Pickled parenting

I think I’m edging towards alcoholism. How can you tell if you’re becoming an alcoholic? Is needing two (ish) glasses of wine on a Monday night a sign? Is needing two (ish) glasses every night – three (ish) on weekends – a sign? I haven’t always been like this. I used to go all week without touching the stuff. But lately I’ve started to mentally associate cooking with drinking. The minute I fire up the stove I feel an irresistible urge to hold a glass of pinot gris in my hand, which can be problematic when baking banana bread on Saturday mornings. But so far I’ve managed to fight the urge to drink before beer o’clock (5pm), except during weekend social activities, when beer o’clock – naturally – moves to noon. If I’m to be entirely honest, I even require a pinot gris in my hand when we’re having leftovers for dinner and no firing up of the stove is required. I especially fancy a drink when the Sprogs are whining or trying to kill each other in the bathroom/playroom/loungeroom/their bedrooms/the kitchen. Or when Sprog 2 can’t read “what”, “our” or “flower”. A glass of wine chills me out. It makes me Nice Mummy. It takes the edge off my omnipresent anxiety. It was also bankrupting us, as I progressively drained every expensive “special occasion” bottle in the wine rack plus all the fancy drops that arrived from the numerous wine clubs I’ve joined (hmmm, is that another sign?). So I popped into Dan Murphy’s a few weeks ago and set myself a quaffer challenge – 12 bottles with vaguely nice labels for less $12, but more than $9. As I trawled the aisles with my trolley, I told myself I couldn’t be an alcoholic, because alcoholics would be buying the $3.99 bottles, the $5.99 casks or the 4-litre flagons. Choosing the $9-$12 wines was simply a sign of a suburban stay-at-home mum’s savvy frugality. Right? Oh god! I feel like such a weak, weak woman. I shouldn’t need alcohol as a crutch. I tell myself I won’t have one tonight, then I think, “Oh, but I enjoy it. What will a couple of glasses hurt?” It’s a slippery slope, isn’t it? AA here I come.

Make me feel better – tell me about your drinking habit.