1990 – 2024
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Scanning the news over the new year, I read that, according to new research by the OECD, more than a third of British girls aged 15 or younger in the sample admitted to having been drunk more than once in their lives. That compared to just over 20% of adolescent British boys. Only in Hungary, Italy and Denmark were higher percentages recorded for adolescent girls on this issue.
Another, older OECD study found that British women were the worst binge drinkers across the 33 countries studied, with 26% of those surveyed admitting to drinking more than 6 six alcoholic beverages in a single session at least once per month. British men were even worse, with 45% admitting to this.
No surprises there: the British have always been notoriously heavy drinkers, consuming alcohol to become drunk rather than to enjoy the beverage.
It was never my thing
Growing up in this drinking culture, I never felt at ease with the kind of conduct expected of me in social settings. I also didn’t like the kind of rowdy, lairy behaviour in which my peers would engage when they drank, nor how this was seen as desirable or “cool”.
Now, I’ve been abroad for 20 years. During that time, I’ve only been exposed to British drinking culture properly once, on a night out with former school friends while back in York just before the pandemic. It only served to remind me how alien it is to me.
The defining memory of that night: only one of the two ladies toilets in the bar being available by 9pm. A young girl (maybe 20 years old) was so inebriated, she couldn’t stop vomiting and was completely immobilised on the floor of the second loo. For the other British ladies standing with me in the queue, this was quite a normal sight on a Saturday night “out on the lash”.
British drinking culture had not changed since I left – if anything, it had got worse. When I read about these studies on drinking patterns among British women, all I think was: “Yes, that figures”.
Thinking about how British women arrived at their current collective sozzled state got me thinking about my own relationship with the booze and how it has evolved over the years.
How it all began
The first time I can remember tasting alcohol must have been when I was about 8. My dad would often have a glass of whisky with water in the evening while watching TV.
Of course, I was curious about this enthralling golden tipple and asked him if I could have a sip. Dad, being of the sensible attitude that forbidding things outright would just lead to us being even more drawn to them, allowed me the tiniest of nips on the drink.
It burned; it was exciting in an unmanageable sort of way. It was so intense that I couldn’t imagine drinking any more than that wee smudge.
It took a good long time for alcohol to become interesting again. My dad’s attitude to letting me try it out so early worked like a dream. Big parental win.
Age 15: the peer pressure begins
It was when we started to go out to discos at youth club at age 14-15 that the pressure to drink really kicked in.
My memories of these first forays into an independent social life include standing in some dark alleyway in the little Yorkshire market town where I went to school, drinking “sh*t mix” out of a plastic bottle. “Sh*t mix” was a mixture of all manner of spirits – made by skimming the top off all of someone’s parents’ bottles of drink and mixing it all together it one bottle, hoping said parents wouldn’t notice the shortfall. (I think they probably did.)
I remember thinking it was horrid, but like I was cool and that going along with this drinking stunt was necessary to have friends. (I also remember being very, very cold as I was busting out the classic British girl move of not wearing a coat on nights out so you didn’t have to pay for the cloakroom. If you ask me, this is just as worrying a trend as the alcohol consumption.)
Enter: the ladette
People of every generation will have their own memories of taking their first shaky steps into the world of alcohol. But, at the time when I was going through it, the pressure on British girls to drink (and drink to excess) was being driven by a brand-new trend and cultural zeitgeist in Britain which was redefining expectations on female behaviour: the ladette.
The ladette was loud, proud, unruly, could drink any man under the table – and wasn’t afraid to show it. The icons of this new movement – Sara Cox, Zoe Ball, Denise Van Outen – were often pictured in the papers falling out of London’s most fashionable bars and clubs – obviously drunk, unsteady on their feet, leering at the photographers. Knickers and boobs were flashed without shame. Old stereotypes of feminity were broken down and women strode fearlessly into domains – including the pub – that had been traditionally male-dominated, occupying the space they were entitled to on an even footing with the “lads”. They claimed modes of behaviour like drinking to excess which had previously been male-coded and opened them up to girls too.
With these boozy ladies in the public eye being seen as “cool”, it wasn’t surprising that the teenagers of the time followed their lead. I didn’t especially like them and found their behaviour unbecoming — but others clearly did and then there was the peer pressure, so…
Go figure. Hold my beer.
Age 18: hurray, I can drink!
Hurray! I can finally drink and buy alcohol legally. Pubs, clubs and 18th birthday parties, here I come!
Without any experience to fall back on and with no idea what to order at the bar when I actually got there (feeling terribly self-conscious and not at all like a grown-up), I went for the classic girly drink at the time: peach Archer’s and lemonade. And boy, did I go for them.
Many, many, MANY of those were consumed – while wearing many, MANY sparkly butterfly clips in my hair. This was the late 90s after all.
Off to university
In September 2000, it was time for me to pack up my bags and fly the nest. I was off to the Big Smoke to study law.
While many of my contemporaries in the student halls of UCL went batsh*t crazy with the booze in the weeks and months (sometimes years) after being let off the parental leash for the first time, I went completely the other way.
For the first two years of my degree course, I did not drink a single drop of alcohol – choosing the new bottled juice drinks instead (Britvic’s J2O was a particular favourite).
The reasons for this abstinence weren’t all positive. In fact, there were some very unhealthy patterns driving it. I won’t go into all of that here; it suffices to say that for those two years, I said “no” to alcohol entirely.
Help!
This puritanical streak came to an abrupt end when I went to Munich for my Erasmus year in 2002. The study of law in German – a language in which I was only halfway competent at the time – was completely overwhelming. I didn’t understand anything going on around me, whether academic or everyday. I was stressed all the time.
