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I can trace the phases of my adulthood by what I drank. Tecate from Safeway during college in California, Miller Lite watching WVU sports in early adulthood, lots of red wine as I started hosting dinner parties, fancy cocktails after I moved to New York, and dry white wine after 35—because it tastes the best to me and doesn't give me a headache, cliché be damned!
I've had two really long stretches of dropping alcohol completely when I was pregnant, and afterward, I got to figure out how I wanted to do alcohol reentry. This summer, I have to tell you, I have been loving sitting outside sipping an extra lime-y gin and tonic, after having to skip them last year.
For this week's episode, you told us about your relationships with alcohol, and for most of you, it's complicated. We heard from many of you who don't drink for religious or cultural reasons, or because it became a problem for you or your body. But a lot of you are in a grayer area: fans of having a drink on dates or at parties, but wondering how to gauge whether you've come to need alcohol in ways that are not so healthy.
As I've reentered life with alcohol this summer, I've had a morning or two when I've woken up and realized, "Ugh. Too much." And that definitely feels extra shame-y when I have to immediately tend to little ones who don't care that I refilled my glass one too many times after they went to bed.
So, I'm adjusting my intake, and as you told us, so are many of you. After you listen to this week's episode, tell us what you've done in those moments when you want a drink, but don't want to drink. What have you learned to do instead? We're collecting your 30-second tips for diversion and alternative self-care, at deathsexmoney@wnyc.org.
—Anna and the Death, Sex & Money team
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This Week on Death, Sex & Money
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It can sometimes feel like alcohol—whether you're drinking it or not—is an intrinsic element of navigating adulthood. After all, over 70 percent of American adults drink. We take drinking so much for granted that we often fail to really engage with the role it's playing in our lives.
So we asked you to share your experiences with alcohol, and why drinking is working for you or not. We heard about wanting to cut back but worrying about losing friends; deciding to drink despite watching a parent struggle with alcohol abuse; and one listener's annual month-long vacation from drinking that she calls Sober September. Your stories about drinking, not drinking, and everything in between, in your podcast feed now.
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🚨Alert: We're Growing Our Team!🚨
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What's even better than a full time job? A full time job with Death, Sex & Money! We're looking for an associate producer to come on board and help us bring the big plans we have in store for the show to life. Check out the job posting here, and share it with anyone who you think might be up for the mission.
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Your Responses: Mindful Drinking
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In the process of putting together today's episode, we heard from so many of you who are interrogating your drinking habits and thinking deeply about the role that alcohol plays in your lives. Here are two listeners who've come to different conclusions, but are putting a lot of thought into why they are drinking or not:
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"I miss drinking only because I miss carefree life. Life before kids, life when I just didn't have as much responsibility and could just go out and drink until all hours of the night. And I think I miss that time more than I miss actually drinking. Drinking towards the end became something that wasn't fun for me at all. It became something that I was hiding. It became something that I thought about all the time. It became something that was running my life.
Drinking for me was misguided self-care. It was the way that I dealt with everything from the highest of the highs to the lowest of the lows. I drank when I was celebrating; I drank when I was sad. I drank to numb myself from any feeling that I had about anything. Now, I find that celebrating things sober feels a lot more real and a lot more present. The gift of being able to be present with my children and be present in daily life is extremely important to me."
—Amanda, 42, WA
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"My backstory is growing up in a dry household, but with alcoholic histories on both sides of my family. Because there was no active drinking growing up, I now in hindsight realize I did not learn how to drink or what a healthy drinking life is. And I have struggled with that most of my adult life.
I am just in the process of trying to figure out which end of the spectrum is healthy and how I can maintain drinking without it becoming a problem. But I do feel like I have succeeded in the fact that I have awareness. And that's a place that I'm happy to be at today, as I am 34 and still figuring it all out and the impact that my history has had. So we'll see how that manifests in the future years, but for now I'm just trying to be a moderate sociable drinker. Most days I definitely achieve that."
—Megan, 33, CO
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Listen to This: Audio We Love
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Images courtesy of the Washington Post and the Equal Justice Initiative
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Two history-based recs for you this week! First up, The Washington Post's new podcast Moonrise, which takes listeners back to the 1960s and explores the political and cultural context in which American astronauts took their first steps on the moon. Using deep research and recently declassified documents, host Lillian Cunningham complicates the entrenched narrative about what the moon landing represents in order to tell the real story of what propelled Americans into outer space.
And 100 years ago this summer, a flurry of race riots erupted across the country in big cities like Chicago and rural towns like Elaine, Arkansas. The summer of 1919 was marked by hundreds of deaths resulting from white supremacist terrorist attacks. The latest episode of NPR's Code Switch delves into that period of American history and even includes testimony from an eyewitness, 107-year-old Juanita Mitchell. And once you've given this a listen, be sure to check out some of Eve Ewing's poems from her new collection, 1919, about the so-called Red Summer.
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Next on Death, Sex & Money
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On the next episode, we continue our conversation about alcohol, this time with writer Michael Arceneaux. I spoke with him last year right after he released his book of essays, I Can't Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I’ve Put My Faith in Beyoncé. Michael is hilarious, but he's also super candid about family, queerness, race—and how growing up in a household where violence and alcohol went hand in hand has affected how he thinks about his own drinking as an adult. I'm excited for you to hear our conversation!
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HOW IS IT ALREADY ALMOST AUGUST??
Let's pledge right now to make the most of the next few weeks.
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