Ayla Chorley, CEO Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education; September 2026 link
For years, alcohol has been sold to women as a reward for getting through the day. But as many midlife women realise it’s taking more that it gives, is it time to rethink our relation ship with alcohol? A consistent lie told by the alcohol industry to women is that having a glass of wine is an act of ‘self-care’.
It’s a clever trick of marketing that uses the language of empowerment to convince us that “wine o’clock” is the reward we deserve just for surviving. It was a privilege to be invited to contribute to this story in The Australian Women’s Weekly alongside many women who generously shared their own experiences of drinking to cope with life stress. What they describe are the very real pressures many women are facing – juggling careers, children, caring responsibilities and so much invisible labour – and how alcohol is pitched to them as a friend they can lean on. That exhaustion and sense of erasure are exactly what the alcohol industry has been incredibly deft at tapping into. They position a glass of wine as something women have earned at the end of a tough day, but fail to mention all the ways in which drinking can actually deplete our already stretched resources.
When alcohol is rebranded as self-care, it can make it really difficult to know when drinking has become a problem, particularly when we’ve created such reductive stereotypes about what alcohol dependence looks like. As I said in this piece, alcohol addiction can look like somebody going to work every single day. Being an incredible mum. Being a loving partner.
Shame means many women internalise their struggles for fear of being judged if they ask for help. Society still views men’s drinking very differently from women’s. Mothers worry they’ll be seen as a bad mum or as someone who’s failing.
Alcohol companies have intentionally shifted their marketing focus to women, conveniently obscuring from view that their product is a Group 1 carcinogen linked to seven types of cancer, including breast cancer.
I hope articles like this one go some way to changing the conversation and giving women the knowledge and role models they need to make informed choices about alcohol, free from misleading marketin