At Drinking Diaries, we firmly believe that everyone would be better off crafting a conscious drinking (or non-drinking) life, based on family history, personal preference, health, and many other factors.

If you are concerned about your drinking, or if you’re going through a period where you feel you’re drinking too much, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re an alcoholic and have to quit drinking forever. You may have developed a habit that isn’t serving you well, in which case, you might consider cutting down. You may be drinking because you’ve just gone through a traumatic life situation, or perhaps you’re in college and many of your friends binge drink for fun.

The point is: Women’s relationships with alcohol are multitudinous, and there is no one-size-fits all program.

A new book by Christopher Kennedy Lawford, Recover to Live, respects the fact that there is “a continuum of substance use from none at all, through harmful use, to addiction. It is much more complicated…substance-use behavior patterns are not either/or, nor black/white.” (p.xiii)

In the book, Lawford, who has been in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction for over 26 years, interviews over 100 of the top addiction experts in the world and presents all the options for treatment, from self diagnosis to Moderation Management, holistic treatment to group therapy, and everything in between.

You may be familiar with some of the research, questionnaires, and suggestions in this book, but most likely you will also come across something new. Here’s a taste of just one of the many ideas in this book:

“Your 30-Day Challenge for Alcohol”

(developed by Andrea G. Barthwell, MD, FASAM)

Do you have a bad habit or a dependency? Here is another chance to find out.

You’ve answered the questionnaires for this toxic compulsion. You’ve read through what the experts have to say and thought about the extent to which you exhibit the behaviors associated with either a nondependent use disorder or a dependency.

Do you still have any doubt whether you have just a bad habit, or whether your behavior meets the criteria for a dependency?

Create a 30-day challenge for yourself.

Your challenge is to have two drinks every day for a solid month, whether you want to or not. But no more than two drinks a day!

That means either:

• Two 12-ounce beers a day;
• Or two 6-ounce glasses of wine;
• Or two 1-ounce shots of hard liquor.

If you’re a nondependent user, you will find it difficult to actually complete a month of daily drinking. Someone with a drinking problem will not only meet the challenge but may well drink more than the two-drink-a-day quota.

Meeting this challenge of drinking every day doesn’t mean that you do or don’t have a problem, but it’s safe to say that if you are unable to drink every day, you probably don’t qualify as a problem drinker.

If at the end of this challenge you sense that you really do have a problem, the next step is up to you. Treatment is probably something you need to consider.

Excerpted with permission from Recover to Live: Kick Any Habit, Manage Any Addiction by Christopher Kennedy Lawford, available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, and Indiebound. 

We’re giving away one copy of the book. To enter, please leave a comment in the comments section, with your email address. Please indicate that you’ve tweeted or facebooked about this contest, and we’ll pick a winner by drawing a name at random. 

For those of you confronting addiction issues during the holiday season, your own or others’, SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) is a great resource.

Every year, they launch a different, recovery-related theme in September, with “Recovery Month,” which continues throughout the year. This year’s theme, “Join the Voices for Recovery: It’s Worth It,” emphasizes the same core principle as the Drinking Diaries blog: Sharing your stories is the key to helping yourself and others.

This is the idea behind the drinking interviews we post every Wednesday on the blog: You never know whose story you might identify with, or who you might learn from. For someone who comes from a family of heavy drinkers, it might be a revelation that some families are indifferent to alcohol. For someone who is baffled by our culture’s fixation with drinking, it might be illuminating to read about why some women love to drink, and how they manage their drinking lives.

The website, RecoveryMonth.gov is full of helpful tips, links and information. For example, it led me  to an article that described the most useful addiction apps (Pocket Sponsor, iPromises, and Anne–12 Step Program Apps).

Here are some other things to do and read on the website:

1) Share your own story (anonymously or not) as part of their Voices for Recovery.

2) Help SAMHSA gather useful information by taking an anonymous Recovery Survey.

3) The Recovery Toolkit provides important resources and information. For example, you can find guidance in setting up recovery-themed events, such as a Recovery Walk.

4) Connect with SAMHSA on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

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One night, Julie Kroll, a thirty-nine year old mother, stumbles away from a minor car accident, leaving behind her eight-year old daughter… and an open container of alcohol. As darkness descends, she disappears.

Julie’s story is the centerpiece of a new documentary, Lipstick & Liquor, about suburban women battling alcohol addiction. The film will have its Los Angeles premiere today at 3pm during the REEL Recovery Film Festival at the Laemmle Monica4-Plex in Santa Monica.

We caught up with the film’s Emmy award-winning director, Lori Butterfield, to ask her some questions about this groundbreaking documentary.

Drinking Diaries: What drew you to the subject of women and drinking? 

Lori Butterfield: My interest in raising awareness about women’s alcohol abuse and alcoholism began with the story of Diane Schuler.  In the summer of 2009, Diane made headlines after killing eight people, including herself, while driving the wrong way on the Taconic Parkway in Westchester County, New York. Toxicology reports revealed she was both drunk and stoned, but her family vehemently denied that Diane had a problem.  How could someone hide their alcoholism so well that their own family had no idea?

In November of that year, I was working on a production project with the Ad Council about Buzzed Driving and read a startling statistic –the number of DUI arrests for women had shot up more than 30 % in the last decade while the rate for men was going down. Binge drinking for women was also on the rise.  Something was clearly happening in our society, but I hadn’t yet connected the dots.

I didn’t know Julie Kroll, who is our main subject in Lipstick & Liquor.  I read about her death in the Washington Post in late December 2009. The article took up two nondescript columns in the Metro section and no photo was attached.  Yet her story struck me on a deep, emotional level. As I read about this sad and senseless tragedy, I knew something profoundly larger was at play in our culture. There seems to be a double standard for women and an even higher standard for mothers who can’t control their drinking.  The judgment and hostility towards women who drink create a terrible stigma that keeps many of them from seeking treatment and recovery.  This is what compelled me to make this film.

Did making the film change your own attitude towards drinking?

