Hedonistic Pressure

Like many women of advancing years I have a complex relationship with the bottle. I love quite a few drinks but tip over my tolerance threshold and alcohol doesn’t love me.

The same goes for drugs. A large chunk of my 20’s and the cusp of 30’s were spent in hedonistic oblivion. Not a bad way to pass the time until those carefree excesses turned my brain into such a hellish quagmire it took medical and professional intervention to put right.

As I bailed from the full-on party scene and found myself pregnant, I congratulated myself on the good timing of it all – this was the breeding decade. Surely the onset of kids would mean even my most hard-core caning mates would be pushed into joining me in a world where we could share a bit more moderation.

But bizarrely, here I am in my early 40’s, still dodging the drugs and making excuses to avoid full-blown alcoholic benders – with fellow mums. I’m the lone weirdo turning down coke because going to bed an hour before my kids wake up no-longer appeals? I love going out for a drink but not when the night has the predetermined pre-fix of “lets get really pissed”. Why can’t we just have a drink and see what happens?

And its not just nocturnal – kid’s tea parties and picnics in the park are accompanied by the familiar conspiratorial nudge and a couple of mums crammed into a child-sized cubicle. I’d sort of hoped by this stage of life we’d have partied, peaked, troughed and got ‘losing it’ out of our system, leaving the gurning to those it suits best – the next generation.

But maybe for many mothers, a truly excessive night is still a badge of honour. It proves we haven’t conformed – the only act of rebellion there is left. Even if the reality is often a wasted Saturday spent in hung-over self-hate, snapping at the kids and wishing the hours away until its time to put them to bed.

I’m not asking for an alcohol armistice, a curb on recreational Skunk or weekend lines. I don’t even care about other people’s consumption - its forced naughty boasting I find boring. Seshing stories and Class A quotas won’t give me eternal youth. I want to go with my own alcohol flow.

See all The Rock Report