Drinking It All In, Part Two

A fickle drinker exposed.

(Click here for Drinking It All In, Part One)

How much wine do you drink, my doctor asks. It’s apropos of something, not the first words out of her mouth, we’ve had a wide-ranging conversation and this is where it’s led. Twelve ounces a day, I say, quite sure on the point, and then I realize it’s more like thirteen, half a bottle. That would be more precise. But before I get the words out she tells me she doesn’t think in ounces. How much is that in glasses, she asks. That’s easy. Two, I say, Two standard glasses. 

I’m not so naive as to think that some, doctor included, wouldn’t see that as a problem, I haven’t been imbibing under a rock my whole my life. In fact, my daughter would say, has said, two glasses makes me an alcoholic. We differ on that. I’ve taken my own counsel in determining how much is right and two glasses is where I’ve landed. It fits. After all, I don’t drink mindlessly, messily, I drink with both feet on the ground. Soberly. 

I think you should cut down to one glass a day, my doctor says. But I don’t want to, I say without missing a beat. It sounds childish when I say it now, like I’m twelve and my mother has just told me to go to bed and I protest, but it wasn’t like that. We were just sharing opinions, right? I didn’t want to be argumentative, saw no need to encourage her.  

I already know or have reason to think that the end of my drinking days is near, I saw it happen with my parents when they were about my age, and I don’t want my doctor lopping off any more of my remaining drinking than is necessary. My parents lost their taste for wine in their late sixties and I’m in the middle part of that decade now. Losing my taste could happen any minute.

Another possibility is that instead of losing my taste for it I tire of it. I’ve had glimpses of this. I may roll to a stop out of sheer boredom, develop an aversion owing to my extreme regularity with it. It’s happened with every food fixation I’ve ever had, taste intact but visit overstayed. Apples. Lime flavoured corn chips. Watermelon. I eat myself into a state of complete dislike, can’t bear another bite. From one minute to the next, after years, it’s like I’ve never known their pleasures. At this very moment, I’m in danger of doing it with Greek yogurt and salt and vinegar potato chips. I’m living on the edge. The woman at the apple table at the farmers’ market says she’s never heard anything like it. Every few months I try another apple and give up in defeat. Unlikely, says my daughter when I tell her about the conversation with the doctor and my theory about losing interest in wine, I can’t remember you ever not drinking. She’s 22.

Why, I finally ask the doctor when I’m ready to discuss it like an adult. Why should I drink less? Because it causes cancer, she says. I’m shocked. Since when, I say, When did drinking start causing cancer and why didn’t I know? That seems like something that would be common knowledge like the way smoking causes lung cancer, information that redeemed quitting for me. It wasn’t why I quit but it helped; it was my booby prize.

She explained herself. I remember none of it, too stunned by the news to take it all in. It was like in the 60s when seatbelts were introduced, that intrusive new device we were meant to batten ourselves down with, manufacturers intent on including them in every vehicle, occupants assiduously ignoring them, the belts spending most of their life jammed into the crack in the back of the seat, the suggestion that they prevented injury and death lost on an entire generation of blissfully untethered drivers and passengers, a car a room on wheels in which you were meant to roam free, kids especially, while sailing down the highway. And look where seatbelts got us, no more roaming free. 

What about Europeans, I ask her. I offer the example of Italy, the ubiquity of red wine, its centrality to daily life. Contextual, she says. She cites a series she’s seen in which hundred year olds bloom in small pockets around the world, seemingly the product of favourable, hyper-local environmental and lifestyle conditions. Point being, she says, you can’t just cherry-pick the wine drinking part of Italian life and assume it’ll work for you here in your life in Canada. 

It may be that I drink because I’m thirsty, I say when I finally run out of steam. It occurs to me on the spot. I get home from work and I’m hungry and thirsty and I reach for the richness of the wine, its taste, and the saltiness and crunch of potato chips, and I help myself to two servings of each. But if it’s just that I’m thirsty maybe water will do. I tell my doctor I’ll try one glass of wine a day. It’s not like I have to but I’m horribly susceptible to suggestion and she’s basically already ruined things for me. 

When I get home that day I begin the experiment, dispirited but curious. I am sad things have come to this pass, drinking less not even having been on my mind when I left for work this morning. Abstemiousness comes without warning. I pour myself a big glass of water and a six-ounce glass of wine, get a bowl of chips for myself and cheese for the dog, and I sit and he sits and we begin.

I’m sorry to report that my enjoyment was not impaired by having less. I enjoyed the wine as much as I ever did, taste experience intact, ritual observed, thirst and wine appetite quenched.  And so I tried it again the next day. And the next. And the Christmas holidays arrived and I had more than a single glass of wine at social events but I also had more than a single glass of water, endless supply of the stuff that there is. I’ve never drunk so much water. I’m drunk with hydration.

It’s not like giving up drinking altogether, not like what happened to my parents, although it’s close and I don’t like it, the end not just near but slightly upon me, but my real remorse is for having spent twice as much money on wine all these years as I needed to and all because I didn’t know I was thirsty. There’s comfort, however, in remembering how much I enjoyed it. I’m glad I knew to savour it. But I have a feeling drinking more fully may have come to an end, the ease and economy of my wine to water conversion too tempting for a cheapskate like me ignore.