To our readers:

After nearly four years of blogging here at Drinking Diaries, we have decided to continue with alternative projects–Caren with her feature and travel writing; Leah with her young adult fiction writing.

We will continue to post here once per week, on Wednesdays, for who knows how long. Needless to say, there is an abundance of compelling content already here on the blog; you just need to dig a little.

We’d love to continue hearing from you on the Share Your Stories page.

As you may know, we’ve also been blogging for the Huffington Post and Psychology Today.

Our book, Drinking Diaries: Women Serve Their Stories Straight Up, was published last September, 2012. The book continues to have a presence, as we travel around the country for readings and book club visits. Please contact us if you’d like us to participate (even via Skype) with your book club or women’s group discussion.

Lastly, we’d like to thank you–your comments have inspired and energized us, stirring lively discussions and debates. The Drinking Diaries community may not always agree with one another, yet the banter has always remained respectful. Our goal to keep this blog non-judgmental has been a success thanks to you.

See you on Wednesdays,

Caren & Leah

Co-editors, Drinking Diaries

*find us on our Drinking Diaries Facebook page, or follow us on twitter: @CarenOsten and @Leaheps

Beginning today and continuing through the month of March, the Parch campaign is setting the stage for people to turn their wine into water for people in Haiti. For those wanting to engage in the effort, the campaign is asking people to support the cause by cutting back, or abstaining from drinking alcohol (or bubbly drinks for kids), and donating the money that they would’ve spent on that bottle of wine or case of Pepsi to the Andrew Grene Foundation. The foundation’s mission is to use the money to supply fresh drinking water to the students at the Andrew Grene High School in Cite Soleil, Haiti, where 247 children–between the ages of 11 and 19–currently attend.

The Parch website explains the benefits of cutting back on drinking, as well as those for cutting back on fizzy drinks—basically your kids’ dentist will be happy not to mention the nutritionist in the family.

As for the finances, the Parch site says the average person spends 3,000 English pounds—equivalent to 4,548 US dollars attoday’s exchange—so by cutting back for a month, you’ll be saving about $380, some of which can provide drinking water for these students.

On the Parch website, click on the tab that says “Choices for Taking Part,” and you’ll be able to choose whether you’d like to be a “Parcher” on weekdays, weekends, both, or just be a donor or supporter.

Sounds like a very worthwhile cause.  Up for the challenge?

by Meg Akabas

Did I have the “drinking” talk with my kids?  No, I did not.

You may find that shocking since I am a mother of four and a parenting consultant. Let me explain.

If we had sat down and talked to our kids when they were age 14 (or 13, or 16) about drinking responsibly, I’m convinced that it wouldn’t have done a bit of good. As with any other topic, if you wait to talk to your kids about something until they are grown, it’s really too late.

Teaching our children about restraint has been a cornerstone of our parenting philosophy since day one. Research shows that fostering self-discipline in age-appropriate ways early and often is the best way to end up with kids (and ultimately grown-ups) who can control their impulses. And, studies show that teaching children self-discipline generally produces better-behaved and more successful kids.

Babies are not born with self-control; cognitive scientists say that practicing restraint from a young age can significantly improve a person’s ability to curb impulses later in life. My husband and I guided this process, giving our children opportunities to develop self-control by having them experience waiting, sharing, and not always getting everything they wanted (yes, disappointment is OK!).

For example, you could foster restraint using our method of resisting demands for toys and other things by creating a gift list for each of your kids.  When your children see something they want, tell them that you will put it on the list of potential gifts for his or her next birthday or for holiday (whichever is coming up sooner).  When you return home, in fact, write the item on his/her gift list.  The list will satisfy their immediate craving. Then, when birthdays and holidays roll around, they will know what to request from grandparents and other relatives when asked what they want.

However, we found with our kids that often, well before the gift-giving occasion did roll around, even on occasion by the next time we looked at the list to add a suggestion, more than half of the items on the list were already out of favor!  The kids could actually see on their own how much their wants were mere whims that changed even before the item could be acquired. This delayed gift plan was one of many strategies we used to foster self-control in our children.

We also tried our best to be models of restraint and moderation ourselves by keeping an appropriate voice volume, choosing our words carefully, conserving materials, exercising, eating well, and being frugal. (I know – it sounds demanding…it is.)  Even though my husband and I are far from perfect, it seems to have made an impression on our kids, who all appear to be quite self-disciplined as teenagers and young adults.

