I have a confession to make: I’ve never gone to a bar alone. I have no problem going to restaurants or movies alone. In fact, I love bringing a book to a restaurant and sitting by myself. But there’s something about going to a bar alone that feels different. Sure, I’ve sat alone at bars for a little while, waiting for a friend to show up, but I’ve never actually set out to spend an evening in a bar alone.

It takes a certain ballsiness to go to a bar alone if you’re a woman. Also, you’ve got to have a certain personality type, a one-of-the-guys openness to all types of people, like Rosie Schaap, the author of Drinking With Men.

Or maybe it’s because I read Looking for Mr. Goodbar when I was a teenager, about a teacher who goes to bars alone, meets a guy one night, and gets murdered. I remember my sister telling me about going to Atlantic City by herself after her divorce, and how she sat at a bar alone, and met a guy. They had a great time, talking for hours, and then he wanted to go back to her room with her. She wasn’t ready for that, and managed to leave the bar alone without any problems. I was incredulous: how could you do something so risky? What if he was a rapist? What if he followed you? She seemed pretty relaxed about the whole thing. She had a great time, and that was that. You can’t live your life looking for danger.

I’ve never felt comfortable going to a bar by myself, mostly because I’m an introvert and the thought of inviting conversation with strangers isn’t that appealing to me. When I’m with a friend, though, and I’ve had a few drinks, it’s a different story. Some of my best nights have been spent sitting at a bar with a friend or two, chatting with the bartender and meeting all the people around us.

Sitting at a bar alone seems like something you’d do when you’re down and out, like a friend of mine who became a regular at a bar after her mom died young and in reaction, she went through a reckless phase.

But that’s not so for everyone: see, again, Rosie Schaap. And there are many more unguarded souls who aren’t suspicious, or guarded, and have no problem inviting the world in.

In a recent article by M. Carrie Allan in The Washington Post, “When Women Drink Alone,” Ms. Allan laments a missed opportunity when she was traveling alone in Europe. Some Spanish guys asked her to join them for absinthe at a local bar in Seville, and she declined after she saw one of them wink at the other.

She interpreted the wink as a sign of possible danger. “That wink was all it took to transform my envisioned scenario from a chummy drink above the river to being dragged from it, possibly with some rare species of moth hidden in my throat. I headed back to the hostel alone.”

She writes of her worry about going to a bar alone as a single woman: “Although a man alone at a bar is not presumed to be looking for anything more than a drink, even now, a woman is often perceived as out for romantic company, possibly actual sex, possibly right there on the bar stool. It’s little wonder many women tipple in packs and stick to familiar venues, familiar drinks. Women don’t go to unfamiliar bars solo for the same reason baby wildebeests don’t go down to the river alone. We want a drink; we just don’t want the crocodile that might come with it.”

What’s your feeling about going to a bar alone? Have you done it or not? Why or why not?

Your stories matter—not only to us, but to all the women and men who read this blog. Your words might offer comfort, escape, information or entertainment for others. Or maybe your story is a cautionary or inspiring tale to someone out there who has similar issues.

Here are some excerpts from recent stories that have been written in the SHARE YOUR STORIES tab on the blog. We encourage you to tell your stories so others might benefit from your experience, good or bad, with drinking:

J-beau:

“I’m a successful professional and I’ve struggled with binge drinking since an entire bottle of rum touched my lips on my first night of drinking when I was 16 years old…I was recently posted to India and suffered through one too many hangovers. I found myself telling a trusted friend how much I wished I had an “off” button. Then somehow it occurred to me to get googling.

Thanks to the wonders of lax regulation of over-the-counter medicines (I am too embarrassed to talk to a doctor) is self-prescribed Naltrexone. It’s a drug that has a few uses: it’s an opioid blocker, so it stops the uptake of heroin and cocaine. It also suppresses the desire to drink, and has been found effective for gambling addiction and other compulsive behaviours. It has few side-effects. It’s often prescribed for chronic habitual alcoholics. By cutting the endorphin rush when one drinks, it also means that “just one drink” remains as just one drink. I can’t tell you how revolutionary this is for me.”

Susan:

“I was praying this morning as I have many, many times for support from God and the strength to stop drinking. I honestly don’t know how, but I ended up at this site. I come from a family of alcoholics and morphed into one myself later in life. I am very functional and am a pm drinker. Chardonnay is my Satan. As I get older, I notice more cognitive impairment and have recently been diagnosed with high blood pressure. Drinking wine is a big part of our lifestyle. For me, it is also my escape…my pressure release. I’m not an annoying drinker, friends and family would be shocked to know I have a problem. I detest the idea of going to AA because my siblings were so obnoxious about their recovery and I just need a different, quieter path to sobriety. I have confided in no one about my concern. Thank you for being there.”

