Swiggin' Janes

• Economic independence, changed social environment have helped break down middle-class taboos against women drinking

• Work pressures, professional responsibilities, peer pressure, make many women drink several times a week

• A plethora of bars in metro cities with weekly 바카라˜Ladies바카라™ Nights바카라™, easy availability of a wide range of drinks also fuel the drink habit

• Women drinkers account for a quarter of the Indian alcohol industry바카라™s annual 15 per cent growth

• The majority of women drinkers drink more than the 바카라˜safe alcohol limit바카라™ every week

• Alcohol has a more toxic effect on women than on men. Women are also more prone to alcohol addiction.

***

"I

Harsimran is one of thousands of urban, middle-class Indian women who head to a bar a couple of times every week, to wind down with a drink after a hard day바카라™s work, or pass the night in a hedonistic blur of potent cocktails and shots. Fuelled with their new financial independence and the increasing social tolerance of women바카라™s drinking, more urban women are drinking than before. They might begin their drinking careers with innocuous-tasting Baileys and breezers; comforting and sweet confections which, nevertheless, contain hard spirits. But they soon move on to undisguised and unabashedly stiffer drinks바카라”whisky, vodka, gin.

A number of studies, including the recently released Alcohol Atlas, are also throwing up some explosive data on the drinking patterns of Indian women. For one, never mind all those debates on whether the legal drinking age ought to be 25 or 21, many girls now start drinking in their teens. Like 19-year-old Leela. "I바카라™ve been drinking since I was 12," says the trainee in a Chennai-based ad agency. "And by the time I was 15, I바카라™d done all that 18-year-old kids do. So when my college classmates got excited about their first beer, for me, it was all pretty sedate."

What바카라™s more, more than half the number of women who drink are "binge-drinking"바카라”putting the drinks away as fast and furiously as their male counterparts. At most parties, when everybody agrees that one바카라™s level of merriment is measured in direct proportion with the number of drinks they바카라™ve downed, binge-drinking becomes almost a social obligation. It바카라™s a daunting challenge to persistently sidestep your hosts바카라™ outraged cries of "Where바카라™s your drink?" Neither does it win you any admirers. Neeti, 23, a researcher and frequent pubcrawler from Chennai, reserves her most scathing contempt for teetotallers. "Why would you come to a pub and then not drink ? That바카라™s boring!" she declares. "You risk being labelled a moralistic tightass, unable to relax. At such parties and get-togethers, sober people don바카라™t fit in."

The glass is also less full for the sober when a companionable drink together makes or breaks successful professional relationships. With colleagues, contacts, or crucially, your boss. "Before I started my job in advertising, drinking was a weekend thing and a birthday thing," observes Divya Joseph, known to her friends as DJ. "But since I started work, it바카라™s become habitual. It바카라™s become a meeting thing, to catch up with old friends; and at work, sometimes an everyday thing바카라”something the bosses do to chill, to celebrate a successful pitch with your colleagues, or to ease tension and frustration on late nights, when we바카라™re working till 2 am." The consequence? "I certainly don바카라™t drink only two nights a week."

How many fingers? At the Bootleggers Pub in Mumbai

That, in turn, is leading to even graver consequences, as Dr Atul Kakkar, general physician, has witnessed. "I바카라™ve been practising for the past 17 years, but it바카라™s only in the past five years that I바카라™ve been getting young girls in for ailments directly related to drinking: oesophagitis, gastritis, hepatitis, lack of concentration, memory problems, and minor traumas and accidents. I get nearly five female patients per month complaining of these things."

Dr Kakkar recalls one incident in particular which struck uncomfortably closer home: "Two years back, a 19-year-old girl who바카라™d passed out of the same school that I had came to me with a liver problem. When her parents left the room, she confessed that she바카라™d been drinking heavily for the past few months, since she바카라™d begun work at a call centre. That shook me; I found it difficult to believe that she was a product of the same background, the same environment, as me."

The last laugh: Serious about drinking at the Agni Bar in Delhi

But it isn바카라™t the same environment any more, not by any stretch of the imagination. It바카라™s a world where the spectacle of a tipsy woman tottering on high heels isn바카라™t confined to a Bollywood allegory of fallen virtue, but a sight so common now that it no longer raises an eyebrow. Where girls nursing pounding hangovers outdo one another with tales of how cataclysmically "wasted" they got the previous night. Where the mid-week 바카라˜Ladies바카라™ Night바카라™ orgy of free cocktails has become de rigueur in any watering hole aspiring to become the next it-bar.

And, with a quarter of the Indian alcohol industry바카라™s 15 per cent annual market growth being fuelled by women, liquor companies are constantly diversifying their arsenal to make sure women don바카라™t stray far from the bar. Advertising their wares might be banned, but this doesn바카라™t stop them from sponsoring exactly the sorts of events that attract hip young women바카라”rock concerts, club nights, parties바카라”to sample newly launched liqueurs, breezers and pre-packaged shots.

How Much Is Safe For Women?

Drinking more than 10-14 units of alcohol per week can seriously damage a woman바카라™s health. (In contrast, the safe limit for men is up to 21 units per week). Ideally, women should give a gap of a couple of days between drinking sessions. Here바카라™s how to tally up the costs that your bar tab didn바카라™t mention! By this reckoning, about 7-8 glasses of wine a week, spread over 3 drinking sessions, is safe for women.

Mug of beer바카라”1.3 units
Glass of white/red wine바카라” 1.6 units
Glass of champagne바카라”1.5 units
Single whisky바카라”1 unit
Single white rum바카라”0.9 units
Glass of Baileys liqueur바카라”0.9 units
Breezer bottle바카라”1.4 units
Tequila shot바카라”1.9 units

For the increasing number of women with the social sanction and disposable incomes to have access to this beguiling array of booze, it바카라™s hard to stop at just one or two. And, as a recent NIMHANS study on normative drinking patterns amongst Indian women has found, more than half do not stop at one or two. Instead, in a single session, the majority down twice as much as the "safe" recommended dose of alcohol (given above)바카라”for whisky-drinkers, that바카라™s a paltry two drinks.