So, instead of the “drinking talk,” we’ve had discussions (not lectures) about restraint in general on an ongoing basis. We’ve helped our kids to develop self-control in all aspects of life, and made our best effort to model moderation ourselves.  All this superseded the need for a discussion about drinking.

Don’t get me wrong; I distinctly remember telling my kids somewhere along the way about the health benefits and risks of drinking, the absolute, hands-down, non-negotiable rule of never getting into a car with someone behind the wheel who has been drinking, and the dangers of excessive drinking (sometimes fatal) associated with hazing. But, these were discussions that came up at various critical times and special situations (before prom night, before leaving for college) as a reminder of what we had already taught them.

“Everything in moderation” is what we have instilled in our children. And, that goes for alcohol as well. It has worked for us for two reasons: the fact that my children have grown up in New York City and don’t drive is a salient factor. The other factor is that there is no history of alcoholism or any sort of addictive behavior in either my family or my husband’s.  So, for us, moderation has been a strong enough warning. Other parents would need to alter their message to suit their particular situation.

Nevertheless, as a parenting skills educator, my advice to other parents is that your attitude and approach to teaching your kids about drinking should be the same as all other things you teach your children. In short, you must start young and it should be a part of overall values you instill in your children. My point is that a “talk” just isn’t going to cut it as they head off to their first party.

What is my own relationship to drinking?  I have a glass of wine at the very end of most days for enjoyment and as a health measure (though the jury is still out on this one). I admit — wine and cheese are actually my two favorite food indulgences (even over chocolate)! Sure, there are times when I have to resist a second or third glass of wine (or piece of cheese); at those times, a little voice thankfully reminds me what I’ve hammered into my kids — you know — restraint….

Meg Akabas is the founder of New York City-based Parenting Solutions, a consultancy designed to help parents discover the joy in parenting, and the author of 52 Weeks of Parenting Wisdom: Effective Strategies for Raising Happy, Responsible Kids.   She regularly provides one-on-one consultations and leads workshops for parents and teachers on infancy through pre-adolescence.   

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This December 5th marked the celebration of the 79th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition in the United States, but we say, why not celebrate all week? According to The Museum of the American Cocktail, if you’re hosting a Repeal Day party, it’s common practice to serve a non-alcoholic drink before breaking out the cocktails, as a nod to Prohibition’s dry days. So whether you drink alcohol or not, you can be part of the festivities.

Recipe for a Bee’s Knees Mocktail (from Bar Pilar, Washington, D.C.):

Combine Tonic water, lemon juice, and honey syrup. Serve shaken, over ice, with a lemon twist. 

And here, courtesy of Aviation Gin, is the alcoholic version (as well as recipes for two other popular cocktails from the era):

Bee’s Knees  (Popular during the late 1920s & 1930s)

2 oz Gin

¾ oz Freshly pressed lemon juice

½ oz Clover honey syrup

(2 parts honey: 1 part water)

In a pint mixing glass, add spirits and mixers. Fill with ice. Shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon disc or twist.

Southside  

Loose third pint full of mint leaves

2 oz  Gin

¾ oz Fresh lemon or lime juice

¾ oz Simple syrup

In a pint mixing glass, muddle the mint leaves. Add spirits and mixers. Fill with ice. Shake vigorously. Strain into a cocktail glass over ice. Garnish with a mint sprig.

The Aviation – Popular during 1914-1916

2 oz Gin

¼ oz Crème de violette

¼ oz Maraschino liqueur

¾ oz Freshly pressed lemon juice

½ oz Simple syrup

In a pint mixing glass, add spirits and mixers. Fill with ice. Shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry on a pick.

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People wouldn’t necessarily think to turn to Gretchen Rubin’s books, The Happiness Project and Happier at Home, for drinking advice. Rubin herself barely drinks, as she explained in her Drinking Diaries interview. But she doesn’t judge those who do. One of her mottoes is “Be Gretchen,” which means, essentially, figure out who you are and live your life accordingly, rather than living by other people’s rules.

At Drinking Diaries, we believe that drinkers and non-drinkers can benefit from sharing stories with each other. For example, if you’re struggling with your drinking and wonder if it’s even possible to live a happy life without drinking, it can be helpful to hear from people who don’t drink. What do they do for fun? How do they relax? On the other hand, if you don’t drink, it can be affirming or simply a vicarious pleasure to hear the ups and downs of other people’s drinking lives.