Mignon:

“Now pushing 50, I wonder how many secret drinkers lurk in groups of cafe writers. I say cafe writers because I am convinced there are two types of writers, those who dream of cafes in France and love to gossip, and we who long for the pubs of England where we’ll sit in the dim talking about writing. Most writers flock together to drink. ”

Jan:

“There’s always a good reason to drink, isn’t there? If you like to drink, there’s a reason–not that you need one but you can find one. Your asshole husband, your son is drugging himself to death (or already has), your business is incredibly stressful and you’re having issues financially with it, your daughter is out of a job and you have to help her financially, you hate your mother, your friends drink socially so you do too–you know, there’s a reason in there somewhere.”

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In my twenties, I was the ultimate daydreamer and “loafer.” I did have a job (the night shift at a big-city newspaper), but during the day, I’d wander the city, stopping at a museum or a movie on a whim. Before work, I’d swim laps, slowly, more for the stretch and release of it than anything else. Sometimes, I’d write.  And there was drinking. Ah yes, drinking. Many nights, I’d go out drinking after work. It seemed to stretch time, and it became my go-to nighttime leisure activity.

Then I had kids, and life took on more of a structure again—the structure of the days, weeks and years determined by schedules—sports schedules, dinner schedules, vacation time. Suddenly, I barely had time to wander. Instead of having a drink at the end of a long day, I preferred sleep—a precious commodity after chasing around 3 kids.

Now, many years later, life is circling around to more leisure time, more time to wander. Or, depending how you look at it, more time to “fill.”

This got me wondering: with all that time to fill on the horizon—the horizon of the empty nest (which, admittedly, is quite a way off)—will I return to the habit I acquired in my twenties—the habit of passing my leisure time with drinks?

As the daughter of an alcoholic, I now know that drinking as a pastime makes me uncomfortable, so no—I don’t think I’ll return to that habit. (But it certainly was fun at the time…)

Just as I was having this internal debate, I read a fantastic wake-up call of a piece in The New York Times by Tim Kreider, called “The ‘Busy’ Trap.”

Here’s a quote:

“Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.”

Kreider writes that even though we, as a society, fear being lazy, or bored, downtime is vital to our well-being:

“Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.”

Reading this piece reaffirmed my belief that drinking should be a conscious act, rather than an unconscious way to “fill” time. I do not want to drink because I’m bored, or because I lack the creativity to find other ways to spend my evenings.

There are so many other great things to do, like going to the movies, meeting friends for dinner, taking a walk, reading, taking a bath, going for a run. Or doing nothing, and just being.

The revelation here is that I don’t need to fill time at all. That’s just making busywork of life. The way I’m looking at it is: how would I like to spend my downtime?  Not hoard it, but spend it. I’d like to spend my time like it’s worth something. However, I’d like to budget for it, to save sometimes and then splurge.

Maybe it’s healthier to reframe my relationship to time not in terms of “filling” it, but rather of letting time fill me, much like the ocean fills in the holes we dig in the sand, then retreats, then inevitably fills them again.

And so it is with drinking: If I drink to “fill” time, to be busy doing something and avoid dealing with my existential angst, then I probably shouldn’t be drinking. On the other hand, if I decide to have a drink as a way to celebrate my time, to spend it freely, to accept life as it is, surf the time and let it fill me up rather than trying to fill a void, then I say, “Cheers!”

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With barbeque season in full swing, normally I wouldn’t think twice about having a few drinks with friends on my porch while the kids run around on the yard, but a recent piece in the Washington Post got me wondering.

David Cameron, British prime minister, and his wife, accidentally left their 8-year-old daughter in a pub after having a traditional Sunday lunch with some other families. Their daughter went to the bathroom, and they drove all the way home before they realized they’d forgotten her at the pub. Most harried parents can relate to the “oh-my-God” moment of sheer forgetfulness, but in this case, some are pointing the finger not at beleaguered parents, but at booze.

Did the fact that the Camerons had some drinks at the pub impair their ability to care for their daughter, or was it an honest mistake that any parent could make, sober or buzzed?

This incident sparked the age-old debate: do parenting and drinking mix? (Surprisingly, even the normally drinking-friendly Brits were stirred up).

In the Post, the reporter raised the question: “Does good parenting, along the lines that a skills class might teach, involve abstaining from alcohol during family events? Does the age of the child or the situation make a difference?”

I think the answers to those questions are “no,” good parenting does not require abstaining from alcohol and yes, the age of the child and the situation make a world of difference.

Here are parenting situations where I’d watch my drinking, or abstain:

A)  If I had to drive afterwards. I’d stick to one glass of wine, and switch to seltzer, or ask my husband or a friend to be the designated driver.

B)  If I were caring for an infant or toddler, or any kid under the age of 6. Why? Because they are unpredictable and have limited coordination—just like a drunk person—and two drunk people can’t really be of much help to each other. They’ll just pull each other down, while hanging on for balance.