Yes, the making of the film has definitely made me more aware of my drinking habits and those of others. Alcohol seems to get a pass in society as far as being more socially acceptable than say, prescription drugs or illegal drugs, but I think many women aren’t aware of what it means to overdrink and how harmful alcohol can be.

I am now very aware of what I call “cocktail creep,” which is something I see happening at social functions.  The conversation and drinks start flowing and we lose track of how many drinks we’ve had.  I always considered myself a moderate, social drinker but binge drinking is clearly on the rise, especially among women. I think it’s critical to get accurate information out about what moderate drinking actually means (1 drink a day for women and no more than 7 drinks per week.)

What did you learn over the course of making the movie that you didn’t already know? Was there something that surprised you or shattered your preconceived notions?

Before Lipstick & Liquor, I can truthfully admit, I was someone who had a tendency to silently judge women who couldn’t control their drinking, especially mothers.  How could they endanger their children? Why can’t they stop drinking? Don’t they know better?  I’m a mother and I drink responsibly, so it was hard for me to understand. But through the making of the film, after meeting women in recovery and talking to experts, I now have a much better understanding of alcoholism and what is at stake for those who struggle with the disease.

Julie’s friends and family say (in the documentary) that what Julie did was wrong and there was no excuse for it. But judgment and condemnation are not the answer.  Women need understanding and support so they can get sober and find recovery.  The stigma is what causes many mothers to feel shame, to hide the true extent of their drinking, and to refuse seeking treatment.  One fact I learned through the making of the film: according to the NIAAA, women are 12 times more likely to resist seeking treatment than men.

How is women’s drinking different from men’s?  

In the last 50 years, women’s roles have changes tremendously. As more women have moved into the workforce, they have more access to money, power, status, opportunity and financial freedom as never before in history.  Lipstick & Liquor focuses on the emotional and psychological issues that seem to impact many women today, from the intense pressures of modern life (pressure cooker jobs, marriages, children, caring for aging parents) combined with a relentless perfectionism that we bring upon ourselves.  The women in the film all said they suffered trying to be the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect daughter, the perfect employee.

I think because alcohol is so socially acceptable and readily available, it’s an easy option for women who are feeling stress or going through a difficult time, to reach for a drink to cope or to relieve boredom. At first, alcohol works, but for some women, drinking leads to alcohol abuse or worse, and the impact can be devastating.  Alcoholism is a progressive disease. There’s evidence that they become addicted faster than men and suffer alcohol-related diseases sooner than men.  According to the CDC, alcoholism is the third leading cause of preventable death among women between the ages of 35 and 55.

How did their husbands/partners/children deal with their drinking?

Because the topic is so broad and so complex, I chose to focus more on the women rather than partners or children.   However, Julie’s husband, Jerry, is featured prominently in Lipstick & Liquor and his love and devotion are so clearly evident throughout the 13-day desperate search by her family and friends to find her.  Despite the fact that he did everything he could to get Julie the help she needed for recovery, in the end, her alcoholism was too powerful to overcome and the disease killed her. Jerry is a real hero in my mind.

How did the women function in their every day lives? For how long did they function? Did anyone around them notice or tell them they had a problem? 

With all the women we profiled, it was amazing to see how much effort they put into covering up their drinking and denying there was a problem.  That’s why Lipstick & Liquor is about “secrets in the suburbs.”  Women often become “kitchen drinkers”–they hide the true extent of their drinking in the isolation of their homes. That’s one of the hallmarks of this disease. It plays tricks with your mind and magnifies our abilities to rationalize our behavior.

Mary is one of the women we profiled in the film who talks about sitting in a Taco Bell parking lot having a vodka screwdriver before she went home, just knowing that she didn’t want to go home without some sort of alcohol in her.

Dr. Anita Gadhia-Smith is a psychotherapist and author featured in the film and she has a great quote.  She says many women feel shame when they drink. “There is a difference between shame and guilt. Guilt is about something that you did. Shame is about who you are and I think for women, there is a setup to feel shame when you are an alcoholic.”

What’s the best piece of wisdom you received from these women’s stories? 

Through the making of Lipstick & Liquor I’ve learned that a woman’s greatest gift may be the very thing that will save her from a life of alcoholism, pain and suffering. By nature, we are drawn to communicate and connect with each other and it’s the power of this sisterhood that I hope to share with others.  Women need to understand they are not alone, there is hope, there is treatment and that ongoing support, compassion and understanding through friendships with other women is what can provide the best hope for sustained recovery and sobriety.

Here’s what I learned from the women who were profiled: Most alcoholics know that they are alcoholic long before they share that information with anyone else or anyone else finds out and they have a deep sense of self loathing and self hatred that stays with them all the time. And, the only thing that relieves that sense of self-loathing is more alcohol.  

Alcoholics are under the impression that they should never be uncomfortable. And that’s just not the case. In order to experience the joy and the beauty of life, they also have to experience the pain and the suffering. But going through all of it will bring women to the full experience of humanity and that’s really what living sober is all about.

What do you think is the secret of women who get and stay sober? Did these women share their secrets with you?

Hayley, one of the women we profiled, talks about staying sober in the most poetic and powerful way. “It’s joy that you can’t even put into words. The fact that I show up for people, I’m a great friend, I’m a really good mom, I know how to communicate, I know how to set boundaries, I know how to take care of myself, that all comes from loving myself and that all comes from being sober.”

“To any woman out there who is struggling with this disease, just give it a shot, like call someone right now and reach out and just let them know because the shame in continuing what you’re doing but the real joy and real win in this is when you can finally let it down, get that crap off your body and just start to live…  I was living in a prison and I know that women out there can relate to that because you are literally living in your own prison and you are so scared to step out of that box… They talk about a comfort zone, it’s very comfortable staying in your disease because it’s what you know. But, once you change that and shift it and come out of it, you’re a butterfly, you know, it’s fantastic.”

Whose story inspired or affected you the most? 

