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In Person by Louise Kennedy

Thinking About Drinking

Is looking forward to that glass -- or maybe two -- of wine with dinner really something to worry about?

s it just me, or does everyone who has a glass of wine with dinner a few nights a week find herself secretly wondering if this means she has a Problem? Let us proceed on the assumption that it is not just me and ask the obvious next question, which is: Why?

Well, of course I already know half the answer. Alcoholism is a widespread affliction with serious consequences, and many public health efforts have done their job of informing us of its dangers and warning signs. So now we all know that one sign is "denial," or the refusal to admit that you have a problem. So, if I don't think I have a problem, I must have a problem.

This is a problem, right? I mean, it's a closed loop. There is no way to reason yourself to the correct answer here. Which means that common sense is supposed to kick in, and you're supposed to look at the whole pattern of your behavior and recognize either that, no, you're just having a glass of wine because it feels like a nice break at the end of the day and you like how it tastes with your food, or, yes, you might want to think about why you've been spiking your orange juice with vodka, and was that really you lying in the gutter with a bottle of Ripple in a paper bag?

For a lifelong worrier and hypochondriac, however, common sense has nothing to do with it. I mean, if I can conjure SARS out of a sniffle or leukemia out of a lingering bruise, how am I supposed to decide whether that glass of zinfandel is a harmless indulgence (and one that, as a friend noted recently, feels particularly alluring to the parents of a young child, longing for that one moment of indisputably adult time in their day) or my ticket to hell?

How interesting, notes my internal psychiatrist, that I should choose the word "hell." Because, no doubt about it, there's a puritanical streak to my concerns. And it's one that's reinforced, I think, by the sometimes latent but nevertheless persistent streak of puritanism in American culture at large that we can trace all the way back to -- well, the Puritans. Having a drink is relaxing and fun and a little self-indulgent; it's not something you need but something you like. That, say my Puritan genes, can't possibly be OK.

And then there's the Bad Example argument. I may not have a problem, but by continuing to assert that social drinking is harmless, I may be encouraging those who are truly alcoholic to keep thinking that they're not in any trouble, either. Even as I write this, I can picture the angry letters saying something along these lines -- and that argument does genuinely worry me, because I have had enough exposure to alcoholics in my lifetime to want passionately not to do anything that might let someone keep walking down that path. But I still can't help wondering whether there's not some way to talk about all this without contributing to the delinquency of a reader.

Part of what I'm struggling with is the way in which public discourse tends to get polarized in this country. On almost every issue, we're forced to choose sides: Gun control or NRA? Patriot or peacenik? The idea that you could see reason on both sides -- or that there are more than two sides -- is something we're not comfortable with. Once again, let's blame the Puritans.

But let's also try to grow out of it. So here's my attempt to stake out a position in the middle, somewhere between that bottle in the gutter and the Temperance League. I like to have a glass of wine with dinner. Sometimes, I even have two. But I have learned -- I admit, through sad experience -- that drinking too much feels really lousy. So now, if I'm at a party where people just keep pouring, I make sure to have a glass of seltzer handy, so I can have something to sip besides the wine. But I will keep sipping that wine, and that doesn't mean I have a problem.

I think.