Luckily, tomorrow night, I won’t be in any of those situations. I’m hosting a barbeque, and the people who are coming over live within walking distance. All our kids are of the age where they have a modicum of sense and coordination, and don’t have to be watched every second. So I say, break out the booze. In moderation, of course, because I’m still a role model for my kids.

I see nothing wrong with modeling responsible use of alcohol, for adults only. As they put it on Slate’s XX factor blog, when discussing the whole British prime minister scenario: “Tone matters. If parents are modeling an approach to alcohol that foregrounds the pleasures of inebriation—in other words, that drinking is merely a means to an altered state of mind (whether mildly buzzed or trashed) reserved especially for adults—they’re doing it wrong. Instead, the message should be focused on appreciation of the drink itself.”

Here’s to a nice glass (or two) of rose, guilt-free.

Do you think light or moderate drinking impairs a parent’s ability to be a parent? Enhances it? Or has no effect whatsoever, and we should all relax about this issue?

I’ve been co-editing the Drinking Diaries blog for almost 3 years now, since 2009, with Caren Osten Gerszberg. Our mission: To get women to share their drinking stories—without judgment. Hearing so many women’s stories has helped me put my own drinking in perspective and develop a healthier relationship with alcohol. In sifting through all the stories, all the years of interviews, excerpts, news clips and quotes, here are some things I’ve learned about drinking:

1) WHEN IT COMES TO DRINKING, LIFE’S NOT FAIR. Practice acceptance of this fact rather than defensiveness, and you’ll go a long way toward gaining a clear picture of your own relationship to alcohol. Some women are indifferent to alcohol, and some can take a few sips and leave it at that, while others have a seemingly insatiable appetite for the stuff. Some drink a ton and get addicted, and some don’t. The phrase, “But she drinks just as much as I do!” is meaningless. We’re all different, and that’s just the way it is.

2) DRINKER, KNOW THYSELF. It’s taken me years to find my own drinking “comfort zone”–that space where I can enjoy drinking as one of life’s pleasures, rather than worry about it as a potential source of anguish. I have friends who can drink a glass of wine every night while they’re cooking dinner, no problem. If I did that, I’d be tortured, worrying that my kids would think I was an alcoholic, worrying about wanting a second glass and a third, because for me, if one feels good, two feels twice as good. That’s just how I roll. I choose not to drink wine at home, alone. I choose not to drink every night, because it makes me feel fogged and sluggish. Drinking on special occasions and when I go out works for me.

3) DRINKING DOESN’T HAVE TO BE ALL OR NOTHING. And yet the word “moderation” can be annoying, because my lifestyle and my idea of moderation may be entirely different than yours. The key is to find your own “comfort zone,” and then, when you find it (and that may end up being no alcoholic beverages at all), you can break the cycle of bingeing and then depriving yourself. Set your limit before you go out, and stick to it. If it’s two glasses, then savor those glasses. Plan ahead of time what you’ll order when you’ve reached your quota: seltzer? Gingerale?

4) NOT EVERYONE WHO HAS A DRINKING PROBLEM IS AN ALCOHOLIC. Some women simply drink too much and need to practice “portion control.” For these women, quitting drinking is not always necessary, and can cause a bingeing/abstaining seesaw. There are other programs out there besides AA. Rebecca Johnson detailed her experiences with Moderate Drinking for Vogue in a piece called “The Sipping Point.”

5) FOR ALCOHOLICS, AA ISN’T THE ONLY ANSWER. If you’re an alcoholic and AA doesn’t work for you, don’t give up or bag the whole concept of sobriety. There are other ways of getting and staying sober, as Amy Lee Coy details in her book, From Death Do I Part: How I Freed Myself From Addiction. Maybe the God part of AA doesn’t work for you. Maybe the idea of descending into a basement depresses you. Keep looking till you find what works.

6) DRINKERS AND NON-DRINKERS NEED TO PEACEFULLY CO-EXIST. Republicans and Democrats, vegetarians and carnivores, Muslims and Christians have to share the same breathing space, and so do drinkers and non-drinkers. If you’ve stopped drinking, sooner or later, you’re going to find yourself among people who drink. For your own sanity, it’s probably best to try to get comfortable in these situations. And drinkers—sometimes, you’re going to find yourself in a situation where it’s better that you abstain. My mother is a recovered alcoholic, and while sometimes I’ll order a glass of wine when we go out to dinner together, most often I don’t. My husband’s family barely drinks, so I drink very little when I’m with them. Why? Because in life, it’s easiest if you’re flexible.

7) WORK HARD TO MAKE DRINKING A CHOICE, RATHER THAN A HABIT.  Once you get in a habit loop, it’s damn hard to break, as Charles Duhigg explains in his book, The Power of Habit. And things that become routine, become boring and unconscious. Drinking is too fun to become just another thing you do.

