Increasing numbers of midlife women are turning to alcohol to soothe the negative effects of perimenopause but it might be worsening their symptoms.
Every day, as the clock struck five, Mish Wright would pour herself a crisp glass of sauvignon blanc.
By the end of the evening, the better part of the bottle was gone.
"I would knock off at five o'clock with a glass of wine and then have another while I was cooking dinner, and then another while I was having dinner, and then there's not much of a bottle left," she told AAP.
Ms Wright began regularly drinking to cope with the challenges of motherhood but it gradually increased as midlife arrived.
Once she reached perimenopause, in her late 40s and early 50s, she started noticing negative effects.
"My body just couldn't cope with the alcohol as well; I wasn't sleeping well," the Melbourne woman said.
Regular check-ups and blood tests did not detect any issues with Ms Wright's drinking but she began experiencing episodes of deja vu.
An MRI showed her brain was in excellent condition, and she thought: "Why on earth am I throwing that away by drinking?'"
Once she gave up alcohol, her disordered sleeping and wellbeing rapidly improved.
"I feel like alcohol over-promises and underdelivers, and it's just easier to be abstinent," Ms Wright said.
Addiction specialist Chris Davis said most of his patients were women in their late-30s to early 50s, which surprised him considering men were twice as likely to have an alcohol use disorder.
But as he looked further into it, he understood why.
The face of risky drinking in Australia has "quietly changed", says the co-founder of telehealth alcohol and drug treatment service Clean Slate Clinic.
Risky drinking behaviours in middle-aged women, between 45 and 60, significantly increased between 2001 and 2019, data from the National Drug Strategy Household Survey shows.
Chris Davis was surprised to find most of his patients were women in their late 30s to early 50s.
A Macquarie University study of women aged over 40 last year found many were using alcohol to cope with hidden perimenopausal anxiety.
Declining levels of progesterone during perimenopause can lead to women receiving less GABA — an inhibitory hormone in the brain — which can cause more stress and anxiety, Dr Davis said.
"It's inextricably linked," he said.
"Alcohol also stimulates production of GABA and that's how alcohol relaxes us through that same pathway as progesterone.
However, he said health professionals were still looking for risky drinking behaviours in men and not women, which meant midlife women were falling between the gaps.
"The problem is for women, because of their body composition, they have what we call a telescoping effect," Dr Davis said.
"Females get greater harm from alcohol because they can't metabolise it as well as their male counterparts, they more quickly become dependent upon alcohol and they more quickly develop the harms from alcohol."
Dr Davis encouraged women to question whether alcohol was beneficial for them, as just one less drink could improve overall health.