The women featured in Lipstick who are sober now are absolutely remarkable.  Emily, Hayley, Jodie and Mary were so open and honest about their struggles with alcoholism and their recoveries and I deeply admire them for their courage. They are amazing role models.  Emily writes a blog (Emilyism.com) that serves as an online community for sober women and Hayley has launched a successful clothing and accessory line called “Sober is Sexy.”  Jodie has more than 25 years of sobriety and has helped scores of other women over the years stay sober. Mary is part of a group of women working to organize a major rally for recovery in Washington next year.

Of course, Julie’s story affected me the most because she was the one who didn’t get the chance to experience sustained recovery and to live a long and happy life. I think often about her beautiful daughter, her husband, Jerry and her family and friends. It’s a terrible tragedy that shouldn’t happen to anyone.

It’s my hope that Lipstick & Liquor will help to shed the stigma surrounding women who drink and change the conversation with families, friends, and the medial community. We need to understand that alcohol dependence is a disease that if left untreated, can kill you.  My hope is that this documentary will inspire this new conversation and help women find support and treatment.

To learn more about Lipstick & Liquor and for a list of resources for those who want help, you can visit the website and  Facebook page.

Lori Butterfield spent more than a decade creating documentaries and television programs at National Geographic Television & Film and at Discovery Networks (including Discovery, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, Military Channel and Discovery Science). She won an Emmy for her work at National Geographic.   Currently, She works at Home Front Communications in downtown DC, producing video content for a range of non-broadcast clients on multi-platforms.

Mom–you might want to put down that glass of chardonnay! In case you didn’t already feel guilty enough about the damages you’re unwittingly inflicting on your kids–helicopter mom? Tiger mom? Cocktail mom? Slacker mom? Nature versus nurture?–along comes a new study from Demos, a think tank in England, which concludes that when it comes to their adult drinking lives, your kids can blame (or thank) their mom.

No, you might not think that your chardonnay is harming your child (after all, you’re the one drinking it), but as Jonathan Birdwell, head of Demos’ Citizens Programme, said to The Telegraph: “What we found really interesting was this delayed effect; the impact of what teenagers perceived about their mothers’ drinking habits doesn’t show an impact at the time, but decades later.”

Great. Thanks.

And in case you didn’t already think women’s drinking was loaded–according to this study, if you think your mom drank a lot, then you’ll eventually drink a lot (note the use of the word “think”). So what about dad? According to this research, he could have been a falling down drunk and it wouldn’t effect your adult drinking.

For the study, 18,000 people born in 1970 were asked about their drinking habits at the age of 16, and then again at 34. They were also asked if their parents drank never, sometimes, often or always.

It should come as no surprise that the drinking habits of 16-year-olds were largely influenced by their peers. But the 34-year-olds were a different story. The more they thought their mothers drank on the never, sometimes, often or always scale, the more they themselves drank as adults. In other words, according to The Telegraph, “with each step that mothers rose on the four-point scale, the chance that their adult children were drinking above the Government recommended limits rose 1.3 times.”

So why don’t dads’ drinking habits matter?

The researchers speculated that fathers are more likely to drink outside the home (in pubs–remember, the study was in England), while moms drink at home, in front of their ever-vigilant kids.

Also, the guys at the Demos think tank said that since men’s drinking is more culturally “acceptable,” it doesn’t imprint itself on their kids the way mom’s drinking does.

But here’s the problem I have with studies. The nuances are left behind. Let’s take a case study of a real person: me. If a researcher had asked me at 16, how often do you drink, I would have answered (truthfully): Never. To the question, how often does your mother drink, I would have answered: Never. At that point, she was a recovered alcoholic, so she abstained from drinking. Would my answer tell the whole story? No.

At age 34, the researcher would ask me again. How often do you drink? My answer would have been: Sometimes. You see, at that age, I was in the throes of child-rearing, and often too sleep-deprived to even want to indulge in a glass of wine. How often did your mother drink, the researchers would have asked me, and I would have said–it depends. When I was zero to 9, she drank always (as I said, she was an alcoholic). Starting when I was 9,  she drank never. If they asked me, at 16, how much my mother drank, I would have answered (correctly): Never.

The researchers would never have gotten the nuanced answers from me by asking these cut-and-dry questions.

At 16, I was an adamant non-drinker, in large part as a reaction to my wild-child older sister and my alcoholic mother. My peers had no influence on me, as this study suggests they do at age 16. They drank–I didn’t. I was immune to peer pressure, at that point, precisely because of the negative associations I had as a result of my mother’s drinking.

If they asked me at 34 how much I drank (sometimes), which I could apparently attribute to my mother’s drinking when I was 16 (Never), the researchers would miss out on all those years that came before and after. During college and into my twenties, I often binge drank (A result of my mother’s alcoholic influence?) But what about now, when I drink in moderation, and responsibly? Can they really discount the influence of my moderate-drinking father? I think not.

Next time you’re tempted to beat yourself up over the latest findings–Drinking is good! Drinking is bad! Mothers are God! Fathers don’t matter!–look to your own story instead, to the actual details of a real person’s life, which can’t be reduced to numbers and statistics.

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* For our Drinking Diaries book trailer, we asked writers to read the first line of their essay (or to pick out one powerful line). We were struck by how much one line can reveal. Here’s mine: “At my sixth birthday party, my mother got drunk.”

One of our readers posted a comment saying she watched the book trailer and it triggered the following:  “Vivid memory of going through my mom’s wallet after she died, and finding an A.A. card. So many questions, no answers.”

There’s so much emotion and intrigue in that 21 word sentence I wondered—do other people have powerful one or two line drinking stories?

If so, please share yours in the comments section under this post.

* In celebrity news, Lana Del Rey talked to British GQ about her teen drinking, which started at 14.

Here are two choice quotes from the interview:

“I was a big drinker at the time. I would drink every day,” she said. “I would drink alone. I thought the whole concept was so f**king cool.”

“At first it’s fine and you think you have a dark side,” she said. “It’s exciting – and then you realise the dark side wins every time if you decide to indulge in it.”

*Britney Spears’ handlers have banned alcohol from backstage at her new TV show, the X Factor, illustrating just how hard people have to work to stay sober in an alcohol-sodden world. Sometimes, it’s better just not to have the temptations around.

