What is a "normal" amount of drinking for a mid-30's/early 40's parent?

[Anonymous]

You sound boring.

[Anonymous]

I’d say a half rack every two days is acceptable at that age, especially in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Drinking at public parks and soccer games seems odd to me. At a party, fire pit gathering or even ToT (which is basically a party in our neighborhood). normal to have alcohol served.
Then again, there was a thread by a mom who accidentally got drunk and threw up at a new neiigjborhs party and one person said her friend group regularly got drunk and vomited—I said any mom group where people are regularly getting drunk to the point of vomiting had a problem and people seemed to disagree with me. So….I guess some people have different standards.

Really? I live in NYC, there are tons of outdoor concerts in the park. Everyone I know goes with their kids and brings bottles of wine, canned cocktails, or beer. Sometimes weed as well (shock! horror!).

Not the same thing at all. Come on. Going to a concert that happens to be in the park and bringing a drink is not "Meet up in the park. Drinking."

[Anonymous]

I think 2-3 drinks a night, 2x a week is normal.

But my parents don’t drink and drive me crazy with talking about heavy drinkers. They went on and on about 2 people drinking “a WHOLE bottle of wine!!!” But that’s only 4 drinks/ 2 drinks each. My mom was really offended when a fancy lunch place I took her asked if she’d like a champagne with lunch. She thought that was obscene. Most of my friends have champagne at lunch at our once a month girls luncheon…. I think it’s just all your point of reference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was just talking to someone about this! How are y’all getting buzzed every night with kids you have to wake up with in the morning? I can barely parent sober, I would die with a hangover!

You know, I can’t really tell what the OP is talking about here. I agree with you that I wouldn’t want to regularly have to get up and get kids off to school and myself to work while nursing a hangover. That’s too much.

But I also drank on Halloween. We met over at a neighbors and had chili and I had a couple of glasses of wine. I’m sure that people were acting differently. Someone had a bull whip as part of an Indiana Jones costume, and everyone was taking turns trying to crack it. I don’t think that would have happened if everyone there was sober.
Trick or treat started about 6pm and ended around 7:30. Kids were in bed by 9pm, and DH and I went to bed by 10pm. I wasn’t hungover the next day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This sounds a lot like my friend group and neighbors. However, we do plenty of activities that don't involve alcohol too, and we don't drink at the park or during soccer. We did drink at Halloween.

+1 Soccer and at the park, no drinking. Halloween, yes. Not all activities involve drinking.

[Anonymous]

I think what you're noticing OP, and what doesn't feel right to you (and shouldn't) is people with alcohol dependency issues creating groups and situations that allow them to hid their alcoholism by normalizing it. It's classic denial - they don't have problem because "everyone else" is doing it too!

I see this as an older, divorced parent as I join various meetups and other groups to expand my social circle. There are some groups that I started hanging out with and then I realized that all of the regulars were heavy drinkers who used the get togethers as excuses to get wasted. For me, its not much fun, and not very comfortable, watching that. I guess I'm old enough to picture what's probably happening when these people are not out with the group.

Note I'm no teetotaler - I love trying new wine, making new cocktails, checking out new breweries, etc. I would drink daily if I thought I could get away with it, but with my family health history I try to limit it to a few drinks a week. Plus, I don't want to become dependent - I have a few cousins who are, so I try to be careful.

So it's not really an issue of any one get together being inappropriate, I think its the classic features of alcoholism, such as the denial, and likely some codependency, that are making you feel weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think what you're noticing OP, and what doesn't feel right to you (and shouldn't) is people with alcohol dependency issues creating groups and situations that allow them to hid their alcoholism by normalizing it. It's classic denial - they don't have problem because "everyone else" is doing it too!

I see this as an older, divorced parent as I join various meetups and other groups to expand my social circle. There are some groups that I started hanging out with and then I realized that all of the regulars were heavy drinkers who used the get togethers as excuses to get wasted. For me, its not much fun, and not very comfortable, watching that. I guess I'm old enough to picture what's probably happening when these people are not out with the group.

