“I go back and forth about whether to drink, or cut back on drinking, or go the full way to teetotaler. Particularly for women as it is breast cancer awareness month, and so much attention is now on how alcohol can increase risk of cancers, where do you come down on this topic of alcohol?”

G: Coming to terms with the risk/benefit ratio, uncertainty, as well as being open to change when presented with new information are all part of life. So is one’s personal history. A bit of backstory may help reveal some bias. I grew up in a household where there was virtually no alcohol. There would be a small pour of red wine that came out of a large jug to accompany my father’s Sunday dinner. Rarely did I see my mother take any with her meal, or at any other time of the week. This in part was due to the family stories of problem relatives. By problem, I mean, excess drinking.

I recall my mother saying to me sometime during my formative years, that she had told my father on the day they got married, that if he ever took to drinking that she would leave him. I am pretty confident he never needed the threat, as he had seen enough collateral damage. If any of these family tales were actually true about some of their close alcoholic relations, I know he knew a drinking man’s life was not the life for him.

In my teens and twenties, I dated enough lovable bad boyfriends – you know the ones that enjoyed partying with either alcohol or pot, or who also took to cocaine and colorful pills of some kind, uppers or downers – and watched from the sidelines as they spiraled past the point of any rescuing I might effect in the moment. Their altered moods and runaway thought trains actually were never that profound, especially once the buzz lifted.

Those chemical dalliances, with all the lost hours, were for someone else. My dry phase lasted well into my thirties. I recall then that one of my closest girlfriends invited me over to her house so she could share the expensive Russian vodka and caviar she had returned with, from yet another one of her government trips. That latest one to Russia, with the White House crew, made this gesture of hospitality all the more thoughtful as I knew the accompanying stories would be great.

The only other time I recalled having vodka was when I was in college and my boyfriend served me a white Russian. It tasted like liquid ice cream, what with the kahlua and cream hiding the vodka snap. Yummy, but not life changing.

With delight, my girlfriend poured a small glass of the vodka, no ice, and handed it to me. It was all I could do to get the warm, clear spirit past my lips, as I didn’t care at all for the whiff. But I could not, would not, tell her that it was undrinkable. I recall just marveling that anyone, or millions, could ever choose to swallow this swill with gusto. Things got even more bizarre when the caviar hit my mouth. Again, offered straight. No embellishments, just a plain cracker. If my memory is correct, I about gagged. She, on the other hand, was in her glory. Probably in part because she was home and no longer in Russia where the political and economic conditions were beyond depressing. But likely happy to have the altered state of mind from the vodka, as her personal life at that moment was a bit of a hot mess.

And that’s a big key to the whole alcohol conundrum. Sometimes life gets either really hard, or else it is so damn marvelous, that one needs, or thinks they need, a libation or two or three. To either escape from the miserable moment or to live it up with glorious rapturous gratitude.

I only came around to appreciating vodka when my aunt, my father’s youngest sister, brought me a bottle of homemade limoncello. She was visiting us in D.C. at the time, and had learned how to make it after she had taken a trip to our paternal ancestral land of Italy. I wasn’t overly enamored with it at the time, but I could see the potential of the limoncello. I knew I just needed to alter it some, to make it taste more like a lemon drop than a lemon/vodka bomb.

And so began my appreciation of what has become known in my family as the “not so teeny weeny lemontini.” It is enjoyed primarily during summer. Having recently returned from a week in Paris where the champagne and wines flowed freely, and I could count on one hand the glasses I held to my lips then, I know there is a time and place and limit for all things under heaven. Yes, Paris is heaven.

My girlfriend and I have since merged appreciation of vodkas, artisan chocolates and champagnes. A passionate lover of hers, after they had broken up for good, said to her they should have drunk more champagne. He was so spot on. I think of them every time the cork pops here and the bubbles pour.

I think there’s a lesson there for all lovers of life. I learned from my wise father, whether it be vodka, champagne, wine, chocolates… all in moderation, consumed responsibly, or not at all. Now go get that breast exam.

Giselle M. Massi is the author of “We are Here for a Purpose: HOW TO FIND YOURS,” the novel “Just Dance the Steps,” and a romantacy called “WYNTER’S DREAM.” Giselle was a journalist with The Denver Post for 16 years and writes the newspaper advice column TELL GISELLE. Contact her at www.gisellemassi.com.