In her new book, Happier at Home, Rubin makes a useful distinction between “abstainers” and “moderators.” Figuring out your own style can help you craft your own drinking plan.

Here’s how she explains the two styles:

ABSTAINER: “It would be much easier for me to eat no sweets than to eat a few sweets…Samuel Johnson had supplied me with this insight into my own nature. When offered wine, Johnson declined, explaining, “Abstinence is as easy to me, as temperance would be difficult.” That’s me! I’d realized. Johnson and I were “abstainers” who found it much easier to abstain than to indulge moderately. I’m not tempted by things I’ve decided are off-limits, but once I’ve started something, I have trouble stopping. If I never do something, it requires no self-control for me; if I do something sometimes, it requires enormous self-control…” –from Happier at Home 

MODERATOR: “‘Moderators,’ by contrast, do better when they act with moderation, because they feel trapped and rebellious at the thought of “never” getting or doing something. Occasional indulgence heightens their pleasure and strengthens their resolve.”  –from Happier At Home

According to Rubin, abstainers and moderators tend to scold each other for their different choices. She gives the example of a friend who takes issue with her decision to forego brownies, calling it unhealthy and extreme. “Life is too short to miss the chance to eat a brownie,” the friend says. But Rubin sees it differently: “Life’s too short to let something like a brownie weigh on my mind. It makes me happier not to eat it.” If this approach works for her, what does it matter to the friend?

I’m still trying to figure out if I’m an abstainer or a moderator. Maybe it depends. When it comes to ice cream, I know I’m better off completely abstaining (not that I’m ready to do that!). I can’t just “have a small taste”–if one spoonful is delicious, I want to eat the whole pint. With drinking, though, I’m a moderator–I know my limits, and I don’t like the consequences (the headache and hangover) if I cross them.

The best approach–and the one Rubin advocates–is live and let live, which seems like a healthy way to view the various drinkers you encounter. Al Anon advocates this path, urging people to give up trying to fix and change other people and rather focus on keeping themselves sane and healthy.

In the end, the most helpful thing you can do is ask yourself: What kind of a drinking life do I feel most comfortable with, given who I really am?

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We hope everyone is recovering from Hurricane Sandy. We’re sorry for the interruption in our blogging, but we’ve lost power in our neighborhood, possibly for another week, so please bear with us.

In the meantime, we’ll leave you with this photo: We discovered curbside pickup from a liquor store in our town. Have you ever heard of that? What do you think?

Stay safe and warm, everyone, and we hope to be back to our regular blogging very soon.

Mom–you might want to put down that glass of chardonnay! In case you didn’t already feel guilty enough about the damages you’re unwittingly inflicting on your kids–helicopter mom? Tiger mom? Cocktail mom? Slacker mom? Nature versus nurture?–along comes a new study from Demos, a think tank in England, which concludes that when it comes to their adult drinking lives, your kids can blame (or thank) their mom.

No, you might not think that your chardonnay is harming your child (after all, you’re the one drinking it), but as Jonathan Birdwell, head of Demos’ Citizens Programme, said to The Telegraph: “What we found really interesting was this delayed effect; the impact of what teenagers perceived about their mothers’ drinking habits doesn’t show an impact at the time, but decades later.”

Great. Thanks.

And in case you didn’t already think women’s drinking was loaded–according to this study, if you think your mom drank a lot, then you’ll eventually drink a lot (note the use of the word “think”). So what about dad? According to this research, he could have been a falling down drunk and it wouldn’t effect your adult drinking.

For the study, 18,000 people born in 1970 were asked about their drinking habits at the age of 16, and then again at 34. They were also asked if their parents drank never, sometimes, often or always.

It should come as no surprise that the drinking habits of 16-year-olds were largely influenced by their peers. But the 34-year-olds were a different story. The more they thought their mothers drank on the never, sometimes, often or always scale, the more they themselves drank as adults. In other words, according to The Telegraph, “with each step that mothers rose on the four-point scale, the chance that their adult children were drinking above the Government recommended limits rose 1.3 times.”

So why don’t dads’ drinking habits matter?

The researchers speculated that fathers are more likely to drink outside the home (in pubs–remember, the study was in England), while moms drink at home, in front of their ever-vigilant kids.