“According to USMagazine.com, Britney’s representatives said in a note: ‘Very important. We require you to empty minibars of all alcohol.

‘And no gifts of wine or any other alcoholic beverages, please.’”

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Photo Source Lana Del Rey

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“I stopped drinking on my way down the hill

to the liquor store when two guys pulled up

and tried to drag me into their pickup. I crossed the street

then ran in the opposite direction, puffing

against the incline. The stranger thrust into reverse

and, when I wouldn’t talk to him,

threw a bag of McDonald’s trash at me,

Stuck up bitch. I stopped drinking

when I realized I was fighting

for the vodka at the bottom of the hill

more than I was fighting against the terrible

things that could have happened to me

inside the cab of that rusty Chevy…”

–Excerpt from The Bottom by Poet Denise Duhamel

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Is there a way to detect the early signs of addiction and stop the train wreck from happening, or is addiction inevitable in people who are wired that way?

This issue recently came to the forefront in a heartbreaking series of posts on Babble.com by blogger Katie Granju, whose son died of complications from a drug overdose when he was a senior in high school. He started smoking pot before he was 14, and when he confessed his behavior to Granju, she felt happy that he’d come clean. She felt certain that any kid who could be so honest about what he was doing wasn’t going to get into trouble. His casual use spiraled into serious use, and like most parents, she was in denial until it was too late to stop the train wreck.

Granju’s wake up call was extreme: she lost her son. And many people would differentiate drugs from alcohol and think to themselves, oh, my kid just drinks. That’s normal. Every kid does it.

The thing is: if you’re from an addictive family, you never really know what might set off the spiral. These are Granju’s words:

“If your child has the genes for drug addiction – as mine clearly did (and unfortunately, there’s no way whatsoever to know this unless and until it happens) – triggering that genetic “on” switch at age 15 with the “input” of whatever it is your child is messing around with creates an incredibly high-risk situation.

Addiction is a deadly, terrible disease, no matter what age the victim is when it ramps up. But when a 16 or 17 year old becomes actively addicted to drugs, you’re dealing not only with the challenges of an insidious, often-fatal, progressive disease process, but you’re dealing with it in an adolescent who doesn’t yet have the judgment or life experiences that can help adult addicts realize when they need help, or why.”

I, too, am from an addictive family. My mother is a (recovered) alcoholic and my sister is a (recovered) drug user. I never knew my mother’s father, since he left the family when she was one, and she didn’t speak to him much, and the only photo of him I’ve ever seen is a group shot of a “Teetotaler’s Club.” Does this mean that he, too, was a recovered or recovering alcoholic? Or that he never touched the stuff? How strong is the genetic component for alcoholism, and is one of my three children destined to have addiction issues, since they seem to run on one side of my family? These are important questions to ask.

Should I warn my kids about this genetic component, and ask them to steer clear of drugs and alcohol? Is this realistic?

My thinking is this: I’ve already told them about my mother’s and sister’s histories, and we’ve talked about how dangerous alcohol and drug abuse are, and how addiction can ruin lives. My kids have also seen me drinking wine with friends, whether we are having people over or are out to dinner. So they know I choose to drink in moderation.

As they grow up, I plan to reinforce the message that—because of their genes and because their brains are developing—it’s best to put off drinking for as long as they can. I will encourage them to go to parties and socialize, but I’ll tell them that it’s okay to have seltzer, or to hold a beer and pretend to drink it. It’d be good to wire their brains in such a way that socializing isn’t inextricably tied to drinking and/or substance abuse.

I didn’t start drinking until college, and that’s when I started feeling comfortable going to parties, as well, so parties and drinking are somehow fused together in my brain—not a good thing.

I don’t want my kids to drink and do drugs ever, but if that’s totally unrealistic, I’ll settle for them waiting as long as humanly possible. I’m not going to be shy about telling them this, even if it seems laughable.

A Facebook friend of mine—the daughter of a woman who died because of her alcoholism—wrote that reading Granju’s post made her look back on her mother’s life and wonder if “a lifetime of alcoholism and its subsequent destruction” could have been stopped “if my grandmother, if anyone, had taken her partying seriously?” Many of the markers of alcoholism were there from the start: even in her high school yearbooks, her friends were telling her to slow down the drinking.

How effective is early intervention? Is it possible to catch addiction early, and prevent it? These are questions that haunt me.

Habit: (From Merriam-Webster.com) “a behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition or physiologic exposure that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance”

“an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary <got up early from force of habit>”

“addiction <a drug habit>”

Like anything else, drinking can become a habit and move beyond the realm of relaxation and pleasure into something we just do–and something that becomes harder and harder to stop doing.

So how does this happen?

According to New York Times business writer Charles Duhigg, in his fascinating book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life And Business, every habit starts with a three-part process—a psychological pattern called a “habit loop.” In drinking terms, it goes like this:

• First, there’s a cue. Let’s say it’s 5:00, Happy Hour Time! Or you’re going to your drinking buddy’s house to hang out. This tells your brain to kick into automatic mode and let a certain behavior unfold…
• The routine, or the behavior itself: the drinking, which gives you a…
• Reward–something your brain likes that helps it remember the “habit loop” next time. In the case of drinking, the reward could be the buzz, or the camaraderie.

Duhigg explains that habit-making behaviors come from a different part of the brain than decision-making behaviors. Habits come from the part of the brain responsible for emotions, memories and patterns. When a behavior becomes automatic, the decision-making part of your brain has to work less and less, and goes into a kind of sleep mode.

So what can we do to change or modify our habits?  (I’m not talking about people who are ankle-deep in their addictions–they probably need detox and rehab.)

My guess would be to start with a disruption of habits. For example, if five o’clock is the cue for Happy Hour, try having five o’clock tea, or going for a five o’clock walk with a friend. If the reward is camaraderie, find another way to get camaradie.

Here’s an interesting quote from Charles Duhigg: “The weird thing about rewards is that we don’t actually know what we’re actually craving.”

