{"id":85573,"date":"2025-05-08T20:58:16","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T20:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/85573\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T20:58:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T20:58:16","slug":"this-is-why-i-hate-drunk-women-and-why-im-so-glad-i-turned-my-back-on-alcohol-julie-cook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/85573\/","title":{"rendered":"This is why I hate drunk women… and why I’m so glad I turned my back on alcohol: JULIE COOK"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day I was out for a meal with my husband and some of his friends. As the drinks flowed, the men chatted and the women separated off into their own group.<\/p>\n

As more and more bottles were ordered, I noticed their cackling laughter getting louder, their remarks bitchier \u2013 and all of a sudden, I had a \u2018headache\u2019.<\/p>\n

It was early and, really, I was feeling fine. But I couldn\u2019t bear a moment more in their company.<\/p>\n

The reason? I cannot endure drunk women.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong. Drunk men are awful, too; they fight, fall over and get lairy. But they don\u2019t draw my ire because I can\u2019t recognise myself in those men. In drunk women, I see a mirror of a past I\u2019d rather forget.<\/p>\n

You see, I was once one of them.<\/p>\n

I stopped drinking in 2019 after a lifetime of bingeing. I\u2019d been hooked since my first sip of my dad\u2019s home brew aged 13.<\/p>\n

\"I <\/p>\n

I stopped drinking in 2019 after a lifetime of bingeing, writes Julie Cook<\/p>\n

Most people I knew were aware of their limits, but through my teens and 20s, I consistently took it too far. At my worst, I could drink a bottle of wine by myself. In my 30s I just about managed to keep it to weekends, but found myself longing for Friday from Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Finally, at 42, I stopped. It was the best decision I ever made and I have felt healthier and happier ever since. I\u2019m a better wife to my husband Cornel and mother to our children Alex, 16, and Adriana, 11.<\/p>\n

But there is a downside. Along with the clear head, lack of anxiety and better skin comes the fact you are now a social pariah. While sobriety may be trendy among Gen Z, among my fortysomething peers not drinking sees you labelled a puritanical old bore.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s women who heckle you the most furiously for shunning alcohol \u2013 usually with a glass of wine in hand, swaying across a dance floor. Maybe that\u2019s another reason I loathe them so much; I feel they judge me back.<\/p>\n

Coming of age in the late 1990s, my female friends and I were taught that heavy boozing was a way of achieving parity with men. I\u2019d spend every Thursday to Sunday competitively drinking with colleagues and friends.<\/p>\n

\"I <\/p>\n

I genuinely believed that alcohol made me more interesting, funnier, more attractive.\u00a0And, yes, friends thought I was funny, but I’d always take it too far<\/p>\n

I loved the ceremony of wine, in particular. The pop of the cork, the delicate glug-glug as it entered the glass, that first fuzzy embrace as the alcohol kicked in.<\/p>\n

In my 20s, I regularly drank till I blacked out, landing me with hideous hangovers that would prevent me working.<\/p>\n

Yet I genuinely believed that alcohol made me more interesting, funnier, more attractive. Crippled with social anxiety without it, I\u2019d often have to neck a few glasses at home before an event to \u2018get in the zone\u2019.<\/p>\n

And, yes, friends thought I was funny, but I\u2019d always take it too far. Soon I\u2019d be slurring, falling about, saying embarrassing things. My then-husband (we\u2019ve since divorced and I\u2019ve remarried) was often mortified by my antics.<\/p>\n

It got me in trouble, too. I was once carried off a train, unconscious, by emergency services, after drinking for seven hours straight with colleagues and passing out.<\/p>\n

After I met Cornel and had my children in my 30s, I did rein in my drinking. It became \u2018my treat\u2019 on a Saturday night once the kids were in bed \u2013 but I could still get through a bottle of wine in one sitting. The next day I\u2019d struggle through with a banging head and nausea.<\/p>\n

My mum friends were the same, though. We\u2019d send each other texts like: \u2018Kids in bed, wine time!\u2019<\/p>\n

Encouragement to binge, after all, is everywhere, under the excuse of \u2018girls\u2019 night\u2019 or \u2018gin o\u2019clock\u2019. A glass of champagne in your hand is the key to elegance in an Instagram picture.<\/p>\n

None of us saw a problem. But somewhere, deep down, I knew it was. I hated the self-loathing, the waking at 3am with guilt and existential dread. And was I really giving my best to my kids if I was exhausted and ratty the next day?<\/p>\n

\"I <\/p>\n

I see now how others once viewed me \u2013 with pity and concern. I wish I could tell these women how dangerous it is, both for their health and their personal safety<\/p>\n

The decision to quit happened overnight. I was at a bar in Paris with Cornel in 2019, and I didn\u2019t want to have a hangover the next day. So I pushed my glass towards him and ordered a soft drink; it was the last alcoholic drink I ever had. Frankly, I was amazed at how easy it was to go cold turkey.<\/p>\n

Now that I\u2019m sober, I can always spot drunk women in the wild. Cheeks ruddy from prosecco, swaying on their high heels, cackling loudly.<\/p>\n

And I realise that I hate them because they remind me of who I used to be. I see now how others once viewed me \u2013 with pity and concern.<\/p>\n

I wish I could tell these women how dangerous it is, both for their health and their personal safety. I wish I could tell them how much they will regret their behaviour. Yet only the drinker can decide when to quit.<\/p>\n

But I think another reason I cannot stomach these women is envy; envy that they have the \u2018freedom\u2019 to drink, a privilege I deny myself after so many years of over-indulgence.<\/p>\n

I envy the fact they can have \u2018just the one or two\u2019. I envy that they haven\u2019t faced the existential dread I did every time I had a hangover. Maybe a psychologist would tell me I actually envy the oblivion they get from alcohol that I can no longer resign myself to.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to hope that\u2019s not the case. Because, as smug as it may sound, I wouldn\u2019t trade my sobriety and peace for a night on the tiles ever again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The other day I was out for a meal with my husband and some of his friends. As…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[92,368,105,459,1411,41208,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-85573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-femail","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-instagram","12":"tag-paris","13":"tag-reallife","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114474221996221238","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}