Interview with Rebecca Walker, bestselling author

From time to time, we will post short interviews with interesting people about their thoughts and feelings on women and drinking. There is such a wide array of perspectives about this topic, and we are excited to gain insight into as many as possible and to share them with you.

Rebecca Walker is an award-winning speaker, teacher, and bestselling author. In addition to her memoirs and anthologies, you can read Rebecca’s critical reviews in BookForum and the Washington Post Book World; journalism in Newsweek, Corriere della Sera, and the GuardianUK; personal essays in Glamour, Real Simple, and Child; and interviews with artists and political figures in Interview, Vibe, and Spin. Her blog,”This Writer’s Life,” launches on the Huffington Post in 2010. Her new book, One Big Happy Family: 18 Writers Talk About Polyamory, Open Adoption, Mixed Marriage, Househusbandry, Single Motherhood, and other Tales of Truly Modern Love, is now out in paperback from Riverhead Books.

Drinking Diaries: How old were you when you had your first drink and what was it?

Rebecca Walker: I must have been five or six, at Passover. The drink in questions was, of course, that sweet, intoxicating Manischevitz grape wine; I remember it as the most delicious nectar. Drinking it, even my tiny cupful at seder, meant I was a big, accepted, Jewish girl. Great plan for keeping potential strays in the Jewish fold.

How did/does your family treat drinking?

With great modesty. My father has a few glasses of white wine every now and then. My mother less than that. I suppose it’s a lovely addition to a meal, an enjoyable enough relaxant, at times a social lubricant, but nothing more. I do remember my stepmother buying a case of a wine she liked–and lots of excellent champagne at her wedding. But I would say as a family we are more addicted to things like really, really nice bags and shoes. Tibetan rugs. Mutual funds. You know, stuff we imagine passing on to our children.

How do you approach alcohol in your every day life? If you no longer drink, what are the reasons?

I don’t drink AT ALL. Not one drop. Mostly because I take an antidepressant and the mixture does not yield a positive experience. I don’t miss drinking, though sometimes I imagine a glass of a nice Pinot Grigio or Sancerre–or a little Lillet with an orange slice, would be heavenly. I grew up part time in Northern California, and did some wine tasting over the years. I miss the ability to use my nose–my skills, so to speak. Oh! And I miss organic cough syrup.

Have you ever had a phase in your life when you drank more or less?

I had a boyfriend in college and one of our favorite meeting places was a Mexican restaurant near NYU called Ay Caramba! I think it was on Broadway. He was in film school, and I would take the train in from Yale with the credit card my father gave me and meet him at the restaurant. Basically we had no money, but we’d meet for “margies” and gorge ourselves on these huge, frozen, delicious margaritas and baskets of tortilla chips. We laughed so hard about everything, we cried. Then we tripped merrily to his tiny dorm room and tried to have sex, but ended up spooning. It was the best. A real highlight, that period of margaritas with that particular guy.

What about the worst time?

Definitely tequila shots. In the eighties. While working on a film in LA and pretending I was older than fifteen, which I was not. I believe there was cocaine involved–it was the eighties, after all. I ended up in a random house wrapped around the commode, hearing my friends discuss my fate from what sounded like many miles away. I think they put me in the car with a very nice blanket and kept on partying. Seriously.

Do you have a favorite book, song, or movie about drinking?

There must be an Edith Piaf song, or a Cuban bolero. I like Hemingway’s descriptions of drinking at cafes in Paris while writing A Moveable Feast.

What do you like least about drinking?

The morning after. That slight heaviness and slowness of mind. The dehydration; the feeling the next day that you can never, ever have enough water. The irony of the unquenchable thirst.

How has alcoholism affected your life?

I was in love with an alcoholic once, and went to Al-Anon meetings and all that. I was really in love and when I fell in love I didn’t know the person had a problem. Coming to the realization and being compelled to get help for myself, the non-alcoholic, was just…awful. Demoralizing. Labor intensive. Futile. You haven’t lived until you attend a meeting in a room lit with fluorescents to learn how to love a person who drinks, and then meeting said person for Thai food after and watching them order a cocktail. It was a terrible mission for which I was ill-equipped. The relationship didn’t last.

*Rebecca will teaching an Art of Memoir workshop at the Headlands in Marin, California from March 7-11 http://theartofmemoir.wordpress.com/about/