Note I'm no teetotaler - I love trying new wine, making new cocktails, checking out new breweries, etc. I would drink daily if I thought I could get away with it, but with my family health history I try to limit it to a few drinks a week. Plus, I don't want to become dependent - I have a few cousins who are, so I try to be careful.

So it's not really an issue of any one get together being inappropriate, I think its the classic features of alcoholism, such as the denial, and likely some codependency, that are making you feel weird.

I think the bolded goes too far, both in characterizing many of the drinkers OP describes as being dependent on alcohol and also in their intentionality in organizing these situations. It sounds like most people the OP describes drink more heavily than is healthy, and that's absolutely normalized in our culture, more than it should be. Probably some of them do have alcohol use disorder. But I think it's more likely a mix of heavy drinkers who like to drink (and, hence, do it at any opportunity) and the aspect of parenting culture that emphasizes alcohol as a way to cope with stress.

[Anonymous]

^^also, to a different poster, one bottle of wine = 5 drinks, not 4. I don't think two adults sharing a bottle is shocking, but wanted to point that out, because people often don't realize the standard serving sizes of various alcoholic beverages.

[Anonymous]

I agree that it's a thing in UMC neighborhoods and circles. If you grew up in it, it probably seems really normal to you, but drinking 3-4 drinks (or more) every day is, in fact, a fair amount of alcohol. The reason that these people can handle it is that they drink like this all the time, every day, so their bodies are used to it. It's like every social event has to have alcohol, and people are generally drinking more than they think they are (and they are more impaired than they think). But because they aren't raging drunk or sloppy, and they generally aren't driving kids around like that, it seems normal, because everyone else is drinking like that. Some of it is this idea that social events must have alcohol, and the idea that children's events are just so awful that you need booze to tolerate them, and this strange "Wine Mommy" culture that makes drinking into something cutesy, and the fact that people are "sophisticated" and drinking craft beer and nice bourbon instead of Coors Lite and Colt 40s. There's a lot going on. There are certainly some functional alcoholics, who are camouflaged by the fact that there are a lot of heavy drinkers and by the alcohol/parenting culture, so it's hard to sort out who is which. And because it's so normalized, it's almost impossible to talk about, because the people who do have a problem get defensive, but so does everyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think what you're noticing OP, and what doesn't feel right to you (and shouldn't) is people with alcohol dependency issues creating groups and situations that allow them to hid their alcoholism by normalizing it. It's classic denial - they don't have problem because "everyone else" is doing it too!

I see this as an older, divorced parent as I join various meetups and other groups to expand my social circle. There are some groups that I started hanging out with and then I realized that all of the regulars were heavy drinkers who used the get togethers as excuses to get wasted. For me, its not much fun, and not very comfortable, watching that. I guess I'm old enough to picture what's probably happening when these people are not out with the group.

Note I'm no teetotaler - I love trying new wine, making new cocktails, checking out new breweries, etc. I would drink daily if I thought I could get away with it, but with my family health history I try to limit it to a few drinks a week. Plus, I don't want to become dependent - I have a few cousins who are, so I try to be careful.

So it's not really an issue of any one get together being inappropriate, I think its the classic features of alcoholism, such as the denial, and likely some codependency, that are making you feel weird.

I think the bolded goes too far, both in characterizing many of the drinkers OP describes as being dependent on alcohol and also in their intentionality in organizing these situations. It sounds like most people the OP describes drink more heavily than is healthy, and that's absolutely normalized in our culture, more than it should be. Probably some of them do have alcohol use disorder. But I think it's more likely a mix of heavy drinkers who like to drink (and, hence, do it at any opportunity) and the aspect of parenting culture that emphasizes alcohol as a way to cope with stress.

