Musing on Boozing

CorkscrewAnnie
6 min readSep 16, 2023
A thoughtful monkey staring off into space
Photo by Juan Rumimpunu on Unsplash

Is it time for a drink? Or time to think again?

I grew up in an abstemious family. No wine with dinner, no beer with the hockey game — about the closest we came to getting tipsy was when my grandmother put too much sherry in the trifle.

But as a teenager and an adult, I quickly acclimated to the social norms. In recent years I’ve even developed quite a fondness for a good glass of wine. Not a lot of glasses, usually one or two with a fine dinner, or a drink with friends.

I’ve enjoyed many a winery tour in France, Italy, California, New Zealand and BC’s Okanagan Valley, and determined my preference for hearty, fruity reds and crisp, dry, aromatic whites (oh, and Prosecco, pink or white). It’s became a small pleasure and even a bit of a hobby, pairing the right food with the right wine.

Then a couple of things happened to get me musing on my boozing.

First, my husband announced he was not going to drink alcohol any more. In remission from leukemia, he’s blessed with good health again and lots of energy. He was making note of a recent federal government announcement about links between alcohol and cancer.

In January this year, the Canadian Public Health Agency of Canada published a statement seeking to make everyone aware of “the risks associated…

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CorkscrewAnnie

Recreational writer, collector of antique corkscrews, urban gardener and retired management consultant. Still trying to figure out what to do when I grow up.