If you find yourself mired in habits, it might be best to work backwards and ask yourself, what is it I really want? Not an easy question to answer, but worth it. As Duhigg points out: “What we know from lab studies is that it’s never too late to break a habit. Habits are malleable throughout your entire life. But we also know that the best way to change a habit is to understand its structure — that once you tell people about the cue and the reward and you force them to recognize what those factors are in a behavior, it becomes much, much easier to change.

With regards to Alcoholics Anonymous, Duhigg writes:

“…the reason why AA works is because it essentially is this big machine for changing the habits around alcohol consumption and giving people a new routine, rather than going to a bar or drink. … It doesn’t seem to work if people do it on their own. … At some point, if you’re changing a really deep-seated behavior, you’re going to have a moment of weakness. And at that moment, if you can look across a room and think, ‘Jim’s kind of a moron. I think I’m smarter than Jim. But Jim has been sober for three years. And if Jim can do it, I can definitely do it,’ that’s enormously powerful.”

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The other night I went to an addiction book panel at the NYU Bookstore, moderated and hosted by Susan Shapiro, the co-author of Unhooked: How to Quit Anything. She gathered some amazing panelists, like Maer Roshan, founder of the website, The Fix, about all things addiction-related, and Koren Zailckas, author of one of my favorite memoirs, Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood.

At first, as the panelists told of battling their addictions, I found myself thinking, Poor her! (The one with the food addiction. And bipolar to boot!) Poor him! (Couldn’t stop partying, night after night, until he turned himself into a shaky mess.)

Thank God I never had to battle any life-threatening, character-assassinating addictions. Thank God I was spared the skin-crawling moments of despair, the humiliation, the tabloid-worthy bad behavior.

But then the literary agent spoke. When Susan Shapiro asked him why he was drawn to addiction memoirs, he got this sparkle in his eye as he tried to explain the magic of these books. Let’s face it, he said (and I’m paraphrasing), these stories sell. Nods all around. By these stories, he didn’t mean stories of falling into the gutter and never getting up. He meant the superhuman ones—the stories of transformation, where people fall into the gutter and then pick themselves up, only to start websites, write novels, and do other enviable things.

At that point, my pity started to morph into other kinds of emotions…

Envy: I started thinking these writers were like certain girls in high school—the edgy, risky girls. The girls who did things I’d never do and had experiences I’d never have. If only I’d had the guts. These were the lucky ones who were able to quit. And then, when they weren’t allowed to do the drugs, the drinking—whatever edgy addiction–anymore, they could relive the highs and lows indefinitely by writing about them. So I couldn’t even pity them for having to quit. Instead, I envied them their material.

And then, envy morphed into:

Resentment: It always goes back to the addict, the one who screams ME ME ME the loudest.

Then came the:

Defensiveness: A little voice inside me was also thinking about something my mother would say to me when I was growing up, “You just don’t have the personality for it.” This was meant to reassure me that I would never be an alcoholic or an addict of any kind, but it had the opposite effect: it made me feel defensive, like, “Oh yeah? I’ll show you.”

And finally, the:

Regret: I never did show her, though.

Being the daughter, lover, sister of an addict is like always coming in second place.  You’re never the center of attention because the addict is screaming out for help and   your problems just aren’t as flashy. I’m sorry, but they aren’t.

When that literary agent looked at us in the audience and explained that these memoirs were sexy, I flinched, as if he had just said, “You’ll never be sexy.”

Then Susan Shapiro explained how she went on to write eight books after she gave up her addictions.

Envy again: I found myself longing for something to give up. Coffee? Maybe I could give up coffee.

I know there’s something pathetic about envying an addict, but when you really think about it, if you hit rock bottom, then you can have the big transformation, the ah-ha moment of clarity.  And you get people cheering you on.

Where’s my cheering squad and support system? Where’s my memoir? Where’s my exciting life?  These were all the ugly thoughts swirling through my mind as I sat, outwardly calm, listening to the panelists.

One by one, they told how hard it was to write a memoir. They spoke about the heavy costs: family members alienated, embarrassment about their older kids Googling them and finding out things they preferred to keep hidden, the wish to take back what was written.

And then the literary agent said something else. Recently, he’d gotten a brilliant manuscript, a memoir by a young woman, full of glittering prose, crazy exploits. Such promise! But then, after page 100, he realized the story stayed the same. There was no transformation. No fall and redemption. Just freefall.  He said there were many addiction memoirs he rejected.

I bathed in my envy, my resentment, and my regret, but then by the end of the night, I decided to leave it all at the bookstore.

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By Linda Jane Riley

Linda Jane Riley is the creator of the blog, “The Immortal Alcoholic,” about what it’s like being a non-alcoholic person married to an end-stage alcoholic. In her own words: “I’m an ordinary woman of a seasoned age who is faced with a difficult challenge–and I will not allow that challenge to destroy the happiness in my life or anyone else’s life.” She is the author of The WorkbookforCaretakers OfEnd-Stage Alcoholics.

Following is an excerpt from her blog, in which she addresses the frustrations of readers of her blog who wonder why she chooses to take care of her husband Riley, despite the enormous daily struggles.  

I welcome everyone’s comments even if they may be a bit hostile or negative. Each of us has a right to an opinion and a right to voice that opinion. In fact, one commenter says I’m a “sick f***” and that I would drive a person to drink if they weren’t already an alcoholic. So this post is dedicated to all those who think end-stage caretaking is a form of amusing entertainment for sadistic Nurse Nancy’s and bitter spouses.

Why don’t I just… put Riley in a long-term care treatment facility?

No matter how sick a person is, if he is not declared incompetent, that person cannot be forced into any alcohol treatment facility. Even then, most of those types of facilities would not accept an individual that has been forced in a facility through an incompetency hearing. Recovery just doesn’t work that way.

As for a regular nursing, physical rehab or long-term facilities – they will not allow the consumption of alcoholic beverages on their grounds. They offer no detox care, so they are not equipped to handle an end-stage alcoholic. Most end-stage alcoholics have been through the detox and rehab process many times, with the end result being a return to drinking. Because of that statistic, it is extremely difficult to find even a rehab center that will take on a multi-relapse end-stage alcoholic. The reasons for that are that they want to invest their time in people who really desire sobriety and also to eliminate a risk of injury on their premises. After the last detox episode (when Riley had a stroke) there was no rehab facililty of ANY type that would accept Riley as a patient within a hundred miles of our local area. He was too big of a risk for a potentially fatal fall.