8) SHARE YOUR STORIES & READ OTHER PEOPLE’S STORIES—IT’S GOOD FOR YOU! When people find out I have a blog called Drinking Diaries, they assume I’m a huge boozer, obsessed with alcohol. Actually, the opposite is true. The more I share my own stories and read other women’s stories about their relationship with alcohol, the more I learn, and the more I’ve been able to develop a conscious and healthy relationship with alcohol. I actually drink less, but I enjoy it more. (Which reminds me of how waitresses I’ve known tell me that by the time they get off their shift, they’re kind of sick of food, so they eat less.)

9) FIND YOUR DRINKING MENTORS. So many great women are writing fiction and nonfiction and blogging about all things drinking related, from teens to women of a certain age, wine lovers to people in recovery and everyone in between—various writers on the site, “The Fix,” Alice Feiring, Mary Karr, Sacha Scoblic, Caroline Knapp, Koren Zailckas, Brenda Wilhelmson, Michelle Huneven, Amy Hatvany, Stefanie Wilder Taylor—and the list goes on. Read their stories and learn from them.

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Have you ever wondered whether other people are judging or evaluating you based on what you drink? Well, they are. Especially bartenders. On her blog, “Are You Wearing My Pants?” one bartender puts it bluntly: “When you order a drink, I judge you.” Sometimes I feel like the bartender knows what I’m going to order before I even order it. 40-something mom? Check. A little tentative around the eyes? Wine.

Who Hillary Clinton truly is: A drinker of hard liquor

So what does the fact that I’ve ordered the same basic thing (in summer and spring, a glass of white wine; in winter and fall, a glass of red) for years, any time I go to a bar, say about me? P.S. I’m also the person who ordered the same flavor of ice cream all through childhood, any time I walked into a Baskin and Robbins (mint chip). My own informal and completely unscientific interpretation says it means I’m risk averse, drawn to comfort and routine, and I’m a homebody. All true.

So what do others think? Here’s a snippet from “Are You Wearing My Pants?” (the bartender’s blog mentioned above)—“a list of common personality traits and characteristics” based on drink orders:

“Stella: You are foreign…or are trying to appear to be.

Vodka Cran: You don’t know what you want in life, or at this bar.

Gin & Tonic: $$$

Red Bull & Vodka: You are an asshole.

Pinot Grigio: You are approaching menopause faster than you think.

Who Hillary Clinton is trying to be: A laid-back beer drinker

Vodka Martini: You had a serious day at work, or you are a functional alcoholic.”

The writers at coed magazine have their own take. Mind you, the magazine is targeted to college age kids, but their assessments are kind of fun, and I think they apply to any age drinker.

“If you’re a wine drinker, you’re very social, but prefer to go to parties where you can actually talk to the person next to you.”

And if you like domestic light beer? “You like to yell. You like to yell in groups…The light beer drinker is the beer game champion. You are always up for a game of beer pong…Your life revolves around quantity. Who cares if it tastes like watered down piss because you could drink a million of them.  If you like regular domestic beer, “you used to be an athlete.”

Is vodka your drink of choice? Then you’re versatile, and drink according to the time of day and your moods.

Do you gravitate to Bloody Marys? Then, sadly, according to coed magazine, “You are a true alcoholic who knows the number one rule of alcoholism. You need to bite the hair of the dog that bit you. There isn’t a time of day that you wouldn’t rather be drinking.”

Rum Straight? “You’ve never had rum, or you’re a pirate.”

What kinds of personalities do you associate with different drinks? Did you ever order a drink  you didn’t want just to enhance your image? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.

Last week, I spent two nights in a row sitting in bars—one night at a new wine bar in my town; the next night, at the intimate bar of a local restaurant–and I was reminded why I love them. These were upscale, suburban bars, but I love all bars: city bars, local bars, dive bars, hotel bars, beer shacks, sports bars, college town bars. There’s the wine, of course, the buzz and the glow, but there’s so much more.

Sometimes I ask myself–If I had to give up drinking, would I give up bars, too? (This is typical of the daughter of an alcoholic, always relating everything back to the pathological. But that’s where my mind goes).

I know common wisdom says that people in recovery from alcoholism probably shouldn’t spend time in bars, especially because of the Pavlovian associations: bar=alcoholic drink. My mother, a recovered alcoholic who has been sober for nearly forty years, definitely does not hang out in bars.

But are bars just about the drinking? I (‘d like to) think not.

Here, then, are eight things, besides drinking, that I love about bars:

1.  There’s no pressure to talk. Sometimes you just want to be around people, but not interact with them. At a bar, it’s okay to be part of the collective conversation, nodding your head. There’s something appealing about sitting in a line, next to people, instead of sitting across from them, face to face. You can always watch the bartender, rushing around and mixing drinks, or stare at the stunning array of bottles and glowing liquids lined up against the wall. If you’re at a sports bar and you’re not in the mood to talk, you can always pretend to be engrossed in the game.

