You can’t watch Netflix (Mad Men comes to mind), Showtime, or any movie for that matter without being inundated with drinking scenes. Even HGTV has jumped on the bandwagon. Couples looking for their first house, their dream house or maybe a beach house make stupid comments like “I could see us sitting here drinking wine,” or they wait out the fabricated angst to decide what house to pick while camped-out in some bar drinking craft beers. If you play the tape forward, how many of those same couples who talk about cocktails and drink all the time will be married in ten years anyway? Probably not may. How could they be when the focus is all about the booze?

We’ve got wine and yoga at the museums; wine at the hair salons. We have bridal parties flying off to exotic locals so they can pickle their livers and up their chances for infertility—all to enjoy what amounts to three or four days of uninterrupted drinking at the beach; the bachelor parties aren’t any different.

My son had his bachelor party in Nashville, TN, and there’s no doubt that my sons and their friends all probably drank too much that weekend. My twins are twenty-seven, and my one son was perplexed by the number of forty something year old women who flocked to Nashville each weekend looking to hook-up with any young bachelor or married man they can find. My son commented that he didn’t see how those women could possibly feel good about themselves come Sunday night. I wonder if they would want to sleep with all the young bachelors if they were sober. Probably not. Their higher functioning brain would make the decisions instead of the reptilian part of the brain that takes over when alcohol is ingested.

I can’t help but think that if women would take a step back and ask themselves, is this who I want to be, maybe, just maybe,  they would take an honest appraisal and make different choices. Do they really enjoy all that drinking? With any luck, a good portion of women would answer with a resounding, no.

So what’s going on? Why is the alcohol becoming so incorporated into our lives that people are actually willing to believe life would dull, and that new house won’t be nearly as wonderful if they don’t drink ubiquitous amounts of wine, or sit camped out on decks, drinking? Why do we pose women in drinking ads to look like femme fatales—the drink in her hand staged to look like it is the magic elixir for an all-around great life?

The degree to which alcohol has ingratiated itself is worrisome. More women than ever are dying at younger and younger ages due to alcohol abuse. Women lack the chemical alcohol dehydrogenase (AHD) that helps metabolize alcohol in the body. Women have more fat, so there’s less water in the body to dilute all that booze.

I noticed that Amazon is selling koozies that look like soda labels. If you’re an adult who needs to disguise your beer, then you probably are in trouble with your drinking—unless you’re fifteen years old trying to hide beer from your parents. (Yes, fifteen is too young to drink, but after raising twin boys, I wouldn’t have been shocked by any attempts to pull a fast one). Other online retailers sell tote bags with spouts—the idea being that you can put your wine in a carrying case, heaven forbid someone go an hour without their fortification.

The shift in our culture to heavy drinking has not gone unnoticed by all. I’ve talked to a number of women who are just as distressed by the constant cocktail culture and feel they don’t belong, while others, can’t get enough. The part that disturbs me is that few people realize the joys of alcohol are but an illusion. The reality of alcohol soaked lives looks more like destroyed relationships and families. The constant preoccupation to imbibe robs the drinker of pursuing other worthy activities that could enrich their souls and the lives of the people around them. Maybe it’s time to rethink the drink.