I thought this topic might be interesting to those of you who are recalibrating your alcohol intake after the holidays. Several of you asked if I’m participating in dry or damp January. I’m not changing my habits specifically for January, but my year-round goal is to enjoy wine just three nights a week, and on those nights I aim for a maximum of two glasses.
Although December was a challenge given my heavy social calendar (just kidding about the social calendar bit), I’ve generally been able to stick to this. I feel great and at peace with my own relationship with alcohol. I also feel that I moved from the anesthetic back to the aesthetic of wine: enjoying it mostly for its sensory pleasures, not the buzz. But hey, I’m human. Sometimes, I fail and start again.
Of all the interviews I’ve done for the book, this one with Alan Neal, host of CBC’s All In A Day show, was the toughest, deepest and most rewarding. Please take a listen:
Alan challenged me on the most difficult parts of the book. Both he and I (separately) have heard back from hundreds of people with moving stories about their own struggles.
Cheers,
Natalie
You can get Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much
Alan: Well, in her latest book, Natalie MacLean describes at one point waking up on the living room sofa asking “How did I get here? When did everyone go home? Oh my god, what did I say? What did they think?”
The reason she can’t remember is tied to the reason Natalie MacLean became famous as a drinker of wine. But in the memoir, Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much, well it’s right there in the title.
MacLean realizes her drinking is out of control. It’s a book that also explores the period of MacLean’s professional life where she was called out for reposting other writers’ work on her website without fully crediting them, which we’ll explain more in just a moment. And then, all the other sexist attacks that followed that.
And it’s a book where she says near the end “I didn’t want to share this story. I couldn’t even look at notes. I’d locked away for years. It was too exposing, too shameful.” Natalie MacLean is with me in studio. Hi there.
Natalie: Hi Alan, great to be here with you.
Alan: That word shameful, what did you think was shameful in this story?
Natalie: I guess just that as a wine professional, I couldn’t control my own intake. And I was among friends and family, but that thing about waking up, it’s a blackout. You’ve consumed too much wine and you don’t remember certain parts of the evening. You do wonder what you did, what you said.
It was my lowest of low points really. It’s what really kicked me into re-examining my relationship with wine and alcohol, to getting help through therapy, to changing my habits. But yes, the shame was there. It was just something. I don’t know maybe it’s because I come from the Maritimes and what I grew up with was “what will other people think”.
Alan: Right.
Natalie: Living by that, which is also not healthy. I couldn’t live with that shame and guilt.
Alan: Just an example of this sort of thing that you’re reexamining, there’s a point where you talk about pre-drinking in the book where you have to have a glass of wine at home to sand the edges down and before one is actually going out and drinking in public or having people over or whatever. And I wondered, just using that as something that you were re-examining, why you think it didn’t seem like a problem before? Why did it seem like just re-examining? Like what one does?
Natalie: Well, and a lot of people do it, the pre-drinking. It’s drinking. Let’s call it for what it is. I’m an introvert. I’m shy. I’m prone to anxiety. So I was using it to sort of, by the time I got to the restaurant, I would be nice and relaxed and more social, against my natural inhibitions. But, you know, what really stopped me in my tracks was my partner said I see what you’re doing. You’re having this glass of wine, but what happens is we’re not on the same plain when we get to the restaurant. You’re one drink ahead of me or everybody else, which is exactly where I wanted to be.
Alan: I thought that was a really interesting point. We’re not on the same plain. Why do you need to be in a different space?
Natalie: Exactly and to not really be in the social situation. I mean, if you’re, if you really want to be with people, you’re not trying to narcotize yourself out of being there. Now, I’ve tried to change that to a pre-game plan. So I kind of mentally think well before I go to the restaurant there’s no glass of wine, but I also decide I’m going to have two glasses of wine and that’s it. Then I’m going to order chamomile tea. And so when I get there, I’m not all anxious looking for the server going, where, where is my wine? Because I’ve settled into it, I’ve realized okay this is my pre-game plan.
Alan: Only having two.
Natalie: Yeah, I’m only having two.
Alan: You talk in the book about the way the wine is marketed to women, but also just this idea that professional women you’re rewarding yourself with a glass of wine. I told myself I deserved that glass or four at the end of the day. I deserve it implies, since no one else is going to even the score, you’ll do it yourself. I wonder what in that element, when you were able to stop thinking in terms of I deserved this or that this was what you deserved.
Natalie: You know, either I deserved it and no one was thanking mom, so mom will thank herself with another drink. Or, as a reward, a carrot, saying if I do one more hour of mind-numbing email, I get to have a glass of wine while I’m doing it. And neither are healthy ways to live. In terms of realizing, I guess there was just a series of little habits. I mean, the waking up on the couch was the realization.