When I look back, I can see that that year was absolutely definitive for the path my life took over the long-term. As such, it must be described as life-changing and inspiring. But there is no denying that it was the best of times and the worst of times. At some points, I was so out of my depth and panicked that I didn’t think I would manage it and have to go home.
To help me cope, I began to drink. Notably cocktails and Glühwein, consumed in the bars of the smart district of Schwabing and at Christmas markets, respectively.
My 20s: the Cosmopolitan reigns supreme
My early 20s coincided with the era of Sex and the City, the cult HBO series about the lives, loves and sexual adventures of four Manhattanite women: Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha.
It was a massive hit and completely changed the conversation around women and sex.
And I was a huge fan. I have all six series on DVD and have watched them through completely at least five times. In fact, I loved it so much that I spent my 20s drinking the girls’ signature cocktail, the Cosmopolitan, at every opportunity. If we were out and cocktails were on the agenda, I never ordered anything else.
I wasn’t quaffing the Cosmos in the bars of Manhattan wearing Manolos – more like during Happy Hour at my favourite student bar-cafés in Vienna. But I thought that was a pretty decent approximation and I had some lovely times.
Age 24: the accident
Everyone who drinks will have had that one experience where they pushed things too far and were chastened. It’s the natural way of learning your own limits – and I’m just glad that I got out of the process unharmed. Because I was very stupid.
At age 24, I was regularly hitting the town in Vienna with my two Austrian friends, Eva and Eva (I’m not kidding). We’d get together at Eva 1’s house and get the party started with Sekt or Prosecco and then head for the clubs, mostly the renowned U4, and dance until dawn.
On one of these nights, things got out of control. Eva 1, going through a nasty breakup and emotionally unmoored, seemed to know neither limit nor mercy and insisted at the club that we do shots. We started with vodka-strawberry purée shots and moved on to tequila.
Too much
So much – too much. I started vomiting in the club already and was M.I.A. for so long that I couldn’t find either Eva when I finally emerged from the ladies’. The last thing I really remember was being put on the subway train by a friendly Hungarian. Luckily I didn’t have to change trains (I was far too drunk to manage this) and only have a hazy recollection of how I got home and into my own bed.
I know that I woke up on my own (praise be) but only have patchy memories of the next 12 hours. Mostly of having my head stuck down the toilet, talking to God on the great white telephone.
Being 24, I bounced back quickly and didn’t even have a hangover. But the experience scared me and from then on, I only drank in moderation. I haven’t touched tequila since.
Late 20s: dangerous drinking patterns
My late 20s are the only time in my life when I think I developed drinking habits that were genuinely risky.
Apart from the tequila incident, I was never a big drinker and have only ever been properly “drunk” 4 or 5 times in my life. However, in my late 20s, things took a bit of a turn when I began my legal career in earnest and work stress became a constant. I was working 10-12 hours days in a high pressure environment where I had to speak a foreign language and almost always felt like I was in over my head. Add into that a deep and ongoing dissatisfaction with my basic career direction and there you have the ground conditions for some very unhealthy behaviours.
The daily snifter
I’d often finish the day with a “snifter”, i.e. a small amount of a high-percentage spirit like Buff, a herbal spirit from Luxembourg, or fruit schnapps (plentiful in Austria). Pastis was a favourite too.
Because I was only ever consuming a small amount on any given day, it didn’t feel so unhealthy or risky. But it all added up, and I began to develop mild cravings for alcohol. At about 5pm, I’d start to think: “Mmm, almost time for a drink.” Even though I was in good physical shape, my doctor gave me a thorough ticking off when I admitted to drinking almost every day.
Having an alcoholic in my close surroundings had given me more proof than I ever needed that this was the way of no good so I cut out the snifter habit, pronto.
Early to mid-30s: CRAFT BEER
It was in my mid-30s that I discovered craft beer. The Other Half was into it too and we spent so many joyful, slightly tipsy hours in bars in Vienna, Brno (CZ) and numerous other cities around the world on our travels sampling the local brews. I became a full-on hazy IPA snob and can hold forth on the best beers I ever had at some length.
Oh – happy, happy days those were.
Late 30s: farewell, alcohol tolerance
In my late 30s, my alcohol tolerance packed up its belongings and disappeared who knows where. Maybe it was changes in my hormones or metabolism as I got older. Whatever it was, I suddenly started to get monster hangovers from even moderate amounts of alcohol that I had previously been able to handle well.
I wasn’t too perturbed; it was probably better for me to drink less. But the random way which headaches would strike (even when I hadn’t been in the slightest bit drunk) lead to a feeling of stress about alcohol which stopped me truly enjoying my tipple.
Since I live (and go out) in an expensive city, the logic of drinking became shaky. Why pay through the nose to be stressed (and possibly poorly the day after)? The argument for alcohol consumption while I was out and about was no longer persuasive.
I even gave up drinking completely once for several months – only to come back for the occasional drinky-poo. I just missed some things too much to rule them out.
Christmas 2024, age 42: the end?
Half a glass of Belgian beer puts me in bed with a pounding headache for an entire day, concluding with a vomiting fit which leaves my throat burnt and sore from the bile that came up.
Admittedly it was a strong beer, 9% or so. But so much sickness after just 130ml of it? Completely ridiculous.
There doesn’t seem to be any level of alcohol that my body won’t react to and reject these days. And I still can’t recognise any pattern to it, in terms of types of drinkings or ingredients to avoid, risky times during my cycle when my body can’t process alcohol so well etc.
At this point, I feel like I ought to give up. But I know how it goes: I’ll be back for more, even if it is just a tiny sip.
The British girl in me will never die.
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Photo: Katharine Eyre © 2022. An alcohol-free Negroni Bambini cocktail at the Apoteka speakeasy bar in Vilnius, Lithuania.