Gwyneth Paltrow is sharing her personal experience with using alcohol as a coping mechanism during a particularly difficult time.
In a recent conversation with Dr Mary Claire Haver on The Goop Podcast, Paltrow opened up about her struggles with menopause symptoms and how she turned to alcohol during the devastating Los Angeles wildfires.
“I’m really in the thick of it right now, so I’m all over the place,” Paltrow said, referring to her menopause symptoms.
“But I noticed my symptoms are, like, pretty well under control unless, you know, in January when the fires were happening in LA. I’ve, like, used alcohol for its purpose. I was medicating.”
Although Paltrow and her husband, Brad Falchuk, were not directly affected by the January fires that ravaged the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, they have many close friends who lost everything in the disaster.
The actress admitted that she experienced “deep grief” after the fires and turned to alcohol as a way to cope.
“I think I drank every night,” Paltrow said. “Normally, now at this point, I don’t drink a lot at all. Maybe I’ll have one drink a week.”
However, Paltrow found that her menopausal symptoms were exacerbated by her increased alcohol consumption. “They were completely out of control,” she said. “It was the first time I really noticed, like, causation in that way.”
Dr Haver responded to Paltrow’s admission by sharing her own observations about the effects of alcohol on menopausal women.
“Lots of my patients say the same thing. They’ve really just spontaneously realized that they’ve cut back on alcohol or just quit altogether because it just hasn’t been worth it. They don’t bounce back the same way. It stays in our system a lot longer.”
The Los Angeles wildfires had a devastating impact on the community, with dozens of celebrities among the tens of thousands who lost their homes and businesses. At least 29 people lost their lives in the disaster.