Alan: Yes
Natalie: But then I backtracked and thought okay there’s this pre-drinking going on before I go to a restaurant. There’s this one more glass of wine or as a reward. They were all starting to add up to, you know, I don’t have a healthy relationship with wine. And for me, I didn’t have a problem with wine for 14 years.
Alan: Yes.
Natalie: And then it was this bad vintage, and I started using it that way.
Alan: Now, it was also this – this bad vintage that we’re talking about – was this period where you come into conflict over the posting of other people’s work on your site, which I remembered as accusations of plagiarism. It was a little different. You were reposting others’ work with their initials and then this directory that would tell people who wrote it, because you say in the book, others were doing this. But you do eventually say in the book, I’d let my competitive instinct get out of control. I should never have started posting other writers’ reviews on my site, let alone not spelling out the writer’s full name. It didn’t matter who else was doing it or that I became a lightning rod for the issue. I was wrong.
Natalie: Yes.
Alan: Was that a tough line to write?
Natalie: Absolutely. Admitting where you were wrong and taking responsibility. It was. This, the memoir, takes place 10 years ago, back in the heyday of aggregators like Huffington Post and Rotten Tomatoes and aggregating reviews and that sort of thing. But again you know that was the context, but not an excuse. So yes, it was difficult.
Alan: I mean, it takes a while on the book to get to that. It was like page 212 when you have the revelation, when we read the revelation I should say. You could have put it way earlier in the book and said look mea culpa. I screwed up here. Why did you feel like it had to come so late in the book?
Natalie: Well, I opened the book, as you know, Alan, because you’ve done a careful read. I can tell which I thank you for that. I open it in the middle of this meltdown where I’m finding out about it.
Alan: Yes.
Natalie: And then I back up and, as you say, you don’t come back to it till later in the book. And I guess the context mattered to me. Again, not trying to make excuses or explanations, but give kind of the background so that – it is a memoir – so people are understanding where I come from, how I was reacting. But in the end, it’s, it’s, it’s not what happened to you, it’s what you did with it.
Alan: Once you realized, okay wait I was wrong here. What shifted for you?
Natalie: Well first of all my actions changed. I took all the reviews off the site that I had been quoting from other writers. That was the first thing. But and realized that I’m never going to do that again. But I guess I just had to step back and think, why did I do it in the first place? It’s that, that it’s not just being competitive, it’s that sense of never being enough. Like, it wasn’t enough that I had a good website or published a couple books. It’s just that always like nope, that’s not enough. I’m not enough. So, I’ll have to do what these other websites, other wine sites, were doing. You know, quoting reviews. I better do that too or else it’s not going to be enough. And so, all of these external indicators, really, you know, I have to step back and say, hey, it’s, it’s, it’s I’m not enough so and I have to kind of change that mindset of maybe I am enough, and this is okay.
Alan: Well and then, at the same time, you have these male wine writers piling on at the point, afterwards, and you get into exactly how sexist these responses are. They’re talking about your breasts. They’re talking about how you need a spanking. Calling you black boots and leather with a whip, encouraging reviewer guys to come more often. Were women standing up for you at this point?
Natalie: Privately.
Alan: But not publicly.
Natalie: No, well a few had posted and they got jumped on online.
Alan: Yeah.
Natalie: And I just…
Alan: I want to emphasize, it’s not up to women to do this. I was curious.
Natalie: Sure.
Alan: But that’s not it, I realized that could be interpreted as me saying where were the women in all of this? But could you have gone to the guys’ bosses? Because these were not online anonymous trolls. These were wine writers. Someone working for Seattle Times, Sonoma, et cetera. Would their bosses have reacted if you’d said, excuse me do you see what this person is writing?
Natalie: Well, in the middle of the vortex, I just did not want to add more fuel to the fire. It was just and frankly I had retreated way back into my, whatever, primeval brain. I was not executing with my better judgment. I just wanted it to go away and whatever I could do to make it stop, though that was out of my control. But, after a few other women posted and had, had the sort of mob turn on them, I just suggested to others, look I appreciate your support but don’t, don’t go there.
Alan: Don’t do it.
Natalie: Don’t do it.
Alan: Yeah.
Natalie: Because it. Nothing died down except for when they found the next woman to go after and I was not feeling in any position or strength to defend, though I did email her privately. But that’s, that’s how it goes. I mean, that’s. And to your question, could I have contacted these men’s bosses? But, you know, they may write for the Seattle Times or wherever, but they’re all freelancers. So they’re not under any sort of employee strictures or HR department guidelines or whatever. But I just didn’t want to keep stirring the hornet’s nest more than that.