Also, the guys at the Demos think tank said that since men’s drinking is more culturally “acceptable,” it doesn’t imprint itself on their kids the way mom’s drinking does.

But here’s the problem I have with studies. The nuances are left behind. Let’s take a case study of a real person: me. If a researcher had asked me at 16, how often do you drink, I would have answered (truthfully): Never. To the question, how often does your mother drink, I would have answered: Never. At that point, she was a recovered alcoholic, so she abstained from drinking. Would my answer tell the whole story? No.

At age 34, the researcher would ask me again. How often do you drink? My answer would have been: Sometimes. You see, at that age, I was in the throes of child-rearing, and often too sleep-deprived to even want to indulge in a glass of wine. How often did your mother drink, the researchers would have asked me, and I would have said–it depends. When I was zero to 9, she drank always (as I said, she was an alcoholic). Starting when I was 9,  she drank never. If they asked me, at 16, how much my mother drank, I would have answered (correctly): Never.

The researchers would never have gotten the nuanced answers from me by asking these cut-and-dry questions.

At 16, I was an adamant non-drinker, in large part as a reaction to my wild-child older sister and my alcoholic mother. My peers had no influence on me, as this study suggests they do at age 16. They drank–I didn’t. I was immune to peer pressure, at that point, precisely because of the negative associations I had as a result of my mother’s drinking.

If they asked me at 34 how much I drank (sometimes), which I could apparently attribute to my mother’s drinking when I was 16 (Never), the researchers would miss out on all those years that came before and after. During college and into my twenties, I often binge drank (A result of my mother’s alcoholic influence?) But what about now, when I drink in moderation, and responsibly? Can they really discount the influence of my moderate-drinking father? I think not.

Next time you’re tempted to beat yourself up over the latest findings–Drinking is good! Drinking is bad! Mothers are God! Fathers don’t matter!–look to your own story instead, to the actual details of a real person’s life, which can’t be reduced to numbers and statistics.

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We’ve all heard about the insane amount of drinking that Olympic spectators are capable of (See Vancouver, 2010). But what about the athletes?

Call me naïve, but I always imagined the Olympic Village as a dry campus, where athletes drank milk with their dinners and all the lights blinked off in unison at 8:30 pm. All those rock-hard bodies and athletic feats don’t come cheap: sacrifices have to be made.

Maybe I should have been more creative in my imaginings. A new book, “The Secret Olympics,” written by Anonymous (supposedly a former British competitor), seeks to blow the lid off the image of the squeaky clean uber athletes.

First to be debunked was my vision of the dry campus: An article in the New York Post describes the Olympic Villages as “ vast, pre-fab communities, divided into smaller subdivisions by nation,” where everything is free, including the beer.

Apparently, the United States has a 24-hour McDonald’s and beer halls sponsored by Budweiser and Heineken.

In a series of interviews for the New York Post, athletes said that “while officials don’t condone” drinking and partying, “they don’t condemn it, either—the only thing that matters…is that the image of the Olympics remain unsullied.”

While alcohol and drugs are banned in the Olympic Villages (except beer, apparently?), the athletes, like college kids all over the world, know how to smuggle hard liquor in when they want it: in water bottles, for example.

Huh? But who has the time, energy and guts to drink during competition?

Well, here’s where I erred in my thinking.

Olympic athletes may seem superhuman, but they’re not so insane that they can actually compete hung over. So when do they party? DUH. AFTER the competition is over. Then they go nuts.

An athlete quoted in the Post explains that she’s “in two different gears” during the Olympics: Either she’s “so focused that I see nothing else, or I’m partying my butt off.”

Of course. It makes total sense. In our culture, we use alcohol to blow off steam, and who is more penned in (literally) than the Olympic athletes. All year, they have to be virtuous and good and clean and disciplined to the extreme. The Olympics is the culmination of all they’ve worked for—all that stress built up in one pressure-cooker of an Olympic Village until—BOOM—it’s over. Finally, they can let loose.

And let loose they do. From the closing ceremony till the airplane rides home, it’s basically, one long, continuous party.

In the New York Post article, one Olympian describes the closing ceremony like this: “They basically throw us all in a stadium and say, ‘Just go for it, party hard, get drunk and do some groping…Our hair is on fire, we’re leaving the next morning, and we’re going to enjoy our last 24 hours.”