2.  A bar is the perfect place to eavesdrop. In fact, you can’t help but overhear everyone’s conversations, unless they’re whispering. Even then, it’s fun trying to figure out what people are saying from their body language.

3. Both introverts and extroverts can feel at ease. If you’re an extrovert, you’ll be the one telling the stories. If you’re an introvert, you’ll probably be the one listening. You only really have to make eye contact with the bartender, and usually, the bartender’s busy doling out drinks. Also, bartenders are generally expert conversationalists, and know how to bring people out of their shells.

4.  You’re supposed to bitch and moan. Bars are made for leaning and/or slumping. In other words, relaxing. Where else are we given carte blanche to vent?  Suburban America, in particular, can be very Pollyanna.  When people ask us how we are, we’re expected to smile and say, “Great.” Mostly because people are busy and don’t have time to listen to our woes. When you’re at a bar, people don’t want to hear “great.” They want to hear a story.

5.  Time stops, at a bar.  Bars are for small talk, but they’re also for deep talk. Sitting at a bar signals that you’re taking time out from your busy life to just, well, sit. Sometimes, I get sick of people rushing around, passing me by. I get that part of the motivation for sitting is the drinking. But there could also be bars for people who didn’t drink alcohol.  I’m not talking coffee bars, which are generally daytime hangouts, where people actually get work done. I’m talking dimly-lit nighttime hangouts for adults.

6.  Bars encourage community. Say you go to a restaurant with your friends, and you’re escorted to your table. It’s unlikely that you’ll engage in cross conversation with another table. At a bar, I almost can’t think of a time when I didn’t talk to the bartender or a few of the other patrons. Lonely musings become public debates. Also, there’s nothing like a shared sense of guilt to bond people. In the puritanical U.S., sitting around doing nothing is a guilty pleasure–you rarely see adults just hanging out.

7.  Bars are like confessionals. Bartenders are like shrinks, only much cheaper. For the price of a glass of wine ($15-20) or a few cranberry and seltzers, you’ve got yourself a great listener. Like shrinks, bartenders are being paid to stand there and listen, only it’s less awkward because there’s background music, and you’re not sitting in a circa 1970s office, staring at a brown handwoven blanket hanging on the wall.

8.  Pinball, pool, video games, darts, ping pong, and local bands. Who needs a drink when there’s pinball? (Yes, you can go to an arcade, but arcades attract sullen teens, which you may be currently parenting. Who needs the stress?) These fantastically satisfying pleasures are often found at dive bars. Need I say more?

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Are pills the new alcohol–a socially acceptable way to relax?

According to the latest New York Magazine cover story, Lisa Miller’s “Xanax: A Love Story,” the answer is yes. Writes Miller:

“So reliably relaxing are the effects of benzodiazepines that SAMHSA’s director of substance-abuse treatment, H. Wesley Clark, says they’ve gained a reputation as ‘alcohol in a pill.’ And their consumption can be equally informal. Just as friends pour wine for friends in times of crisis, so too do doctors, moved by the angst of their patients, ‘have sympathy and prescribe more,’ says Clark. There are a lot more benzos circulating these days, and a lot more sharing.”

The article is accompanied by an illustration called “Chill-Pill Matchmaking,” which shows “four anxious archetypes and the drugs that might suit them.” The recommended pills are Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin and Valium.

Last I checked, these were some heavy-duty drugs, and yes, some people cannot function without them. But those who can function without them would be better off trying to deal with the anxiety another way.

The thing is, pills and alcohol are not equal. Consider this: According to the CDC, nationwide, one person dies every 19 minutes of prescription drug overdoses. Mixing drugs and alcohol can be deadly, but many people don’t think twice about popping a Xanax and still having their alcohol of choice.

I remember being in my 20s, living in Manhattan, going out every night with my friends. Drinking was the center of my social life, and I didn’t want to give it up, even for one night. If I was on antibiotics, and the doctor said drinking was not recommended, I drank anyway. I’d rationalize it, telling my friends, “It’s not like the doctor said definitely don’t drink. He just said he didn’t recommend it.”  Many people who already drink alcohol as a regular part of their routine are simply adding the pills on top of it, instead of substituting one for the other.

In an article in the Miami Herald on the dangers of mixing prescription drugs and alcohol, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN chief medical correspondent, explains that part of the problem is the perception that legal drugs are safe. If a doctor prescribes it, it must be okay.

In the interview, Dr. Gupta says that doctors need to give stronger warnings. According to Gupta, when doctors say, “Don’t drink if you are taking this medication,” it seems like a courtesy warning. Gupta believes that “a warning that a person dies every 19 minutes would be a stronger warning.”

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I know it’s not politically correct to be a cocktail mom anymore, but lately, I’ve been lamenting the fact that I don’t have enough time to drink. I keep fantasizing about a glass of wine (or three), but then by the time I get to it, I’m too tired.

I know many people who enjoy a nightly glass of wine when they cook, but to me, a glass of wine is best while sitting down or lounging around.