I agree that I don't think that people are creating this social situation to conceal their alcohol abuse. Frankly, I think it's sometimes the other way around -- people develop a problem with alcohol because the culture encourages drinking, and if you're susceptible, you can easily get sucked in. And you lose your reference points -- if everyone you hang out with is routinely drinking multiple drinks at every event, you see that as normal, and you might miss signals that you're drinking too much. A friend had this issue -- the "wine mommy" culture in her neighborhood was pretty pronounced, so it was just "cute" and "fun" to drink all the time and treat it as a normal way to cope with parenting. It basically normalized day drinking. And it took her a while to realize that she had developed a dependency, and then it was hard to quit and work through recovery because drinking was just ubiquitous, even at kids' events.

People act like it's insane to think that others are drinking too much, or that you must be a teetotaler to object to UMC alcohol consumption. But it does promote regular, and often heavy drinking, and centering social events around alcohol, and it does create problems for people.

[Anonymous]

This is very normal in my UMC social circle. I have wondered if it's related to how much help people can afford - my friends with full time nannies, housekeepers, cleaners, etc don't worry about waking up with a bit of a hangover because they can outsource everything and crawl back into bed for a few hours.

Even though it's normal, it's obviously not healthy to be having 10+ drinks per week, but I don't think most of the people we know who do this are harming anyone but themselves, and it's a calculated health risk. Many of them are otherwise pretty healthy - regular exercise, eat nutritious food.

[Anonymous]

DH and I might have one or two drinks in a week. We are not heavy drinkers and honestly, don’t like to spend time with people whose lives revolve around alcohol. Every social activity does not need to include alcohol. We are both very health conscious. No desire to ferment my body, destroy my liver, or look older then I am. Like every thing in life, moderation is key.

[Anonymous]

I drink a lot less now that I have a toddler. I was always going out in my 20s and 30s, so I drank a ton at bars, backyard BBQs, and nightclubs.

Nowadays, it’s really no more than a glass of wine or one beer in any given night. Maybe a couple drinks when a friend visits us. I’m going to a wedding solo this weekend and will probably max out at 4-5 drinks over the evening. I haven’t had that many drinks in probably 6 months

[Anonymous]

It's so easy to judge, and "normal" is something a lot of people strive for but there are such different patterns/norms for drinking that it can be an odd thing to talk about. What's normal in one area is not in another area, and it is very cultural.

I am a (white, 37 year old) drinker, mostly a "glass after the kids go to bed" drinker, but I can throw down. I don't have any judgements about drinking socially in front of kids. But... yeah, excessive neighborhood drinking worries me sometimes. We have friends (best friends of my SIL) who live in a close-knit suburban UMC neighborhood (not in DC, but in the midwest -- think McMansions) and they drink a LOT. During summer weekends, they basically don't stop. Titos and le croix. All kinds of beer. You name it, they have it around. Offering some alcohol is basically seen as standard neighborly practice whether it be 11am or 9pm. They all have kids.

If I lived there, it would drive me bonkers and I feel like I'd struggle socially because I just don't like being buzzed/plastered all the time and there certainly is pressure to drink or get high. But it's "normal" for them and, seemingly, everyone in their neighborhood.

In my neighborhood, which is urban and more diverse, drinking is much less common but still pretty common. Trick or treating? No. Playground? No. Baseball games? Not really, but I've seen it happen. BBQs/neighborhood parties? Absolutely and it can get sloppy.

In the neighborhood we lived in before this one, drinking was extremely limited and neighbors didn't really socialize. You'd definitely get some side eyes if you were drinking a beer at the side of a soccer game, though.

I don't think there's a "right" amount or a "standard" amount -- it varies so much, and you never know whether people go home after a workday and slam a bottle of wine privately.

But... to OP's original point, what you're describing is fairly common. If it's not your scene, it's not your scene. If they give you weird looks, exert pressure, or your husband starts to drink at a level that you don't like, then maybe I'd reevaluate but if you're just trying to gaguge whether this is unusual or not, it's not really... but that doesn't mean it needs to be usual for you.