And the flight home? Again in the Post, an athlete described a flight from Sydney to Los Angeles in 2000, which had almost 100 Olympians among the passengers: “Everybody partnered up fairly rapidly, and when they’d bring a drink cart through, we’d send it back dry.”

I don’t know where I got my stereotype of the teetotaling athlete from. Truthfully, it goes against the grain of everything that’s known about sports & drinking: namely, that they often go together. It’s that old work hard, play hard mentality that flies in the face of all our talk about moderation being what’s “good for you.”

Olympic athletes are anything but moderate. It makes sense that their partying is as superhuman as their training.

This year, the athletes are being encouraged to tweet their hearts out so everyone in the real world can get to know them. Given all the supposed debauchery in the Olympic village, maybe we’ll all get a glimpse of this hidden Olympics. This could get, um, interesting.

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Each week, we 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. 

Ann Bauer is the author of The Forever Marriage, a novel out now from Overlook Press. She has published essays in The New York Times, The Sun, Salon and Elle. Please visit her website, theforevermarriage.com, or follow her on twitter @annbauerwriter.

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

Ann Bauer: I had my first drink when I was 15: a Cutty Sark on the rocks with a twist of lemon around midnight in October at the Blue Horse bar in St. Paul. I know that sounds weirdly vivid, but it was more a lesson in strategy than in drinking. I’d dropped out of high school, moved into a squalid inner-city apartment, lied about my age and taken a job as a waitress at a Ramada Inn. Everyone on the floor that night wanted to go to the bar after work. When the waiters found out I was underage (I didn’t tell them how far under age…) one of them told me to order Scotch because that way I’d never get carded. I did. I loved it. Cutty was my drink throughout my late teens.

How do you approach alcohol in your every day life?

I drink daily, two glasses of red wine, the first while I’m making dinner and the second with my husband, John, as we eat. This is a conscious decision on my part. I didn’t drink at all from the time I was 21 until I was 32, partly because I was pregnant or nursing most of those years and partly because I was married to an alcoholic (my first husband) who was struggling to stay sober. After we divorced—and I decided childbearing was definitely done—I settled into a routine of drinking wine at night. And I really like it. But as I was writing The Forever Marriage, I did a lot of research into breast cancer and I found very believable evidence that there’s a link between even moderate drinking and the disease. I calculated pretty honestly and ultimately decided that at 46, with no other known risk factors, it’s a gamble I’m willing to make. But I’m very aware that I’m making it.

If you have kids, how is the subject of drinking handled?

Do you drink in front of them? With them? I do drink in front of my children (now 24, 22 and nearly 18) and this was a conscious choice, as well. Because their father was an alcoholic, I wanted them to see someone drink moderately as part of a whole, functioning life. I don’t know if this was the right decision or not. Two of my children, the oldest and the youngest, have zero interest in alcohol. But the middle one—an intensely bright, emotional “wild child”—will do anything for a rush and I suspect he’s gone through periods of drinking too heavily. The question is whether that’s something I can control.

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

Yes. There was the period I mentioned, from 21 to 32, where I didn’t drink at all. There was also a period later, when I was 42, that I drank to excess nearly every night. It was a horrible, dark time in my life: My oldest son was in the hospital undergoing electroshock therapy for catatonia and I was terrified that he would die. But I was watching him suffer so terribly, I sometimes, fleetingly, would wish he could die and the pain would stop. The guilt and fear was overwhelming. So every night, after we would visit my son, John and I would go home and I would start drinking so I could forget—just for a couple hours. John would sit next to me with a bottle of water and coax me to stay hydrated and when I passed out he would take care of me and put me to bed. After my son recovered, I went back to drinking moderately. I was never tempted to get drunk again.

What’s your drink of choice? Why?

I particularly love a good Bordeaux or an Oregon Pinot Noir. These are complex, textured wines that have a lot of clay and earth. They taste to me the way wonderful, old, leatherbound books smell and feel. There’s a heft and a history there.

What do you like most about drinking?

I think it’s the ritual. It’s something my husband do together, not in a raucous way but in a quiet, thoughtful way. We’ll sit with a bottle of wine and talk or read on the couch. I spent a very solitary year in 2010, writing my novel on a remote, rainy island in the Pacific Northwest and sometimes the days would get long. But around 5:30, I’d open a bottle and turn on the news and soon John would walk in the door and it was like sinking into something comforting and familiar. Brian Williams’ voice was coming from the TV and good smells would start rising from the stove and all would be right with my world.