I miss my drinking days. The days when I’d meet my best friend after work and we’d split a bottle of cheap Chilean red, talking until my husband came home, at which time we’d all split another.

I miss the Fridays I’d go out for beers after work at dive bars, and then to dinner, and then out some more.

I miss parties where I drank too much and danced too much and said too much. Now, my tolerance is so low that even when I set out to let loose and drink like I used to, I end up quitting after two glasses.

But I think what I really miss sometimes is the freedom from responsibility, especially after a tough couple of days where I am constantly making choices for everyone. And then my mind turns to the easy escapes–like wine. But the truth is, I’m lucky–lucky that I have other options, other ways of taking the edge off. My mom wasn’t so lucky. The friend sitting across from me wasn’t so lucky.

Sometimes, we just miss the old days.

Maybe it’s not the drinking I miss, after all, because I can drink any time I want.

No. It’s not so much the drink I’m missing as the ritual of drinking–the camaraderie and the way drinking stops time and stretches it out. As if the wine is like a magic cleaning liquid, draining away all the gunk inside.

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This week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released a report stating that binge drinking is a bigger problem than they thought. According to their statistics, “More than 38 million US adults binge drink, about 4 times a month.”

So what are we going to do about it? Apparently, all the blanket recommendations, measurements and equations are falling on deaf ears. No wonder, when we’re all so different.

Rebecca Johnson, a writer, was recently interviewed in Time magazine about her unconventional approach to drinking. At one point, she went to Hazelden, a popular rehab facility, for counseling, but she felt they were pushing an “either-or model.” They suggested that she go away to rehab for a month, telling her she should never drink again. The all-or-nothing approach didn’t work for her, so she tried regulating her drinking with the help of a program called Moderate Drinking.

In my own experience, drinking habits that worked for others just didn’t work for me. I used to be jealous of my friends who could have a glass or two of wine a night, no problem. I tried that, tried to have a carefree attitude, but instead felt wracked with guilt and fear that I would become an alcoholic like my mom. Instead, over the years, I’ve learned to set my own guidelines.

For instance: I only drink wine. Not by myself. Mostly when I go out or have dinner with my husband or friends. Usually no more than 2 glasses, because I know that when I have 3 I get tired, and the next day, I have a hangover.

Occasionally, I break the rules, but these rules work for me. I can have my wine and have my fun when I go out, minus the panic and fear that I’m going to become an alcoholic.

I’m not suggesting that we do away with guidance. Most of us need mentoring, and appreciate all the information that scientists, researchers and others share. Guidance is fine. Strict, all-or-nothing, one-size-fits-all rules are not.

Ultimately, we each have to find our own balance. It may take years. For some people, abstention is the only way.  For others, a looser approach is fine.

This week, a government committee in the UK came up with a great, workable idea to help combat their binge drinking problem. They’re admitting, actually admitting, that the current drinking recommendations, with their talk of units per day, are conflicting and hard to understand. Think about it: Who’s going to bring a measuring cup to a bar, or tell the bartender to pour the extra wine out?

Instead of setting rigid standards, the committee recommends that people have at least two drink-free days out of the week.

For those who like to drink, and who aren’t struggling with addiction, this is a great idea, a jumpstart to becoming more conscious so they can start to set their own guidelines.

The day or two of not drinking helps people create lives that don’t center around drinking. Instead of resenting Big Brother, people can feel like they’re in control of their own lives.

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If you saw a pregnant woman drinking, would you A) Ignore it—her body, her business, B) Shout, “You go, girl!”—you’re sick of the pregnancy police overreacting, C) Give her a dirty look, D) March up to her and inform her that she’s harming her unborn child.

Emotions about pregnant women and drinking run high, especially in the United States, where we tend to be an all-or-nothing culture. Pregnant women have been kicked out of bars, even when they weren’t drinking, and scolded at restaurants.

When I was pregnant, I wouldn’t have minded a sip or two of wine, but I was terrified to order a glass in a restaurant, for fear someone would swoop down and scold me. It was easier to abstain for the nine months, save for a few tastes of champagne on New Years.

Was I being paranoid, or are people really as judgmental as it seems when it comes to pregnant women and alcohol? The Minnesota Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome recently conducted a social experiment designed to find out.

The non-profit hired an actress wearing a fake belly to stand in front of Leinenkugel’s Lodge drinking a beer. The actress stood in the same spot for some time with another friend as cameras recorded reactions from people.

Fairgoers walking by took notice. A few people muttered comments under their breath or gave her dirty looks, and some even gave her kudos for drinking. Many walked away shaking their heads with disappointment, but refrained from saying anything. Joelle Denning and her family were some of them. “It’s really none of my business,” said Denning (as quoted in the Minnesota local news). “She looked like she was in her last trimester. And my doctor told me I could have a glass of wine or beer in my last trimester.”