Why don’t I just… have him declared incompetent?

That’s not as easy as it sounds. Riley is incompetent to handle his own finances or any other legal matters. But, he is aware what a competency hearing is all about. He knows what he is supposed to do to pay bills and buy groceries, etc. He has no ability to follow through on those tasks–and that is hard to prove. He often will appear to others as being perfectly capable of managing his own affairs. Outward appearances are deceiving, and he has the ability to “pull the wool over the eyes” of medical professionals who are not truly trained in alcoholism.

Being an end-stage alcoholic is degrading enough all by itself. Having your spouse, parent, partner or whoever declare that you are incapable of the simplest things–like choosing what you want to eat for dinner–is beyond degrading. It’s not my job to make him feel any worse about himself. He does that on his own.

I have full power of attorney, which gives me the ability to act on his behalf over everything that is relevant. It’s all I need for now. I’m fortunate because Riley doesn’t usually cause me problems that would require court intervention. The only issue we don’t seem to be able to resolve is his desire to drive drunk.

Why don’t I just… let him drive?

OK. Well… now… that’s just a stupid question. Drunks should NEVER be allowed behind the wheel of a 4000 pound potential lethal battering ram. Anyone who has to ask that question is not someone I would want on the road when I’m running my errands.

Why don’t I just… pack him up and send him on his way?

I took on this task as a means of preventing my daughter or grandson from becoming Riley’s caretaker. If I sent him on his way, he would find his way into their homes and thereby create insanity in their lives. I am his legal spouse. He is my responsibility. Many years ago I took a vow that said something about “sickness and health.” This is the sickness part and I will stand by that vow.

If a family member were sick of some other disease – Leukemia, Alzheimer’s, Stroke, etc – I would not pack them up and send them on their way. I would do the best I could to provide a safe haven. Riley has suffered a stroke as a result of abusing alcohol; he can’t remember simple things like how to get a message off the answering machine or to remove a pan from a hot burner. If he lived on his own, how soon would it be before he burned down his house? I don’t know, but I’m not willing to take that risk.

He’s not my prisoner. He’s my sick husband who would not survive in the real world.

Why don’t I just… pick him up when he falls?

I’m an old lady who is not even five feet tall and I don’t have a lot of physical strength. Riley isn’t a huge guy, but when he falls he is like dead weight. He has no muscle mass and cannot (or will not) assist in any effort to get himself upright. Even my daughter has failed at attempts to pick him up after a fall. But, because he won’t “push” or “pull”, even she has stopped trying to come to his aid.

I could call 911 and the paramedics would race to my door and get him back into his chair. The problem is Riley falls multiple times during the day and I truly believe the EMT’s might have people who are in urgent need of assistance. Someday, I’m going to need them to come running – quickly – so I don’t want to be the little girl who cried wolf.

Why don’t I just… make him use a walker or wheelchair?

Using a cane, wheelchair or walker, in Riley’s opinion, is an indication that he is old or not physically fit. In Riley’s mind, he is perfectly fit and is young. He mocks the seniors at the local senior center and laughs at the frailties of the aged. He wants no part of anything that would make him appear to be more “seasoned” than he wants to be.

In order to use any devices that would aid in his mobility, he would need some upper body or arm strength. Riley has no muscle strength from which to draw.

Why don’t I just… make him wear a diaper?

See the above answer. Same thing applies here. Diapers are for babies and old people.

Why don’t I just… stop buying him booze?

Taking away Riley’s alcohol would throw him into a self-induced detox, which could be fatal. Detoxing without medical supervision is extremely dangerous and it becomes more dangerous each time it happens.

By the count of the centers listed in the workbook that I keep on Riley, he’s been through five – FIVE – medically supervised detox experiences. Each one was worse than the last in terms of the actual process, causing seizures and strokes. None of the detox sessions ever led to long-term sobriety. After the last hospital stay, I promised Riley I would never push him into detox again. I do, however, encourage him and ask him if he wants to go. But, I don’t insist and I don’t push.

Why don’t I just… take him to AA or get him some help?

For Riley, AA is just a social activity. He would go all the time if they would just stop harping on the drinking thing. Because they don’t stop, he won’t go. He knows there is help there. He was very active in AA for many years, but now he just wants nothing to do with the “brainwashing” of any 12 Step program.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. It’s the same way with alcoholics and counseling. While I think it would be one of the best ways for an alcoholic to recover, it requires pure, unbridled honesty. Most active alcoholics are incapable of being completely honest. Many drink to cover their true feelings. I think it’s unrealistic to expect a counselor to take on the impossible of task of getting a drunk to tell how he/she really feels.

Why don’t I just… stop laughing at him?

To read the rest of Linda’s post, click here.

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By Amy Dresner

I wish I could say that it was the “gift of desperation” or the rabid desire for a new life that kept me coming back to the rooms when I was new. But it wasn’t. It was the boys. Oh, the boys…with their smoky breath and ironic t-shirts and tattooed forearms, waxing philosophical about life and spinning tales of desperation, desecration and finally redemption. It was all too sexy and alluring to resist.

I could easily branch off into horror stories about how I was 13th stepped by program quasi-gurus who had double-digit sobriety while I was just stringing days together. I am still envious of the young newcomer girls who are pulled aside by other women and warned about the predatory old timers who wait in anticipation for the next wave of fresh meat. That was never me. I became best friends with another hot newcomer girl and together we went through the 13th step mill, at times sharing some of the same old timers. I think I hooked up with five different people within my first four months, and that’s not counting the occasional rendezvous with an old using buddy.

But I am not crying victim here. I was never raped. I was a willing participant, although at 45 days or even four months, you’re so hungry for attention and distraction that you think you can handle things that you’re clearly not able to in retrospect. Romance took me out of the rooms more times than I’d like to admit. I always relapsed over a boy. I can think of at least four specific times. And, if it wasn’t romance taking me out, it was the lack of romance—the ache of terrible loneliness.

