We’re waiting, with a group of close friends, for a table at our favorite bistro. Two of the men are carrying the “new” bag that seems to be popular today-the wine bag. All around us, we see other couples and groups of friends with similar bags, some fancy designer cloth ones, others simple colored paper. There are even some “twosome” bags carrying a “bottle of red, bottle of white, it all depends upon your appetite, thank you, Billy Joel.” Enough variety there to make everyone happy.

An hour into our meal and I see the restaurant is filled with happy, convivial patrons. Everyone seems pleasantly buzzed. Conversation and laughter float around us. The little world inside the bistro is a contented one.

But at our table there is more than a pleasant buzz going on. The buzz has turned into a fuzz, as in fuzzy thinking and slurred speech, for one of our group. He is loudly complaining about his job. This is the voice his buddies privately refer to as his “whino-voice” because, as one of them has said, “he whines when he drinks wine!”

Diners from other tables are casting surreptitious glances our way. That he is on his fourth glass of wine is duly noted by his wife. When she mentions it to him, he laughs it off and remarks nastily,

“What’s the big deal?”

The big deal is he’s sloshed.

In the ladies room where we have gone for some sanctuary, Lori tears up as she tells me how embarrassed she is when he “acts like this.” After listening to her talk about his daily wine consumption, I gently ask her if she thinks her husband has a drinking problem. For a few minutes she seems angry at me for asking, but then taking a deep breath, she simply nods yes.

“He always liked having a glass of wine after work. Sometimes he would call me from the office and tell me what he was going to make for dinner for us. Then he’d ask me to pick up a couple of bottles of some new wine he’d heard about and wanted to try. He used to be able to handle it, I mean, it’d be one glass, two at the most. Now? Now it’s getting out of hand. He was drunk at my Dad’s 60th birthday party last month and my parents both mentioned it to me. I never figured you could become an alcoholic drinking wine.”

But you can; alcohol is alcohol. While a glass of wine may not be as potent as a glass of hard liquor, if you drink a large enough quantity of it, the effect is the same. The path to becoming an alcoholic by drinking wine is on the same road as that for any person who drinks whiskey or scotch.

Today’s films extol the consumption of wine. The character is modern and upscale if he or she is shown drinking wine out of a fancy glass. We tend to see drinking wine in 2006 in much the same way as movie goers in the 1930’s saw cigarette smoking-it’s a sophisticated thing to do. The symbol of the wine-bag has replaced the silver cigarette case as the new status symbol for “with-it” diners.

But while drinking wine in moderation doesn’t have the same health hazard as even the most moderate smoking habit, it becomes a danger to health when the person drinking it becomes addicted to the false feeling of calm and the lack of inhibition the alcohol brings. More and more is needed to keep the buzz going until you can’t function or feel like yourself without it.

We have become the wine generation. Wines from places like Australia and South Africa are in vogue; new, exciting flavors for the sophisticated amateur sommelier’s palate, just waiting to be tasted. The belief is that wine is innocuous. How can something that is good for you cause you any harm?

Our conscious mind doesn’t see wine as a real alcoholic beverage. Many of us growing up in families who came from countries like Italy, Spain, or France remember dinners where wine was always on the table. As children, we were given a little bit of wine in our soda or juice. We liked the taste and the drowsy feeling it gave us. No one saw anything wrong with it. Even pregnant women were encouraged to have a glass of wine to “produce strong blood for the baby.” Wine was good for you.

Even though it has been proven that drinking red wine can be beneficial to your health, medical experts are very quick to caution that if a person has a “problem” with alcohol, then dark grape juice, or red and black grapes, will produce the same benefits as any wine.

Wine, like anything else, can become addictive. I remember being at a meeting that was long and drawn out. My colleague kept glancing at the wall clock every few minutes. She finally leaned over and said, “I hope this meeting ends soon. I need to get to the liquor store to get some more wine. I can’t seem to get through the night without it.”

What was most telling about that statement was the word “need.” It put drinking on the same level as breathing.

My friends and I are no strangers to wine. Dinners out, and social gatherings at each other’s homes, always include wine. I have seen friends who enjoy the complement of wine to food and friends who have a glass or two socially. They don’t drink wine to excess. Unfortunately I also have friends who abuse wine. These friends may start out having it with dinner, but something makes them progress to using wine to self medicate. It is hard to say who is at risk because you don’t have to have alcoholics in your family tree to become one yourself.

When we returned to our table, we noticed that the owner of the bistro had sent glasses of Sambuca to everyone there. I saw Lori’s husband pour the last of the wine into his glass and down it, before picking up his liqueur. As he attempted to bring the glass to his mouth, his hand sloshed it against his chin and it dribbled down his neck. He thought this was hilarious. No one else at our table did.


Sacred Jude, Spirit Guide!!