Why I need a drink

It is the great secret of the professional middle class. The one thing we would be extremely unwilling to admit to anyone, even the closest members of our family - is how we all worry sometimes about how much we drink. I say breezily: "Oh, I can take it or leave it. I often go several days or even a whole week without alcohol and I don't miss it a bit." Then it gets to 9pm and an alarm bell goes off in my head.

"It's time for a glass of wine. It's been a hard day and I've earned one." And before I know it, my arm snakes towards the bottle of dry white wine chilling in the fridge or the bottle of red warming by the oven. I guess, on average, I drink about five bottles a week - that's three more than I should.

It's our relaxant, our reward for the frenetic pace of our lives and a chance to sit down, put our feet up and unwind. So what's the problem? The problem comes when you say: "No, I am not going to drink tonight. I had far too much last night and I ought to have a night off." But then you can't properly relax. You feel twitchy, stressed and bad tempered. What harm can it do? One or two glasses a night surely can't hurt anyone?

But how rarely is it only one or two. The safe limit for women is two glasses of wine, two and a half for men. I've had serious chats with friends recently who have revealed they are worried about how much they drink - I know I am.

None of us is an alcoholic. We don't tremble in the morning or reach for the gin with our Alpen. We function perfectly well all day, but once evening comes that siren call begins, satisfied only by the soothing balm of alcohol.

For the past year or so I have found myself thinking about alcohol as soon as I wake. My eyes open and to establish how I am going to feel that morning, I mentally tot up how much I drank the night before. If it has been only a couple I know I will be fine. If it was a bottle then I know I am in for a day when the sun won't shine, everything is too loud and nothing will satisfy me.

I hate to admit it, but I have a hangover at least once or twice a week. Nothing that would keep me in bed for the day, or stop me working, but just enough to make me groan aloud and think: "Never again." But when evening comes I feel better and decide to have "just the one".

The biggest sea change has come in women's consumption - as we take on the role of men at work, so we take on their drinking habits. My mother would be horrified by my daily intake - she drank only at social occasions.

My dependence on alcohol irritates and alarms me. The trouble is that the wheels of both my private and social life are oiled by alcohol. Every evening, when my husband, Ross, gets home, we sit in the kitchen, pull the cork from the bottle and chat over our meal.

We rarely watch television, preferring to talk about our day. We have tried to do so without a drink, but somehow it doesn't work. We do not feel as comfortable, the meal is soon over and tidied away, and without the lubricant of alcohol there is little to say. Similarly, dinner parties would be unthinkable without drink to put everyone in the mood. I loathe driving when we go out: I don't really enjoy myself and I spend half the party wishing I could go and read in the car.

And then there is the problem of knowing when to stop. If I could put the cork back in the bottle after pouring two glasses then I would not worry about my dependency. But I can't.

Over my evening meal with Ross, once one glass goes down the next follows. The conversation flows and before you know it, it is after midnight and you are both drunk. Not drunk to the point of falling about, but drunk enough to lose one contact lens and wake up in the morning feeling as if your head has been inserted into a too-small tin hat.

Rationally, I can see how much better my life would be without alcohol. I'd love to start the day skipping out of the door saying: "Hello clouds, hello sky" instead of stumbling downstairs clutching my head, moaning: "Coffee, where coffee?" What is mortifying is that my teenage daughter has taken to putting her hand over my glass and saying: "Enough, Mother." Shouldn't it be the other way around?

I can see how much better things would be without drink. I hate the way it creeps into so many areas of my life. Going to the theatre? We could go for a nice drink first.

It is easy to become enslaved, but I cannot see the way out. I should not need alcohol to ensure that I have a good time. The logical part of my brain tells me how much healthier I would feel, how I would have more time for activities with the children in the evening.

But it is so hard to do anything about it when everyone around you uses alcohol in exactly the same way and you would be the odd one out. To give up alcohol is to stamp "weird" on your forehead and plant cones around you at parties.

I keep thinking that, as I get older, I will learn to drink wisely, but it hasn't happened yet. I fall over a lot less, but am still capable of making an interesting public spectacle of myself. I suspect it's too late for me to learn to drink wisely and that it would have to be all or nothing. But that terrifies me - would I be fun any more? Perhaps giving up drink takes more courage than I own.

Diana Appleyard's latest novel, Out of Love, is published by Black Swan at £6.99.