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.

Gretchen Rubin is the author of  the “The Happiness Project,” a blog and about-to-be-published book which will be released on Dec. 29th.

Drinking Diaries: What do you think is the relationship between drinking and happiness?

Gretchen: A few years ago, I realized that for me, drinking didn’t bring happiness. I never had much tolerance for alcohol, and after two pregnancies, I was woozy after one glass of wine or beer. I’m not a cheerful, convivial person when drinking – I become belligerent, snarky, and mean. Over and over, after social events, I’d feel full of remorse about my conversations with people. Finally it dawned on me – stop drinking! Then you won’t feel guilty about the way you acted! It’s surprising that it took me so long to realize this – I never really much enjoyed drinking to begin with – but once I basically stopped drinking, I’ve been much happier. It just doesn’t sit well with me.

Also, I’m very calorie-conscious. I realized that I’d rather eat candy than drink booze.

Has drinking ever made you happy?

Not particularly.

Can you comment on the difference between temporary happiness/pleasures and long-term happiness?

This is one of the big challenges of happiness, of course. The things that make you happy in the short term and the things that make you happy in the long term are often quite different. Also, we’re not always very skilful at anticipating what will make us happy in the long term, even when we try to take it into account. But this is certainly true: practically everyone will be happier in the long term if they get more sleep and more exercise. So that’s a good place to start.

Why do you think people choose the short-term pleasures over the long term?

Because it’s more fun!

Can you envision a scenario where drinking could cause, or enhance, happiness?

I can see that for many people, obviously, drinking is a big source of enjoyment. I enjoy that vicariously. I wrote a biography of Winston Churchill, Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill, and one thing I loved about him was his zest for drinking. People disagree about how much he actually drank – some people say he drank a lot, others maintain that he made a big show of it, but didn’t actually drink much. But however much he drank, he really got a big kick out of it.

Have you ever had a bad drinking experience? What was that like?

I never had one terrible drinking experience – and in fact, I’ve never even had a hangover! Not even when I was in college, when I was drinking enough that a hangover was likely.

But for me, drinking just brings out my belligerent, indiscrete, attacking side. And it also makes me incredibly sleepy. So even if I’m celebrating with good friends, so my obnoxious side doesn’t come out, I have to cut the evening short to go to bed. So I’m happier in every way if I just skip drinking, or have just half a glass.

If you could be any drink, what would it be? Why?

Champagne – because it’s the drink most closely associated with happiness and celebration.

Gretchen’s essay, “Why I Stopped Drinking Alcohol (More or Less)” was posted on Drinking Diaries on July 1, 2009. The Happiness Project can be pre-ordered, and you can also read some sample chapters. Gretchen’s Twitter handle is @gretchenrubin.

by Caren Osten Gerszberg

In the wake of the Diane Schuler tragedy and the resulting bad press of the average mom who drinks an average amount of alcohol in a responsible way—I say enough is enough. We need to stop demonizing ALL women and mothers who drink, because many of them drink in a manner that is okay, as in…moderately.

Perhaps the ensuing onslaught of negativity towards women who enjoy alcohol has one saving grace—that those who do have a problem, drinking in secret and getting behind the wheel of a car after one cocktail too many, will hopefully be motivated to address their habits and potential addiction for fear that such a calamity could be part of their own story.

But for the many women and mothers among us who enjoy a glass of merlot, a cold brew or the occasional martini, the media’s response is not an acceptable indictment. Women are entitled to partake in the cocktail clutch just as men do. Yes, we are the ones who typically drive the kids around, and play with the fire that turns out an evening meal, but just like men who pal around and throw back a few at the bar, poker table and tailgate, there are women who want to do the same. Only many are more likely to do so while the kids are playing nearby or while putting dinner together. As long as there is no danger, why is this equivalent female version of drinking being labeled as dangerous?

Which leads me to another issue—drinking in front of our children. I have three of my own, and drink regularly in front of them. They are aware of the pleasures their parents derive from a glass of wine and see them do so responsibly. Some people feel it’s setting a bad example to drink while the kids are around, assuming the younger generation will therefore mimic their “proper” behavior and forever stay away from the bad stuff called booze. But what about kids learning and understanding that mom and dad can have a drink because it tastes good and they like it? That parents are people who are allowed to partake in certain activities that kids can’t. Until a certain age, we can drive; they can’t. We can vote; they can’t. We can drink; they can’t.

I realize this is not a simple matter for some women. That drinking can be loaded with complexity. A family history or relationship with an alcoholic can turn the act of drinking into a web of doubt, guilt and fear. But that’s not who I’m addressing here. I’m speaking about those in control—those for whom drinking is not fraught, or complicated, but merely one of life’s simple pleasures. And that is nothing to be ashamed of.

Caren Osten Gerszberg is a co-founder and editor of Drinking Diaries. To watch her interview about women and drinking on the ABC News Now show, “Moms Get Real,” go to http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8367782.

by Gretchen Rubin

As part of my blog and forthcoming book, The Happiness Project, I examined all the parts of my life that made me “feel bad,” and that got me thinking about drinking. After my older daughter was born, alcohol started making me “feel bad.” I’ve never been a big drinker, but in college and afterward, I drank about the same as most people. I never loved drinking, but I enjoyed it modestly. When I was pregnant, though, I stopped drinking altogether.

The “First Splendid Truth” of my happiness project holds that to think about happiness, we must think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.

After my daughter was born, and I started having the occasional glass of wine or beer again, I had ZERO tolerance. A half a glass of wine hit me hard.

And not for the better.