According to an article on Cafe Mom, Emily Gunderson, a spokeswoman for the organization conducting the experiment interpreted the lack of intervention to mean that people “are not comfortable yet approaching somebody and I think that is part of our mission yet…It’s not illegal for a pregnant woman to drink,” said Gunderson. “Our organization just wants to make sure women have good accurate information before they make those choices.”

Educating women is a great and crucial mission, but do we really want to encourage random people to approach pregnant women? How do we know if the woman is taking a few sips, or guzzling multiple bottles of beer? What if the beer was non-alcoholic?

It’s easy to rush to judgment without knowing all the facts. And besides, are we meant to police other women’s bodies?

At the end of the Cafe Mom article, Julie Ryan Evans concludes: “If you were sitting in a restaurant next to a pregnant woman and could hear just how many vodka tonics she ordered and watched her drink them down, that would be a different story. In such an obvious case of overindulgence, I think most people would jump in at that point, or at least I hope they would. But when it comes to people minding their manners when they don’t know enough about the situation to judge, I’m glad to see that at least in Minnesota, they do a pretty good job of it.”

The jury’s still out on this one: Do you think it’s okay to intervene when you see a pregnant woman drinking (if you think she’s drinking to excess), or do you think it’s her body, her business? Did you have any interesting experiences while pregnant?

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A couple of nights ago, our family was eating dinner in a New Hampshire college town. My husband put his wine glass in front of my 18 year old daughter so she could taste the wine. Moment later, the waitress appeared front and center and asked my daughter if she was of legal drinking.

My daughter explained that she was not, and the waitress asked us to keep the wine glass in front of the person who was legally permitted to drink it.

We concluded that being in the middle of a small college town, they probably need to be particularly diligent about the drinking age. But the scenario was pretty bizarre for our family, as we’ve traveled to countries in recent years where waiters have repeatedly asked our clearly underage daughter if she’d be drinking some of the wine they were pouring for us. Needless to say, the laws and attitudes regarding underage drinking vary from country to country. But even here in the USA, where we sipped champagne with our daughter at a restaurant to celebrate her high school graduation–she was given her own flute–the restrictions vary from state to state. 

On the National Institute of Health’s website (NIH), the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism provides loads of information under the Alcohol Policy Information System. When I discovered the page titled, State Profiles of Underage Drinking Laws, I searched under both New York (where we live) and New Hampshire (where we ate last weekend) to determine how the laws varied. What I found instead was a totally confusing explanation where the terms “possessing,” “purchasing,” and “furnishing” come with such unclear nuances that this paragraph preceded the state by state distinctions:

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It used to be that the prototypical alcoholic was a middle-aged person who had been drinking for years and had finally hit rock bottom. Not any more. Increasingly, younger and younger people are declaring themselves alcoholics, or problem drinkers who must abstain. One 22-year-old woman even coined the term “soberista” to describe herself, according to an article in The Guardian.

The list of famous twenty-somethings who have declared themselves sober includes Daniel Radcliffe, the 21-year-old star of the Harry Potter movies (who said he quit because he had “become reliant on alcohol to enjoy stuff”); Kelly Osbourne, 26, of reality-TV and Fashion Emergency fame (who gave up alcohol two years ago after three visits to rehab, citing a “genetic fault”); and Blake Lively, of Gossip Girl fame (who was in rehab at 21 and said, “I don’t want to go to a club and not wear panties.”). Not to mention Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, whose struggles with alcohol have been endless (and endlessly chronicled).

But it’s not just famous people who are jumping on the sober wagon. An entire movement has sprung up in Australia. Chris Raine, the founder of Hello Sunday Morning, describes it as “an opportunity for anyone who is ready to take a three month break from our drinking culture and find out what life is like without a hangover.”

While it’s laudable for sick people to get the help they need, it might be jumping the gun for someone in their twenties to declare that they’ll never drink again, or to slap a label on themselves at all.

As Viv Groskop puts it in The Guardian, “There is something very sad about people labeling themselves as alcoholics before they’re even 30. Come on, guys, at least give yourselves a few years for the problem to develop into something really devastating and worthy of your celebrity status!”

Koren Zailckas, the author of Smashed, a memoir of her days as a binge-drinking teen, put it best in an interview:  ”I’ve talked to a lot of addiction counselors who say alcoholism is made up of two things: abuse and addiction. God knows I had that abuse down pat. But I don’t know that I necessarily felt (or feel) that addiction. And so no, I don’t identify myself as an alcoholic. That identity didn’t feel true to me, so I didn’t write it. I also think the brand ‘alcoholic’ prevents a lot of people, especially young people, from seeking help or even reevaluating their relationship with alcohol. In my mind, the whole point of Smashed is to say, you don’t have to be a quote-unquote alcoholic in order to examine the underlying reasons why you’re drinking.”