I think dating in the rooms of AA is not unlike hooking up in prison. There is a limited supply of broken people and we recycle each other. So when you break up with somebody, don’t be surprised when they end up dating your sponsor or sponsee. Dating in the program is like fishing in a small toxic pond. And you’ll often hear sayings like, “Odds are good that you’ll meet somebody, but the goods are odd.” And I couldn’t agree more.

When I relapsed for the umpteenth time and ended up with a militant black lesbian for a sponsor, she was very clear that I was not going to fuck my way through the rooms this time around.

“Baby, you only going to go to women’s meetings and gay meetings,” she said.

“But how am I going to get laid going to women’s meetings and gay meetings?” I whined.

“You ain’t. You gonna focus on recovery.”

“Well that sounds boring,” I said.

But I had just come out of a psych ward, and had also just cracked my head open when I fell backwards after having a grand mal seizure when my meds were changed, so I was willing to try it another way. I would go to those uptight “lady” meetings in Beverly Hills and Brentwood where women with bad facelifts and expensive handbags complained about their gardeners. I would go to a Saturday women’s meeting in Crenshaw for lesbians. I was the only white straight Jew in the room and I’d sit in the back cowering, scratching at my stitches.

“Why you sittin’ in the back, Sugar Plum?” my sponsor asked me one day.

“Because I’m scared,” I answered honestly.

“Well,” she told me, “be scared in the front.”

But the desire to escape ourselves is so strong that we can often find a distraction, no matter how slim the pickings. One day at the crusty Brentwood “ladies who lunch” meeting, a tattooed, dark-haired man walked in.

“This is a women’s meeting,” one of the tautly pulled housewives said.

“I am a woman,” the man—who, as it turned out, was a woman—said. And at that moment, I found myself infatuated. I had never been attracted to a woman before but she wasn’t just a woman: she was, when I got to know her, this amazing combination of the best traits of a female best friend with all the machismo and chivalry of a man. She could fix your car and then stay up till 1:30 in the morning eating ice cream and talking about feelings, burning you Tori Amos CD’s. She was what I called “guy light.”

“It would be better,” I told her one night, “if you had a penis. But we can work around that.”

But she never touched me. She didn’t date straight girls, newcomers, or crazy people. And considering I was all three, there wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to turn me out.

“Amy, you are a newcomer. That’s a sanctity I can’t violate.” None of the men in AA had ever said that.

When you’re dating another alcoholic, there is that instant affinity: you both speak the same language of disease and recovery. You both live a lifestyle of sobriety and abstinence. You both go to the same trendy diner after meetings to eat French fries and fellowship. But when it goes bad, as it inevitably does when you’re dealing with two crazy selfish alcoholics, then you’ve accidentally shat where you eat. And then you have to split up territory: “Okay,” you’ll find yourself saying. “I‘ll take the 11:30 meeting and you can have the 4:00 Big Book study.”

Even if you avoid those meetings and drive 45 minutes out to bumfuck where nobody knows your name, word gets out. It’s only a matter of time before he hears how—and who—you’re doing. The “Grapevine” couldn’t be a better metaphor for the growing gossip and intertwining overgrowth that is the fellowship of AA. And let us not forget about the amends that have to be exchanged once the relationship has gone awry.

And yet I met my husband in AA. We had a mutual sober friend who kept the connection going even when our diseases and neuroses kept us—or me—apart. He pursued and pursued, and I rejected and deflected, hating myself too much to respond to anyone who liked me. One day, when I was telling him everything about him that made him not my type, he said, “You really should be nice to me because we are going to end up together.”

He’s not what I would have ever imagined for myself back when I was a distraction-seeking, unhinged newcomer. And thankfully I kept coming back long enough to figure out that he was right.

This piece originally appeared on The Fix, a website about addiction and recovery. Amy Dresner is a sober comedian who liberally pulls material from her depressive illness and drug addiction. She performs all over Los Angeles and is also on a national recovery tour called “We Are Not Saints.”

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Ingrid Mathieu

by Ingrid Mathieu

What is emotional sobriety? Some might think that it means being “happy, joyous, and free,” a common adage in 12-Step meetings, taken from AA literature. Of course, people like this definition. It means that if they work a good program, they will achieve physical sobriety (abstinence) and become happy in the process.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but this definition puts a lot of recovering people in a tough spot. For example, what does it say about a person’s emotional sobriety if they are having a hard time? What if they are afraid, anxious, sad, angry, confused … the list can go on and on. Does this mean that they aren’t emotionally sober?

I believe that emotional sobriety is less about the quality of the feeling (“good” or “bad”) and more about the general ability to feel one’s feelings. Being restored to sanity isn’t about getting the brass ring—or cash and prizes—or being “happy, joyous, and free” all the time, but it is about being in the present moment, whatever it happens to look like. What are you experiencing right now? And how about now? Can you be present to all of your feelings without any one of them defining you?

Sometimes emotional sobriety is about tolerating what you are feeling. It is about staying sober no matter what you are feeling. It means that you don’t have to blame yourself or your program because life can be challenging. It means that you don’t necessarily need to do something to make the feeling go away. Many people will take their bad feeling and try to pray it, meditate it, service it, spiritually distract themselves from it, thinking that this means they are working a good program. This experience is actually called spiritual bypass.

John Welwood coined the term spiritual bypass and defined it as “using spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep personal, emotional ‘un-finished business,’ to shore up a shaky sense of self, or to belittle basic needs, feelings, and developmental tasks, all in the name of enlightenment.” The shorthand for spiritual bypass is when a person wears a mask or presents a false spiritual self that represses aspects of that person’s true self. Spiritual bypass involves bolstering our defenses rather than our humility. Bypass involves grasping rather than gratitude, arriving rather than being, avoiding rather than accepting.

