Locked in Lockdown

What started as a deserved treat in the early days of Lockdown One soon became a crutch. In those early, heady, naïve days when we thought six weeks of sacrifice would mean a return to normal, nightly glasses of wine seemed fine. Everyone was joking about it, everyone was doing it, right? But as we now know, six weeks wasn’t enough and as they turned into six months, those nightly glasses of wine were still there, though now, they seemed a bit shameful, a bit secret.

The tide has turned and there’s a focus on 5k lockdown and sea swimming lockdown and hiking and 30-day yoga challenges and dry November, ahead of a slightly subdued Christmas, and none of these seem to have much room for a nightly glass of red the minute the children are in bed.

Habits, both good and bad, are formed in 21 days, but when time has lost all meaning and every day feels like you’re Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, it’s tricky to know how many multiples of 21 days you’ve been reaching for that bottle of Merlot or making those fancy margaritas as a pick me up for.

And like any crutch, the fear is that if you let go of it, you’ll fall flat on your face and end up having the massive breakdown that’s been gently simmering in the background since March.

But the truth is, if you’re questioning how much you’re drinking you probably already know that it’s too much. And if it’s too much, it’s probably doing things to your body that you don’t want to happen.

Things change in your 40s, as we already know, but those changes make it harder for your body to deal with alcohol. Your liver, for example, becomes less efficient, which is probably why your hangovers feel worse. It plays havoc with your sleep and since you’re already sleeping less than you did in your 20s and 30s this isn’t a good thing. We need quality REM sleep for overall good health. And, it gets worse.

At the 2019 annual meeting of the North American Menopause Society, there was a talk about alcohol and menopausal women, and it wasn’t good. They outlined the belief that alcohol reduces stress and aids relaxation as the main reason for women consuming more drinks than recommended or healthy. Dr Connie Newman of the New York School of medicine spoke about the potential for women to suffer adversely as a result of drinking especially because women are more susceptible to the effects of alcohol consumption than men because of lower body water and higher body fat. Women also have lower amounts of the enzymes that breakdown alcohol. See? Bad news.

In comparison to men, women had a higher risk of alcoholic hepatitis, hemorrhagic stroke, and heart disease as a result of drinking alcohol. Dr Newman also spoke about a study of 1.2 million women in the UK who were studied for about 7 years, who experienced a 12% increase in relative risk of breast cancer per 10 g of alcohol per day (or the equivalent of one drink per day). That study also found that moderate amounts of alcohol also contributed to higher risks of larynx, oral cavity, liver, oesophagus, and rectum cancers.

Sobering. Literally.

If all that isn’t enough to scare you (and me), let’s appeal to our collective vanity. Sure, no one can see us now but I don’t want to emerge blinking into the sunlight sometime in 2021 completely unrecognisable. As well as the quite horrifying potential health risks, alcohol is also playing havoc with your skin and your weight. You might be blaming your newly onset acne on your mask and your too-tight jeans on your predilection for leggings but you might want to look at the bottom of one of those bottles left out for recycling (that will take a small lorry to shift) for the real answer.

In Amanda Byram’s new self-help book, The Switch, she tackles the subject of alcohol in her trademark no-bullshit way. She spoke about it recently on her Instagram feed.

“When people ask me how to lose the bloat or the blues or improve their skin quality and a slew of other issues, I ask: ‘Have you tried cutting out drinking for two weeks, or even cutting down drinking to Christmas, birthdays, weddings and funerals?’ They often go quiet and regard me with puppy-dog eyes, silently pleading for a better answer. I’m sorry, gang, I hate to strut into the party, pull down my pants and piss in your Pinot Noir, but drinking even small amounts of alcohol on a regular or semi-regular basis really messes with your system, hormone disruption, fertility issues, mental health, skin, weight gain and bloat, and in some cases disease and addiction.”

I didn’t realise that I needed the threat of TV star Amanda Byram pissing in my pinot to make me think about what my nightly glass was doing to me but it turns out I did. She has an entire chapter about tackling alcohol in her book and it’s a refreshing take on a subject that will be a little too close to the bone for many of us.

Women already have the short straw in this pandemic. Our careers are more likely to be suffering, it’s known that we’re taking on the majority share of household and childcare jobs and now, it seems, our nightly treat is threatening to make us sad, tired and ill.

It may be time to replace our crutch with something else but I’ll tell you this for nothing – I’m not doing aerobics in my living room for anybody.

Jennifer Stevens, November 2020.