Towards the end of my corporate career, I spent quite a lot of time dreaming about retirement. When it finally arrived, I found myself drinking more… no longer just a glass or two of wine at the end of the working day but wine with lunch became the norm. Then a gin and tonic before dinner and of course more wine while cooking dinner…

Towards the end of my corporate career, I used to spend quite a lot of time dreaming about my retirement. I had a very clear picture in my mind. There I was, sitting in a beautiful garden, reading a good book, with a large glass of chilled white wine beside me. No meetings. No deadlines. No demanding colleagues…

Are you someone who enjoys a glass or two of wine every evening? Perhaps you rarely drink during the week but look forward to a few glasses of wine at the weekend. Or maybe alcohol appears only at dinners, celebrations and social occasions. Most of us have no problem justifying our drinking habit. The daily […]

Alcohol use among senior citizens is on the rise. Although historically older adults were less likely to drink than younger adults, recent studies show that older adults are now drinking more frequently and in larger quantities than in the past…

Have you ever walked into a room and forgotten why you went there? Opened your laptop and completely blanked on the password you’ve used for years? Lost your train of thought halfway through a conversation? If so, you’re not alone. One of the most common concerns I hear from women who are 60 plus…

A few months ago, a friend told me about an older woman who had fallen at a wedding. “She was dancing,” he explained. “She stumbled and went down. She’d been drinking.” The story stayed with me because falls are no small matter as we get older. A broken wrist, a fractured hip, or a head injury can change the course of a life in an instant…

On 23rd May I celebrated 11 years without alcohol. I stopped drinking at 63, and now at 74, I can honestly say I feel happier and healthier than I did when I was drinking. That still surprises me sometimes. For many years, alcohol felt woven into the fabric of my life…

I didn’t stop drinking because I hit rock bottom. I stopped at 63, after a lifetime of what most people would call normal drinking. A glass of wine in the evening. Sometimes two. Occasionally more at weekends or social occasions…

There often comes a quiet moment. Not dramatic. Not urgent. Just a pause. A moment when you begin to wonder whether something that once felt like a treat is no longer serving you in quite the same way. From the outside, everything looks fine. You are managing life, responsibilities, relationships…

For many women in midlife, drinking doesn’t look like a “problem.” There are no lost jobs, no dramatic rock bottoms, no intervention scenes from a movie. Instead, it looks like a glass of wine every evening. Then two. Then the bottle quietly becoming a daily companion…