Abstinence might indeed be the right thing for some young people, but as Viv Groskop writes in The Guardian, “actually it’s just storing up a mammoth midlife crisis. If you thought Friday night in a town centre was ugly now, imagine how much worse it would be if the participants were middle aged.”

It’s the old get-it-out-of-your-system argument. Make something taboo, and it eventually becomes that much more attractive—like ice cream to a dieter.

The Danish brewery Carlsberg is introducing a new “girlie” beer called Copenhagen, which they’re targeting to “modern” men and women. Packaged in a clear bottle, in clean, minimalist style, the design is modeled after the city it’s named for: “an international city of fashion and design.”

Why? Because, according to a spokeswoman for Carlsberg, these modern men and women want “drinks to match their style,” and may “reject a beer if the design does not appeal to them.”

Really? Cause this sounds kind of wimpy to me.

As much as I have to admit the new bottle is kind of cool, the beer itself looks like chardonnay. Supposedly, it’s less bitter than regular beer. But part of beer’s cachet is that it’s an acquired taste, not as easy as wine coolers or those alco-pops they market to teens. Maybe it’s better if the booze goes down with a bite, rather than so easily.

I’ll be sad if beer loses its macho swagger. Isn’t that the whole point of drinking beer? And remember those clear beers—Zima? They ceased production in 2008, though they’re still marketed in Japan. Personally, I thought they were kind of gross.

I don’t know. How do you feel, readers? Is design important to you, in choosing your drinks? Does the bottle, or the label, draw you to a certain brand, or do you go for the taste, the reputation, or the image?

Should the second “A” in AA be dropped? A.A.’s 11th Tradition states, “We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films.” To clarify—it’s okay to identify yourself as “sober” or “in recovery,” but it’s not okay to identify yourself as a member of A.A. or other 12-step groups.

But is this anonymity a throwback to another era, when being an alcoholic was a disgrace? A debate is raging in the media and on the internet, and it’s worth examining both sides.

Last week, the New York Times ran a story by a recovering alcoholic, “Challenging the Second ‘A’ in AA.”  The author, David Colman, calls anonymity a “collective fiction.” At the meetings he’s attended over the years in Manhattan, the people he hears telling their stories are often people he knows–people from work, or well-known authors and actors.

Why should AA be so secretive, Colman and others argue, when that only reinforces the idea that being an alcoholic is shameful? People should be able to share their stories publicly, as many celebrities (Pink, Eminem) and memorists already have (think Mary Karr, Susan Cheever, Caroline Knapp, James Frey).

Maer Roshan, editor of The Fix, a new site aimed at the recovery world, compared the anonymity of alcoholics to gay people being in the closet. “Having to deny your own participation in a program that is helping your life doesn’t make sense to me…You could be focusing light on something that will make it better and more honest and more helpful.”

In a piece for The Fix, Susan Cheever, also a recovering alcoholic, who has written a book about Bill Wilson, the founder of AA writes: “We are in the midst of a public health crisis when it comes to understanding and treating addiction…A.A.’s principle of anonymity may only be contributing to general confusion and prejudice.”

Then came the rebuttals. Mary Elizabeth Williams wrote a piece for Salon–“Can AA survive our tell-all era?” She argues that you can’t really compare celebrities, writers and other people in creative professions to others. Not everyone has the freedom and clout to come clean. Entertainers like Eminem and Russell Brand are supposed to run wild and free—admitting their alcoholism only contributes to their mystique. But what about doctors or teachers, or people who don’t live in ultra-liberal Manhattan? As Williams writes, for these people, there could be “profound social and career repercussions” if their colleagues and clients “know that a year ago, [they were] getting obliterated before work.”

Williams also points out that telling people you’re in AA opens you up for criticism, skepticism and debate, which might weaken your chances for recovery.

Yes, anonymity may seem old fashioned in this era of reality TV, but still—as Williams writes: “AA’s business model of having no official spokesperson and of attraction rather than promotion…is not for everybody, but you’ve got to give it props for its refusal to turn itself into TLC network, quick-fix shlock.”

It’s easy to understand both sides of the debate, but I say, if you want to write a memoir or come out of the closet as an alcoholic, that’s fine, but don’t make it policy that everyone should have to do the same.

If they dropped the anonymous part of AA, millions of people who could have been helped will turn away from the organization because they don’t have the desire to share their sobriety with the world—or their neighborhood.

Anonymity also protects children of alcoholics. If I ever asked my mom, “Who goes to your AA meetings,” she would explain AA’s code of anonymity, and how important it was for people’s information to remain private. I, in turn, felt secure that the other people at her local meetings wouldn’t be blabbing all over the neighborhood about the personal information my mom shared. What if some kid in my class got hold of that information?

I shudder to imagine some reality TV show, “My mom, the alcoholic,” where the camera goes inside an AA meeting, the recovering alcoholics performing for the camera. Just because the parent agrees to reveal personal details of his or her life, doesn’t mean the child is ready to deal with the repercussions of those revelations.