Introduction

Alcohol use among older people is a neglected area in research, policy and practice. A large amount of government and media attention on alcohol has been focused on younger people's drinking and in particular on binge drinking and antisocial behaviour in public spaces. When we think about the problematic use of alcohol, we do not tend to think about older people, even though there are indications that drinking is increasing in the older population and that it may be the source of problems for some (NHS Information Centre, 2008; Smith and Foxcroft, 2009; Triggle, 2009). The very restricted research about older people's experience of alcohol means that their reasons for drinking and the kinds of services for and responses they would like to see to alcohol-related health and social problems are not well documented.

This chapter draws on a study that sought to understand the role of alcohol in the lives of older people without starting from the assumption that it is necessarily a problem. The aim was to provide a perspective that previous research has tended to neglect, namely, understanding people's life journeys as they get older, the kinds of issues they face, their problems and concerns and how alcohol may relate to these factors. It was a small qualitative study that involved both men and women in their 50s to 80s, but here we consider the perspectives of the women who took part. We explore how older women talk about the place of alcohol in their lives to consider the ways in which there are both problematic and positive aspects to this.

Within gerontological research, consideration of alcohol use is almost entirely focused on clinical and biomedical questions about the impact of alcohol on the ageing body and the extent to which it contributes to degenerative processes and cognitive function (Johnson, 2000; Peters et al, 2008; Plant and Plant, 2008). There is also a limited but growing body of work from health and social care practice, which deals with issues of working with older people who may have problematic alcohol use (Simpson et al, 1994; Herring and Thom, 1997a, 1997b; Klein and Jess, 2002).