Thursday 27 March 2014

Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol by Ann Dowsett Johnston


Drink is a tale of Ann Dowsett Johnston’s battle with the bottle, interspersed with her enlightening investigation into a growing social problem. Now that women are gaining equality with men in many areas of life, there seems to have been a change of mindset when it comes to alcohol consumption. Women are drinking like men. Unfortunately, women just don’t have the metabolism that men do and they are, increasingly, suffering the consequences.

Having grown up with an alcoholic mother, Johnston thought she had been warned off alcohol abuse for life. But alcohol managed to use its charismatic charm to sneak under her defences and slowly seduce her into a pattern of consumption that culminated in serious dependency. 

In Drink, she explores the modern woman’s lifestyle and how it relates to an explosion of female binge drinking and the rise of an ‘I deserve this drink’ mentality. The new respectability of female drinking has resulted in the ubiquitous presence of alcohol at increasing social events and settings. Partly, this is a result of the alcohol industries’ targeted marketing to women, with alcopops to seduce the young, moving on to wines called “Mommy’s Little Helper”, and the sophistication of the boutique vineyard/restaurant scene. And, partly, it’s a result of alcohol’s immediate and highly effective ability to sluice off the stress of a busy day carrying out too many jobs and being too many different roles.

If you or someone you know has a developed a pattern like the all too common trio of: one glass  while preparing dinner, a second to unwind with dinner, and then a third before bed, then this book will unsettle you with the consequences. Drink is not a definitive account of women’s alcohol use and abuse, but it is a compelling argument that the cost of those nightly drinks will be served to you whether you think you deserve it or not.

Reviewed by Spot


Catalogue Link:  Drink

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