The new female wine culture is a ticking time-bomb of alcoholism
Irish women are turning to drink more and more, without thinking of the consequences, writes Sile Cleary
Sunday December 20 2009
WOMEN are drinking too much -- and its not teenagers out on the binge, it's the middle-aged housewives lashing into the bottles of wine in the comfort of their own homes.
A new survey has revealed that women aged between 45 and 64 are endangering their health by drinking steadily over prolonged periods.
The 'wine culture' that has emerged in Ireland as a result of the boom times is playing a pivotal role in influencing the drinking habits of the middle-aged Irish female.
Industrial strength 'new world' wines and big glasses favoured by wine connoisseurs are all combining to create a dangerous culture of over-indulgence in alcohol, according to health experts.
Sitting at home they think that their little pleasures are "harmless", but according to experts, the new female wine culture is a potential alcoholic time-bomb.
More worrying is that most women see the consumption of dangerous quantities of wine as "harmless".
More and more marketing campaigns are specifically geared towards enticing female drinkers as they sit down at home with their friends to watch television shows like Desperate Housewives and The X Factor.
A recent analysis of data spanning over a decade in the Slan 2007 Survey of Lifestyles, Attitudes and Nutrition in Ireland, has revealed that within the 45-64 age group there has been a marked increase in alcohol consumption among Irish women.
Professor Hannah McGee from the Royal College of Surgeons says that drinking habits have changed dramatically over the past 10 years.
"It is evident that we are drinking in a more European way. A lot of us are consuming wine which has a high percentage of alcohol at 11-14 per cent. Also, wine glasses vary considerably in size, so we are no longer drinking the one unit of alcohol that we would have drunk a few years ago in the pub," she says.
The phenomenon of drinking at home, which kicked in most profoundly when the smoking ban was brought into play, and then was later strengthened by the introduction of more stringent drink-driving regulations, has forced many women to decide for themselves how much they should drink.
The recommended weekly limit for men is 21 units, while women are advised not to exceed 14 units in a week
According to Forest, a leading addiction treatment clinic based in Co Wicklow, middle-aged women with alcohol problems are now their primary customers.
"Women make up more than half our clients" says Colin O'Driscoll, the principal psychologists and centre manager. "I think these are astounding figures for a residential treatment setting and it is something that would have been unheard of a couple of years ago."
While a number of factors have contributed to the increase in alcohol intake among middle-aged women, he believes that wine is one of the primary causes.
"We don't know how to drink wine in this country. In France, they will have one or two glasses of wine with their food and that will be it for the night, but in Ireland, we keep on drinking after the dinner.
"It is not unusual to see a person drink one or two bottles of wine in one night, and there is no stigma attached to this. As a result, many people are clocking up an astonishing amount of units in their weekly intake of alcohol on wine.
"We are living in a more stressful world than ever before. Increasingly, we are seeing women, who are finding themselves under intense stress, reaching for a bottle of wine after work because they think it will solve their problems.
"Of course, it won't and instead this can lead to a dependence on the substance."
Tabor Lodge, another addiction treatment centre based in Belgooly, Co Cork, has also noticed a steady flow of middle-aged women seeking treatment in recent years.
Mick Devine, director of Tabor Lodge said: "Research conducted in the southern region has shown an eight-fold increase in the amount of alcohol that women are drinking and this has certainly fed into the treatment figures here.
"We find that the majority of middle-aged women who are presenting themselves for treatment tend to be drinking at home and also, they usually drink alone. Wine is a common alcoholic drink to have at the home. There is an assumption that drinking wine is more acceptable than spirits.
"The shame factor that is attached to drinking spirits doesn't seem to be as relevant when it comes to the consumption of wine."
Rolande Anderson, alcohol and addiction counsellor and the Alcohol Project Director for the Irish College of General Practitioners agrees that many women are unaware of the dangers associated with the over-consumption of alcohol.
"I often come across many middle-aged women in my line of work as an addiction councillor who are blissfully unaware that alcohol is the key to their distress. When they come in they may be suffering from stress or a deep unhappiness but they don't associate it with alcohol. Women who drink a lot. . . get affected with alcohol problems much more severely and acutely than men."
At the moment, the number of females presenting for treatment for alcoholism in Ireland is nearly equal to that of males -- but experts are now predicting that women will pass out men in the coming years, unless there is a major change in drinking habits.
Last week's budget move to cut the price of alcohol was described as "baffling" by Cliona Murphy, acting director of Alcohol Action Ireland.
"Cheap drink is not the key driver of cross-border shopping," she said, but added that cutting the price of drink would "lead to an increase in alcohol consumption".
Gerry Hickey of Alcohol Response Ireland said the budget changes were "disturbing but sadly understandable", and that it was an "alarming" budgetary move.
Originally published in