Alan: So, there is a scene, though, where eventually you go and meet some of these male wine critics at a tasting event in Toronto. And none of them talk to you. None of them confront you. You give the example of one saying – this is the former journalism prof who had fearlessly characterized me as a leather-leather-bound dominatrix, urging male critics to ejaculate, now he can’t even ask me to move down one spot on the counter. Social media gave men these courage, but when faced with the reality of the woman they attacked, they’re silent.
It’s a fascinating moment in the book. I know what we were building towards at that point. But would you been able to confront them? Would you’ve been able to turn to him and say, “Hey, it’s me the dominatrix.” or say anything to them. I’m not saying you should have, I am asking I’m asking what was your empowerment at that point.
Natalie: Hmm. Well, I barely could get the door open to that tasting lab. My hands were sweating so much. I guess my moment of literally standing up to them came when I stepped inside that room. I had never met any of them, but I knew they were in there because they had all signed in on the sign-in sheet. So I knew the names and how they correlated to social media. And I didn’t run to my seat or hide behind my laptop. I just stood there for what felt like an hour, but it was probably a minute. And I just looked at each one of them. I didn’t say anything, but I looked at them until they looked away. And for me, that was a huge sense of closure. To me, that was my stand.
Alan: It’s interesting because the way they characterize you is through, you know, your body and as this sexual object. And you point out in the book that the way women in general have been characterized – both by externally and also by what women in the business do to themselves – continues that idea. This idea of referring to yourselves as wine chicks. Wine goddesses, wine divas, wine dolls, and you realize you’ve described yourself as Chief of…
Natalie: Wine Happiness. And a wine witch, by the way.
Alan: And a wine witch, yeah. But you say, asking why women belittle themselves with cutesy names. Your words in this. Why do you think you did it? Why, why was it not just wine writer versus and why women feel that pressure to, as you say, cutesify it.
Natalie: Cutesify it. Not take up a lot of space. Not be a threat to, especially the male writers. Some of them. Not all of them, of course. But I think it ties into not feeling that you’re enough. You’re also diminishing yourself at the same time. You kind of shrink behind these cutes, like I’m no threat to, I’m just, you know, hahaha. I think owning your authority as a wine critic or whatever field you’re in is also part of realizing you’re enough. They go together. And if you can put those two halves together, which I attempted to do and still attempt to do it on a daily basis, I think that puts you in a better mindset.
Alan: There is one point in the book where you’re debating about taking an entire bottle of Zoloft and you say, how could I live in a world with people who hate me so much? I mean, this sounds suicidal to me in terms of what you’re describing there. And it comes at the end of a chapter and then the next chapter somewhat moves on from that idea. But I was kind of sitting there going on my gosh did Natalie get help that? In particular, because I mean the idea that you were even toying with the idea that, because of all this online hate, maybe you shouldn’t be around anymore. Did you get help for that part?
Natalie: Oh, yes, absolutely. It was after that thought that I opened up to my family. Because this all, this online mess had been going on for a week around Christmas and – you know, my nightmare before Christmas – and I was keeping it all to myself because I thought I can handle this, I don’t want them to be involve or to bring them down during the holidays or to worry about me. But I thought, if I’m having thoughts like that, I need to I absolutely need to open up and get their support.
And that is also, you know, when I really started leaning hard on therapy as well. But, yeah, it was, it was a pretty low point. It’s just, it’s hard to imagine because people think it’s social media just turn it off, sticks and stones will break my bones. I mean, but when you earn you’re living online, it’s, it’s no easier to avoid that than, you know, say a doctor can operate outside the hospital. It’s your environment, socially and professionally. And then still it’s hard to imagine when you are being mobbed what it feels like at the centre, because everyone just sees the, whatever, the stone they throw but they don’t see how it adds up.
Alan: Right, how many other people are throwing the stones…
Natalie: Exactly.
Alan:… at the same time. I wanted lastly just to say then, on Christmas all these years later, we started talking about shame, and how we were worried about putting this out there.
Natalie: Yes.
Alan: Do you still get worried about people reading it or what now is that feeling about all of what we’ve been talking about being out there?
Natalie: Yeah. Well, you know, so much has been written about this and about me, and yet I’m a writer. Don’t I get to write my last chapter? You know, because I think in the future, if my son is Googling my name, what’s the legacy that’s out there?
Alan: Natalie, fantastic to talk to you today.
Natalie: Thank you, Alan.
Alan: Thank for being here.
Natalie: Cheers.
Alan: Natalie MacLean’s book Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much is published by Dundurn Press. I have two autographed copies to give away if you can tell me which Tim Burton movie she made a reference to, the title of the Tim Burton movie that she made a reference to during that interview. [email protected]
