Sometimes one cannot help feeling that we are worrying about the wrong things, and there's a lot of worrying going on at the moment. Yesterday one newspaper published a list of discernible signs of a recession. "Estate agents are polite to you" was a personal favourite, although "You buy the supermarket's own-brand vodka" is probably more revealing.
Because while your responsible middle-aged couple is worrying about the state of the markets and its impact on that second house which seemed like such a good investment at the time, scientists are worrying about the speed with which your responsible middle-aged couple is swilling through the drink.
In a recalibration that is as sudden as it is unfair, they have reduced the amount that constitutes a unit of alcohol. They say that this is a response to the wider availability of much stronger wines, and to the enormous size of those new wine glasses.
As someone who has just spent an unhappy 10 minutes in the kitchen with three wine glasses and a measuring jug filled with water, I am here to tell you that a measure of 250ml is the norm in Irish homes. The bad news is that 250ml now constitutes three units of alcohol.
Although responsible middle-aged couples quite enjoy muttering about teenage drinking, and tut-tut over pictures of scantily clad young women lying in the gutter, in Britain the Office of National Statistics has found that men in managerial and professional jobs drink more, and more often, than those in manual jobs.
The higher up the managerial ladder you are, the more you are likely to drink. And women in senior management were found to be drinking proportionately more again.
"That's because they have to work with men in senior management," said a friend of mine darkly.
This survey was conducted in Britain - imagine what the truth must be here.
"Of course I manage my stress through alcohol," said one senior manager yesterday. "I've no idea how strong the wine is, I never look at the label. Just as long as it's under €10."
This is hardly the cafe society so fondly imagined by Michael McDowell, is it? The key question now facing many middle-aged couples is whether to open the second bottle.
"When you're on the first bottle you feel kind of French," said our senior manager. And, God knows, it is true.
There is an enduring belief here that wine is hardly drink at all, what with it being so sophisticated and everything. This is a generational thing. Only grown-ups believe that alcohol is a blessing when it is consumed with the antipasto, but a curse when it is washing down a party pack of Tayto.
It's terrible if you're staggering out of the nightclub but it's fine if you're staggering up the stairs.
We have never really come to terms with the fact that wine is not actually what French women live on - that would be yoghurt. In our little world alcopops are a scourge but Prosecco is simply a lovely idea.
You can see this in the middle-aged generation's attitudes to drink driving. While the young have it beaten into them that they can have no alcohol at all while in charge of a vehicle, and generally they make their arrangements accordingly, their elders are prepared, if push comes to shove, to wobble on to the dual carriageway after three glasses of wine. Sure you have to get home, and your responsible middle-aged couple, price conscious to the last, has always had a combative relationship with the taxi industry.
You see, we're the ones who have had to, as they say, manage change. We were the first Irish people to domesticate drink. We were born into a country of binge drinkers and pub drinkers.
But then everyone told us that we should drink like Europeans, slow and steady through the week. So now we have a situation where
we are drinking slow and steady through the week and then going out when there's a bit of a party and throwing in a bit of binge drinking as well.
In terms of alcohol we have managed to take our place as members of the wider European community while retaining our unique national traditions - result!
Certainly there are responsible middle-aged couples who do not drink during the working week; it's just that I don't know very many. The responsible middle-aged couples I know are having a gin once the kids are in bed. In fact, many of the responsible middle-aged couples I know reverse the no-weekday-drinking pattern and don't go out at weekends, particularly during the Irish winter; they are too knackered, they are too busy with domestic tasks, they stay at home and drink instead.
It will be interesting to see if this recession affects middle-aged drinking. The new parsimony might mean that people economise on their wine consumption, but then again hell might freeze over. Middle-aged drinking is now a private matter, no longer a social pursuit. They're going to have to take those big wine glasses from our cold, dead hands.