It is 6pm, dinner is on the go and you reach into the fridge for a bottle of wine. One glass while cooking feels like a familiar end-of-day routine. You are staying home and have no intention of getting drunk — it is simply part of unwinding.
By midlife, many people are more conscious of their wellbeing than they were at 30. They may walk regularly, make healthier food choices, monitor blood pressure and try to protect their sleep. But the nightly glass of wine can easily avoid that same level of attention.
After the age of 50, however, alcohol can affect the body in ways that differ from earlier decades — even when the serving size has not changed.
What happens after the first sip?
And the effects of that first drink begin surprisingly quickly.
Cardiologist Professor Hosen Kiat tells Daily Mail that alcohol is absorbed rapidly from the first sip, entering the bloodstream and reaching the brain within minutes.
Meanwhile, the liver starts processing the alcohol. This process creates acetaldehyde, a toxic chemical linked to cancer, before an enzyme known as aldehyde dehydrogenase — or ALDH — converts it into less harmful substances.
This sequence occurs whenever alcohol is consumed, at any age. What shifts over time is the body’s capacity to manage it.
Ageing is often accompanied by losses in muscle mass and body water, alongside an increase in body fat. Professor Kiat says the body may also metabolise alcohol less efficiently. Combined, these changes can mean the same drink produces a higher blood-alcohol concentration than it did years earlier.
The wine in your glass may be exactly the same, but the body drinking it is not.
As Kiat explains, a single glass can have a far stronger effect at 50 or 60 than it did at 25.
Georgia Foster, a clinical hypnotherapist and behavioural change practitioner, say as we get older, drinking often moves away from pubs, parties and big nights out and into the home, where it can slip quietly ‘under the radar’
Your 50-year-old body isn’t your 25-year-old body
Feeling the effects of that glass sooner isn’t the only difference you might notice. Alcohol can affect balance, judgement and memory, while higher amounts can raise blood pressure and trigger palpitations or irregular heart rhythms.
And if you’re pouring a glass because it helps you relax at the end of the day, there’s another catch.
‘Alcohol may briefly blunt stress, but the effect is short-lived,’ Kiat says. ‘The consequences can show up quickly through poorer sleep or increased anxiety.’
Medication can complicate things further. Alcohol can alter the effects of some drugs and make others more potent, including sleeping tablets, sedatives, pain medicines and certain blood pressure and diabetes medications. It can also interact with some antibiotics.
For women after menopause, that nightly glass may come with another set of considerations.
‘Alcohol can disrupt sleep and worsen hot flushes, while even low levels of alcohol consumption are associated with an increased risk of breast cancer,’ Kiat says.
What if ‘one glass’ is every night?
Of course, one glass of wine with dinner is very different from a big night of drinking. But Kiat says it is also worth looking at how often that one glass is being poured.
‘One or two drinks most nights may not feel excessive, but alcohol-related harm is cumulative, particularly when it comes to cancer and liver disease,’ he says.
Australian guidelines recommend healthy adults have no more than 10 standard drinks a week and no more than four on any one day. They also make clear that drinking within those limits doesn’t remove all risk: the less alcohol you drink, the lower your risk of harm.
Kiat also dismisses the idea that wine deserves a health halo because of its antioxidants.
‘If I want the antioxidants in grapes, I eat the grapes,’ he says. ‘The ethanol carries the same health risks regardless of the drink it is disguised in.’
One glass can feel much stronger at 50 or 60 than it did at 25, cardiologist Professor Hosen Kiat says
Daily drinking also becomes increasingly common as we age. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare figures show 6.5 per cent of people in their 50s drink daily, rising to 8.5 per cent in their 60s and 11.7 per cent among those aged 70 and over.
But before you start counting the glasses in your week, there is another question worth asking: did you actually decide you wanted the one in your hand?
Did you actually decide to pour it?
For Georgia Foster, a clinical hypnotherapist and behavioural change practitioner who created the online 7 Days to Drink Less program, that question gets to something people can easily overlook.
As we get older, she says, drinking often moves away from pubs, parties and big nights out and into the home, where it can slip quietly ‘under the radar’. Wine becomes something you pour while making dinner, or when you finally sit down after work. Before long, 5pm itself can become a cue.
‘You might be chopping your vegetables and then suddenly think, ‘Where did that glass of wine go?” Foster says.
After years of repeating the same ritual, reaching for the bottle can become so familiar that there is very little conscious thought involved.
What one glass of wine really means after 50
1. The same drink can hit harder
With less muscle and body water as we age, the same amount of alcohol can produce a higher blood-alcohol concentration.
2. It can interfere with sleep
Alcohol can fragment sleep and worsen snoring, while for women after menopause it may also worsen hot flushes.
3. Your medications may matter
Alcohol can interact with sleeping tablets, pain medicines and some blood pressure and diabetes medications.
4. One glass may be more than one drink
A standard drink is 100ml of 13 per cent wine, but a generous home pour can contain considerably more.
5. Nightly drinking adds up
One or two drinks may not feel excessive, but regular drinking increases your overall alcohol exposure, and with it the risk of conditions including cancer and liver disease.
‘It’s a bit like getting in the car and driving,’ she says. ‘The mind has already made the decision before they know what they’re doing because it is autopilot.’
That doesn’t necessarily mean someone has a drinking problem. Foster says some people reach for alcohol in response to stress, anxiety, boredom or loneliness, while for others it is largely habit. Often, it is a mixture of both.
For Foster, the useful part is noticing what happened just before you reached for the bottle.
Ask yourself why you want it
Rather than starting with how much you drink, Foster suggests paying attention to what sits behind the routine. For one person it may be stress, for another boredom or loneliness. For someone else, there may be no great emotional explanation at all. The wine has simply become part of making dinner.
Once you know what is driving it, breaking the routine can be surprisingly practical. If 5pm usually means wine, Foster suggests doing something different at that time: go for a walk, call a friend or head to the gym. Move the alcohol from its usual spot, pour something else while you cook, or simply postpone the first glass for an hour.
The point is to put some space between the thought of having a drink and automatically acting on it.
And Foster isn’t suggesting everyone needs to give up alcohol altogether. For some people, drinking less is enough. What matters is being able to make that decision consciously.
As she puts it, people want to reach a point where they can ‘manage it rather than it manages them’.
Before you pour the glass
So tonight, when 6pm rolls around and you find yourself reaching for the bottle while dinner is on the stove, Foster isn’t necessarily suggesting you put it back.
She is asking you to notice that moment before the wine reaches the glass.
‘Sit down and just pause for a few moments and ask yourself, what is this actually going to give me?’ she says. ‘Is it space? Is it silence? Is it calm?’