Alcohol affects me in several ways. It never really makes me friendly and jolly, as it does many people. First, I become belligerent. I have a tendency to be argumentative anyway, a tendency much strengthened by going to law school, and alcohol makes me spoil for a fight. And that’s not a fun way to interact with people.
It also makes me less discreet. I say things that I wouldn’t ordinarily say; I’m less tactful; I’m more gossipy.
After these charming effects have worked on me for a while, I then become tremendously sleepy – uncontrollable yawning, pure misery.
These effects were more noticeable in situations when I wasn’t with close friends, but rather was with people I didn’t know well, or didn’t particularly like, or doing something that I didn’t particularly enjoy. Which, of course, were situations where it was all the more important that I be friendly and polite.

What made me focus on the “bad feelings” was the way I often felt the next day. I’d feel anxious and remorseful. “Was I really as obnoxious as I think?” I’d ask my husband, trying to get his reassurance that my bellicosity and my indiscretion were all in my mind.
And it wasn’t as though my bad feelings were outweighed by my enjoyment of alcohol. Fact was I didn’t really enjoy it that much. I can’t tell a good wine from a mediocre wine. I’ve never been able to drink hard liquor. And I’ve always begrudged alcohol the calories it contains, which I’d enjoy more in the form of dessert.
Finally, it hit me – this wasn’t a happy situation. Drinking was fun for other people, but it wasn’t fun for me. I’d rather skip the drink, and skip the remorse, and save the calories.
I’m not saying this solution would work for other people. I enjoy other people’s enjoyment of drinking (unless they talk about fine wine too much). I like the festiveness of martinis and champagne. I like the zestful enthusiasm some people have for drinking–while working on Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill, I vicariously enjoyed Churchill’s love for liquor—though, actually, he drank less than most people think.
But it’s one of the most important “Secrets of Adulthood”—just because something is fun for someone else, doesn’t mean it’s fun for me—and vice versa.
I’m happier now that I drink less and behave better. I get home after an evening out, and I’m not eaten up with regret and worry about the way I acted. I feel fine, instead of being so tired that I can hardly take out my contacts. For me, it’s much more fun NOT to drink than to drink.
I could have solved my problem in the opposite way. If I’d started drinking more, my tolerance would have risen, and my behavior would probably have improved. For me, it was easier to skip the drinking than to increase the drinking.
I still have a little wine sometimes, or some champagne at a celebration, or a beer. I drink as much as I like—but I don’t like to drink much, now that I realize that it doesn’t agree with me.
Sometimes I regret the fact that I drink so little. Why am I so abstemious and cramped and cheerless? Other people are enjoying themselves so much.
But then I remember—it isn’t fun for me.
The striking fact about my deciding to stop drinking alcohol is that it took me so long to have the idea to do it. Why is it so hard to be myself or “Be Gretchen” as I call it on my happiness project? Why was it so hard for me to notice that I wasn’t enjoying myself? It can be very difficult to notice what seem to be very obvious facts about your very own self.

Gretchen Rubin is the author of the forthcoming book, The Happiness Project. Find out more about Gretchen at www.gretchenrubin.com

Welcome to the DRINKING DIARIES.

Whether we are drinking it or not, alcohol remains a potent part of our lives. Our culture is saturated with it, steeped in it. We confront alcohol everywhere we go—from the home to the office party, date night to ladies’ night, happy hour to super bowl. Every season has its own liquor—there’s the champagne at New Year’s, beer on St. Patty’s Day, summer’s mojitos, autumn’s new vintage of velvety red wine, and winter’s warming brandy. Each religion has its prescribed ritual, from egg nog at Christmas to Manischevitz at Passover. Every culture has its signature drinks, from ouzo to sake and rum to Aquavit. Skol! Kampai! Cin cin! Salud!

Ask anyone you know to scratch the surface and she will find a drinking story. Maybe it’s the night she got smashed and so belligerent she spat in the bartender’s face. Or the time her alcoholic mother poured wine into a Sprite bottle so she could ride an Amtrak train, her self-medicating uninterrupted. It may be that her teenage daughter’s scar—from the time her beer-drinking boyfriend crashed the car—is healing, while hers is not. That the deepest philosophical question the stressed-out mom ponders is: “How big the glass?” Or the eyebrow-raising looks she gets when she mentions she doesn’t touch the stuff.

Here you can read other women’s drinking stories and/or spill your own. The Drinking Diaries will have guest posts and interviews, as well as links to articles, studies, and just about anything that has to do with women and alcohol.

For the two of us, alcohol is a loaded topic.

Leah: For my first grade school photo, my alcoholic mother put my sailor dress on inside out. My mother stopped drinking when I was nine years old, but by the time I hit fourteen, my older sister was sent to rehab. I spent half my adolescence at self-help meetings, and although I would rather have been hanging out with my friends, I found the personal narratives of fall and redemption riveting. From high school to college student, writer to stay-at-home mom, I have run the gamut from abstainer to binge drinker.

Caren: I grew up in a home where wine was always around. My European parents drank every night with dinner, and my mother–a French hidden child survivor of the Holocaust–often bragged about how she’d corrupted her American friends with the joys of a late afternoon glass of wine. But later in life, my mother’s wartime demons came back to haunt her and her social drinking morphed into need. Since then, I—a lover of wine in moderation—have been wrestling with what drinking means to me.

We want to reach out to women, like us, for whom alcohol—for whatever reason—is also a loaded topic. And so, we started THE DRINKING DIARIES…

Please check back on MONDAYS and THURSDAYS for the latest round of new posts!