Why do, or don’t you, choose to drink?

I drink in large part because it makes me feel good, and not just the tipsy, heady, forget-about-your-problems good. I believe that regular, moderate wine drinking makes my body work better. It encourages me to relax and reflect; it stops that whirling brain thing that’s afflicted me all my life. And I hate to say it because the science is so iffy, but I swear it makes me more fit. When I quit drinking wine for a month (to see if it was causing my insomnia), I gained five pounds.

How has alcoholism affected your life?

Profoundly. My first husband was an alcoholic, and it killed our marriage. He tried valiantly to quit drinking, and he actually made it for one seven-year stretch. But the moment he had his first taste, it was over. The bills started pouring in; the lies piled upon lies. Alcoholism bankrupted us and devastated our children. Ultimately, I felt there was no choice but to end our marriage. It was very sad. I’ve never really known if alcoholism is a disease or a choice—or both. But I do know that it ruins everything.

These days, yoga is being paired with just about everything–from wine tasting and Grateful Dead music to dance parties and artisanal tasting dinners. The latest incarnation comes at the Cobra Club, opened last month by yoga teachers and hospitality industry vets Nikki Koch, Julia Huffman, and Dana Bushman. It’s not typical to have a yoga studio in the midst of a fully licensed bar, but these three friends were looking for something a little more social than the typical yoga experience. ”Every time we take a great class, afterward we want to go have a drink and relax and have a conversation,” Koch told New York magazine.

Located in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, the studio serves Counter Culture coffee from 6:30 am and then morphs into a full bar in the afternoon. Organic Red Hook hot dogs and Frito pies (including a vegetarian version) are also available until 4 am on Friday and Saturday. And lest anyone attempt a headstand after a couple of drinks, the booze remains a post-practice activity at the Cobra Club. In case anyone’s had to much to drink the night before, the studio also offers a Hangover Yoga class on Saturday and Sunday.

The Cobra Club philosophy is stated clearly and best on their website:

We reject the idea that in order to live full and happy lives we must abstain from all vices, detach from the world and become saint-like. We believe that if there is a secret to life, it lies in experiencing all sides of existence – the bad and the good, sadness and joy, darkness and light. We embrace our vices for the value they bring to our lives.

Welcome to The Cobra Club. Yoga for your dark side, spirits for your soul.

Personally, I can’t wait to check it out…

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Today on Drinking Diaries, we’ve chosen to reproduce this helpful infographic, courtesy of Military Pathways. Military Pathways provides free, anonymous mental health and alcohol self-assessments for family members and service personnel in all branches of the military, including the National Guard and Reserve. The self-assessments are a series of questions that, when linked together, help create a picture of how an individual is feeling and whether they could benefit from talking to a health professional. The primary goals of the program are to reduce stigma, raise awareness about mental health, and connect those in need to available resources. The self-assessments address depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), generalized anxiety disorder, alcohol use and bipolar disorder. 

 The Infographic below covers useful information on alcohol abuse; including alcoholism symptoms, binge drinking, military alcohol abuse, youth drinking and more.  
Click image to enlargeSource: Military Mental Health

There is an answer to this question, but you’ll have to read on to find the answer (don’t cheat)…

Needless to say, the glass wine bottle reigns supreme. There has, however, been an increase in the types of containers storing wine in recent years. And it keeps on evolving.

For a long time, boxed wine has been looked down upon. But the quality of the wine has recently risen. Eric Asimov of the NYT explains the reasons in his piece, ”Reconsidering Boxed Wine.” Greater acceptance of the boxed wine notion is also good news if you’re counting carbon footprints–according to the Journal of Wine Research, shipping boxed wine produces half as many gas emissions as transporting heavier glass bottles.

Along with boxes, came the can. In a recent article on nytimes.com, “Cans of Wine Join the Boxed Set,” Bonnie Tsui provides great information on some of the newer, and finer, wines–drinkable not from a Bordeaux or Burgundy-shaped bottle, but rather from a specially-lined aluminum can.

Wine in a can isn’t entirely new, Tsui points out, and was “first sold by Barokes Wines, an Australian winemaker that invented a patented process called Vinsafe, which lines the aluminum to prevent any reaction that would impart flavors to the wine or degrade the container. The techniques are similar to what some craft brewers have been using, but wine’s high acidity and alcohol levels require a thicker lining.”

