Body & Mind

If you are reading this, you will never drink again

“May, your last wine photo on Instagram is from August last year.” Lotte, our designer, is a bit lamenting because she has no recent images of me with a glass in my hand. Now, it’s not that I haven’t drunk since August (don’t overestimate me in this regard), but I’ve become a bit more cautious about posting drink selfies. Partly because I once had a small spat with a girl who thought I shouldn’t say anything about alcohol photos of candidates from Holland’s Next Top Model while I myself was often standing with a glass in my hand. I countered with a tally of all the juices versus the alcoholic drinks (juices were far in the majority), but it did make me think. Furthermore, my magazine mom Harriet Calo worried from a distance (“Say May, aren’t you drinking too much?”) and thirdly, you’re not always at your best after three sips of wine. In short, the drink selfies are no longer a constant in my feed.

And I must also honestly say that I have adjusted my intake pattern a bit. My strict yet fair trainer Richard repeats his mantra ‘Abs are made in the kitchen’, so if possible, I skip that little glass. In HP/De Tijd, I read the article titled ‘The Last Glass’ and I’ll tell you: if you read that, you’ll drink a lot less. I will share the highlights with you. It helps you to choose tonic without gin, or cola without the tic when you’re on the terrace.

  • Those who drink one glass of wine per day will die sooner than those who do not drink.
  • One glass of wine shortens your life by half an hour.
  • In 2017, we drank 7 liters of pure alcohol per person (including babies, the elderly, and people who actually don’t drink).
  • That amounts to 517 glasses of wine, beer, or spirits per person.
  • If you are 40 years old (yay) and you casually drink three glasses a day (yay yay) and you halve your intake pattern (okay okay okay), then you will live one to two years longer.

So dear life enjoyers, shall we just order a juice? My best distraction is the Fever-Tree Tonic Light. And then we can just imagine the gin.