weight gain since it can trigger food cravings and keeps your body from burning carbs and fat (not to mention the drinks themselves can be riddled with calories and sugar). Fatigue is another common symptom of drinking too much since the quality of your sleep is diminished.
Long story short, if you’re not feeling your best (and you’re noticing these changes), alcohol may well be the culprit.
Take a break, and yes, those first few weeks may be hard, but get your attitude right. You are not tackling a “problem” so much as taking an “opportunity” to improve your mental and physical health.
Get excited!
Sign #6: You’re Not Getting Enough Sleep
Do you sometimes wake up at 3 a.m. feeling anxious? If you’ve been drinking the evening before, then that’s about the time when the alcohol will be leaving your body. Drinking may numb our anxiety for a while but that reprieve is temporary!
There is also a common misconception that alcohol helps you sleep better since it makes you feel sleepy. In reality, alcohol often causes sleep disruptions and suppresses REM sleep (which is considered the deepest sleep stage). A drinker will only get a couple of cycles of REM sleep whereas we need about 7 cycles to feel well rested.
If we drink daily, this fatigue will build up over the years.
Consider skipping those evening drinks and see if that makes a difference in how you feel when you wake up. You may even find that you feel so well-rested that you decide to switch to tea or alcohol-free drinks in the evening.
Sign #7: No “Off” Switch
Do you sometimes find it difficult to stop once you begin drinking? Do you plan to have a couple of drinks and then find yourself drinking more? Would you say all of your social activities revolve around alcohol?
If you socialise a couple of times a week, it’s pretty easy to get through four drinks during an evening which meets the definition of binge drinking. As we get older, we have less water in our bodies which makes it harder to process the alcohol, and our liver will take longer to recover. We tend to think that once the “morning after” feeling has gone, then we are fine, but in fact, our body and brains need more time to recover.
I used to convince myself that I didn’t have a drinking problem… I just went “over the top” now and again. Unfortunately, those “over the top” occasions got more frequent and more severe, occasionally ending up in a blackout which is a real danger sign.
Women’s Alcohol Related Deaths Rising
More and more women are drinking to cope with the challenges of life. Studies show that women’s alcohol-related deaths have risen sharply.
Recent data indicates a concerning rise in alcohol-related issues among women in both Canada and the United States up to 2024.
The Statistics
Alcohol-Related Deaths
Between April 2020 and December 2022, Canada experienced a 17.6% increase in mortality fully attributable to alcohol, resulting in approximately 1,600 excess deaths.
High-Risk Drinking Among Women
Recent studies have highlighted a significant increase in alcohol-related mortality among women. Between 1999 and 2023, the alcohol-related death rate for women rose from 4.8 to 12 per 100,000 individuals in the United States.
Hospital Visits
Hospital visits due to alcohol consumption have surged – particularly for women in midlife.
Excessive Alcohol Use
Currently, nearly 59,000 women in the U.S. lose their lives annually due to excessive alcohol consumption, accounting for 1 in 6 deaths among women aged 20 to 49.
Alcohol Affects Women Differently
The reality is that alcohol affects women differently.
We metabolize it differently, meaning we become more impaired than men after the same number of drinks. This increases our risks of liver damage, heart disease, cancer, and memory loss. It disrupts our sleep, fuels depression, and even doubles our risk of stroke if we exceed the drinking guidelines.
Yet, the alcohol industry markets booze as a form of female empowerment – think “Mommy Juice” and “Skinnygirl” cocktails. They even slap pink ribbons on wine bottles, despite the well-documented link between alcohol and breast cancer.
One wonders if Big Alcohol has hijacked the Feminist Movement…
Dr. Connie Newman of NYU’s School of Medicine calls alcohol use disorder one of the most underdiagnosed and undertreated conditions in women. The truth is, many of us don’t fit the stereotype of an alcoholic. We function. We go to work, raise families, and pay our bills. True, we may not be drinking in the morning, but we’re drinking too much, too often.
Society has stigmatized the “alcoholic” to such an extent that we imagine a homeless man in the park rather than a well-dressed woman on her way to the office. This is dangerous as it makes it so easy to convince ourselves that we’re not “that bad” because we are keeping the show on the road!
One of the (many) benefits that I experienced in sobriety was a surge of energy and motivation. Energy which had been spent “keeping the show on the road” while feeling constantly under par due to my daily drinking.
Addiction is progressive and alcohol dependence is an elevator that only goes down.
How I Quit Drinking… At 63
I tried AA but I hated “labelling” myself an alcoholic and the rigidity of the 12 steps, so I tried to do it alone.
I did make some progress by gritting my teeth and using willpower, but it was only when I read This Naked Mind by Annie Grace that I realised it was about mindset… and I needed to change the way I thought about alcohol.
The gamechanger came for me when I found “my people” during a one-day workshop in London. Other women just like me – good jobs, nice families and in need of a community that understood them.
When we embark on this life changing journey we need to find our Tribe.
Our families may tell us to just “cut down a bit” and our friends often tell us not to be “boring” and that we don’t even have a problem. We need our own Tribe – people who have been exactly where we have and who understand us.
As I settled into my sobriety, I began to feel healthier and happier than I had for years.
I became passionate about the benefits of an alcohol-free lifestyle and decided to start a sobriety group which would inspire other women to do what I had done.
So I founded Tribe Sober in 2015. Since then, I have build a team of people who know the meaning of compassion. We run free bootcamps every few months, the latest one running next week (10-14 March).
What does our bootcamp look like? It’s a virtual gathering, hosted on the “Sobriety Bootcamp” private Facebook Group. Live sessions are recorded to suit all time zones. Also, it’s worth mentioning that your Facebook friends will not be able to see that you are a member.
Come join our “Sobriety Bootcamp” – it’s open now and it’s absolutely free.
Click here to join Sobriety Bootcamp Group
Let’s Have a Conversation:
What is your definition of alcohol addiction? Does it match the official definition? Are you on your journey to becoming addicted or are you on your journey of quitting?