I wasn’t surprised to learn that Francis Ford Coppola was the first American winemaker to sell wine in a can–small, pink ones housing Sofia Blanc de Blancs, named for his daughter.

Wines on tap at Colicchio & Sons

I was surprised, however, when I ate recently at the latest of chef Tom Colicchio’s New York restaurants, Colicchio & Sons. The bar had an extensive selection of craft beers, as well as five “eco-friendly” wines…on tap. That’s right. On tap.

I’ve since learned that there are several advantages for serving wine on tap:

-Better for the environment. While bottles are recycled, wine served on tap is stored in environmentally friendly, air tight mini tanks that are reused.

-Cost-effective. Producers aren’t adding on the cost of the bottle, the cork, the carton and the transportation it comes in, so the restaurant owner pays less and so does the consumer.

-Freshness. Wine left over in a bottle used to pour wines by the glass is often discarded as it doesn’t last for more than a couple of days at most. Wine served on tap always tastes fresh, lasting for up to 60 days.

So I guess that’s what’s next…

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Not sure about you, but I’ve been frisked going into concerts and football stadiums and it’s not fun. Why would anyone sneak booze in when you can buy it inside, right?

Well, it seems that enough people would to demand a new sort of product on the market–an alternative route for women–and it’s called the WineRack.

This is no joke–the website selling the WineRack ($30) boasts that that “the advantages are obvious.” It is actually a black sports bra (fits sizes 34C-D, 36A-D and 38A-C) that lets you carryup to 750ml (equal to the contents of one bottle of wine, or 25 oz.) of any beverage. The bra sports a polyurethane  bladder and a drinking tube long enough to route as you wish, along with an easy-to-use on/off valve to control the flow.

The big question: If the frisker feels the tube, what will she ask you to do–spill out its contents or remove your bra?

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For those of us who have watched–and enjoyed–the epic frat party film, Animal House, it’s easy to see that these boys are having one good, drunken time throughout. According to a recent study, the alcohol-induced male elation is not purely fictional.

The study, published in Biological Psychology, shows that men experience greater pleasure form drinking alcohol than women do. Apparently, liquor triggers the male brain to release a higher amount of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that causes euphoria and pleasure.

When the high subsides, however, it’s not all fun and beer pong. Researchers say that the additional dopamine may help expain why men, especially those who can hold their liquor, are twice as likely as women to become alcoholics.

“It’s not just that people who release more dopamine like it better,” says John H. Krystal, chair of the Yale University psychiatrity department and one of 11 authors of the study. “They also learn to want it more.”

On two separate days, the researchers tested how the brains of 21 young social drinkers reacted to alcohol. On one day, the men and women were given juice mixed with a tiny amount of alcohol. Then the researchers used PET scanners to measure the dopamine release in the subjects’ brain. They expected the effect to be minimal, Krystal says, and it was. But they wanted to control for the possibility that people would feel euphoric just because they thought they were getting drunk. On the second day, when the subjects were given stronger drinks, dopamine levels were higher–and the men’s brains released more than twice as much dopamine as the women’s.

The researchers’ goal is to develop ways to “damp down” dopamine release in the brains of people predisposed to alcoholism. With the use of medications and other treatments, young drinkers with a family history of alcoholism may be able to lessen their chances of becoming problem drinkers.

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Last week, the following book deal was announced on Publishers Marketplace: Caren Osten Gerszberg and Leah Odze Epstein, eds.’ DRINKING DIARIES: Women Serve Their Stories Straight Up, a collection of essays covering the wide and wild range of relationships women have with alcohol — from lamp-swinging humor to bottle-under-the-bed despair.

This Drinking Diaries blog has been a true labor of love, and it’s been your encouragement and willingness to share your experiences, comments and advice that has supported our journey to acquiring this book deal.

We are excited to to compile nearly 30 original essays that will make up this anthology, and want to thank all of our readers who have been supporting us along the way. Our goal remains to bring out the stories that cover a spectrum of experiences relating to women and drinking, varying in age, background, culture and perspective.

Drinking Diaries: Women Serve Their Stories Straight Up will be published in September 2012 by Seal Press (part of the Perseus Books group), an imprint whose tagline proudly reads: Groundbreaking Books. By Women. For Women.

Our blog will continue with new postings, essays and interviews each week, and we will keep you up to date on any book-related events. Thanks again for your support!

All the best,

Caren & Leah