Sadly enough, though practice might enable the ladies to quaff the hard stuff just as swiftly as their male drinking buddies without toppling to the floor, their livers don바카라™t fare quite as well. Women바카라™s livers contain smaller, more sluggish-acting amounts of alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), the enzyme that breaks down alcohol. To make matters worse, the toxic effect of alcohol on the system is intensified because women바카라™s bodies contain less body water (resulting in more concentrated blood alcohol levels), more body fat, and sex hormones.

The longer-term impacts are frightening: tissue, brain and liver damage. "One thing is beyond debate," says Dr Vivek Benegal, the deaddiction specialist behind the NIMHANS study. "And that바카라™s something women need to be aware about. They run a higher risk of developing alcohol-related problems with smaller doses of alcohol, and in a shorter drinking career."

Cheers: There are as many women as men at the Tabula Rasa in Delhi

Unlike Harsimran, with her drink-fuelled dance-a-thons, most women tend to drink for more than merely hedonistic reasons, says Dr Benegal. "The large swathe of women who drink do so to relieve a negative mood state바카라”sadness, anxiety or dysphoria바카라”unlike men, who by and large drink to feel good, and for social intercourse," he says. So, though there is no precise link between moderate social drinking and alcoholism, women who drink habitually do stand a higher chance of developing an addiction than do men.

As the NIMHANS study shows, while the number of rural and urban poor women drinking has remained more or less the same, the drinking pool has in recent years been swelled by affluent women, with their own jobs and their own sets of wheels. "They may start off drinking with a more convivial motive, to be with friends, which falls in line with the Western pattern," concedes Dr Benegal. "But the danger is that as they continue, they might tend to fall back on the Indian pattern바카라”drinking compulsively, to get drunk."

Bangalore isn't immune to the trend either, NYK Restobar

According to Raman (name changed), an ex-chairman of the New Delhi chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), this has already begun to happen. When he joined the support group 11 years ago, he hardly met any women. Now, he says, there are about 15 regular members, as well as dozens that try to join, but find they바카라™re not quite ready to quit their trysts with the tipple. "Alcoholism is like a mine lying in a field," Raman muses. "Unless you step on it, it won바카라™t go off. Earlier, everyone stayed home, but today everybody gets on the field. In my time, it was easier to get a foreign female than to get foreign whisky. Both were needed! Today you get foreign beer, wine, whisky, vodka," he pauses, as if to savour an imaginary swig of each. "And if you pass them up, you바카라™re told 바카라˜You바카라™re not drinking? Are you a stick-in-the-mud?바카라™ That바카라™s how a potential alcoholic gets hooked."

Precisely how Nupur (name changed) embarked on 11 long, unremittingly miserable years battling an alcohol addiction. The product of a sheltered upbringing, she considered alcohol "sick". But the first gin-and-lime cordial she had at a party had her singing a different tune altogether. "When I said I didn바카라™t want a drink, the host said he바카라™d make me a really nice one," recalls Nupur. "And it was! It was fresh, sweet, heady, and I couldn바카라™t taste the alcohol. It put me in a happy mood, and made it a very gay evening."

On a high: Drinking and dancing at Elevate in Noida

After returning from a pitched 10-day drinking binge in Jaipur with her husband, though, she found it impossible to cut back on the five-gin libation she바카라™d become accustomed to. "My body began craving for it!" exclaims Nupur. "I drank vodka in the afternoon, because I thought it didn바카라™t smell, and at night, I drank five or six whiskies. And after a while, the days became a blur. It didn바카라™t matter what I was drinking, I just needed to drink constantly, to get that hit." Her marriage, which was never good to begin with, fell apart completely. "At parties, I was belligerent, and I made a fool of myself with men. I ended up feeling whorish and ashamed of myself!"

A former college beauty queen, Nupur바카라™s face got bloated and her hair stringy. Old friends she ran into didn바카라™t recognise her, and when they saw what had become of her, promptly steered clear of her. When she was bedridden with a back problem and began drinking round the clock, she finally hit rock-bottom. "I could no longer eat, I was sick all the time, and one day, I started throwing up water." The dreaded trip to the doctor followed. "He told me I was alcoholic! I didn바카라™t believe him! Alcoholic, me? That was the guy on the road, with torn clothes, who바카라™d fallen into the gutter!"

Beer hug: Young women are regulars at Rouge Bar, Mumbai

Joining AA ironed out that misconception. And has helped her stick to the straight-and-narrow for the past 11 years. Nupur is a regular, immaculately coiffed and made-up presence in their weekly ladies바카라™ meetings behind a quiet church in Delhi. Here, her tightly-knit circle of fellow recovering alcoholics celebrate their sobriety over cupcakes and chicken puffs, and share tales of loss, death and the stark depths of loneliness; interspersed with frequent gossipy asides about recalcitrant cooks and husbands.

Over the past few years, the ladies have noticed a large influx of young twentysomething girls, who바카라™ve stepped up the one-new-member a year norm to more than a dozen. "But they바카라™re more like visiting faculty!" laughs Nupur. "The young ones never stay. They say, 바카라˜You enjoyed alcohol for so many years, and came in after so long, so why do you want to stop us from having our share of fun?바카라™" However, having learnt it the hard way, Nupur adds ruefully, "Alcoholism is no fun! It바카라™s an ugly, self-destructive thing." As long as they don바카라™t slide into that pass, the spirit can keep flowing.