I am forever interested in how mind, body, and spirit interact for people in recovery and how the “ism” (alcoholism) is always trying to steal the show. “Ism” doesn’t want you to acknowledge that you are scared, ashamed, lost, or angry. And let’s face it, some people in recovery don’t want you to acknowledge that either. Because then they would have to look at that stuff (and feel it), and they just might not be ready. So spiritual bypass becomes a tool for working a spiritual program that is really in service of controlling obstacles and outcomes. It provides the illusion that the addict can still manage their feelings even though they aren’t using their drug of choice.

In my own spiritual journey, I have experienced spiritual bypass many times. As a defense mechanism, we are all susceptible to this unconscious drive to protect ourselves from our painful realities. And using spirituality as a defense certainly looks a lot better than using drugs or alcohol. But it is a defense mechanism nonetheless and most people in recovery want the ability to access all of their feelings, because being present to what is real is what enables choices, and choices propel people towards their most authentic and fulfilling sober life.

I have spent a great deal of time studying and researching the experience of spiritual bypass in 12-Step recovery. I’ve written a book called Recovering Spirituality: Achieving Emotional Sobriety in Your Spiritual Practice that goes into great depth on this topic. Every person in recovery who I have interviewed or worked with in my psychotherapy practice has gained tremendous insight by looking at their own experiences of spiritual bypass and I hope that you will gain similar results. If nothing else, give yourself permission to feel all of your feelings. Know that we don’t have the sort of surgical precision to only feel the feelings that we enjoy. Happiness might be sitting right next to regret, joy might be right next to overwhelmed. That is just the human condition. And experiencing all of our feelings is true emotional sobriety.

Ingrid Mathieu, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist and author of Recovering Spirituality: Achieving Emotional Sobriety in Your Spiritual Practice. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook. This post originally appeared on the Psychology Today blog.

Which is safer, pot or alcohol? Which is “better”? If you had to pick, which would you prefer your teenagers to do—smoke pot or drink alcohol? The debate has been roaring, now more than ever, considering that legalization of marijuana (in small amounts) is on the table in Colorado. The ballot proposal is called “The Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act of 2012.”

There’s even a site called saferchoice.org, which touts marijuana as the “safer” choice. Last I read, marijuana use was up among teens, and alcohol was down, but the pendulum always swings back and forth, back and forth.

So which is safer/better/preferable?

Is this the question we really should be asking? It’s not like alcohol’s going to swap places with pot and we’re going to go back to the days of Prohibition. By this time, alcohol is a given part of our culture, like tv and the internet.

I realize there are compelling arguments for the legalization of marijuana (supposedly no one has ever overdosed on pot; people get less violent when they smoke pot, not more, like they do when they drink; making pot illegal taxes our criminal justice system–you can find many of these arguments online), but still—Why add another drug to the roster of iffy life choices? Why make it easy?

And do we really want to add toker-moms and dads to the growing ranks of “cocktail moms” (and dads!)? Instead of sneaking into their parents’ liquor cabinets, teens could sneak into their parents’ pot stashes!  We don’t need to model another easy “check out of real life” option for our teens.

I’m familiar with the popular argument that if you make something forbidden, it becomes more attractive (see Prohibition), but I also think the converse is true: for some people, the fact that pot is illegal is a deal killer, enough of a deterrent to make them stay away. I know it is for me. I’m a mom of three, and I try to be a role model for my kids. Just the thought of my kids busting me doing something illegal is enough to make me steer clear of this popular suburban pastime. Or the thought of them watching me being handcuffed and carted away, calling after me, “Mom—why would you break the law?!” Maybe I’m just a killjoy, but still…And–full disclosure–maybe I’m biased, as the sister of someone who went to rehab after smoking a little pot led to smoking five times a day, which led to staying emotionally stuck at age 14 (as she’ll tell anyone who asks), which led to harder drugs. Alcohol has always been one thing; drugs, another. And there’s a line between the two that I wouldn’t want my own kids to cross.

At least now, people have to think twice before they light up. First, they have to deal with buying it in secret, and then they have to plan where and when to smoke it so they won’t get caught. This makes smoking pot a more conscious act, rather than a default behavior.

All behavior is healthier when it’s conscious, whether it’s eating, drinking, or whatever else. For example, when drinking becomes mindless bingeing instead of conscious consuming (think: having a great glass of wine to complement a meal), it becomes a slippery slope–a way to escape life’s problems rather than a means of enhancing the sensual experience of life.

Taking drugs has always been a counterculture choice, and that’s how it should remain: counterculture. That’s the allure, and that’s the deterrent. Make it mainstream, and you’ve opened up a whole other can of worms.

Do we really need to put another readily available, time-sucking  temptation in our children’s paths? I say, make it hard and you’ll save a lot of people from addiction and drug dependence.

Examining the effects of his pot-smoking days, memoirist Nic Sheff put it best on the website, The Fix, when he wrote: “For me, all these years later, I still suffer from all the fucking decades I lost to smoking pot. My emotional maturity is probably a little better than a 16-year-old’s (maybe)—but not a whole lot. I basically overreact to any kind of problem I have. And I definitely blame a lot of that on my years getting high.”

In the New York Times Room for Debate section, Brian E. Perron, an Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Michigan, points to the need for further research on marijuana before we jump into fighting for legalization. He concludes that, “…an increase in marijuana use among the teenage population is not good, even if rates for more problematic substances are on the decline. Foremost, we are unclear of the long-term consequences of marijuana use on the developing brain of the adolescent. The potency of marijuana has also increased significantly over the years. Thus, along with an increased sensation of euphoria, we can expect an increase in its addictive potential. The research is also clear that early involvement with substances is associated with heavier use and a variety of other problems later in life. From this perspective, marijuana may be associated with fewer risks in comparison to other substances, but marijuana use does introduce its own set of known and possibly unexpected problems that are deeply concerning.”

That’s enough for me to hold my hand up and say, wait—what’s the rush?  Do we really need another readily available, commonplace drug?

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By Jenna Hollenstein

For years before I decided to stop drinking, I struggled with a single question: Am I an alcoholic? I thought there were two answers: Identify as an alcoholic and stop drinking, or not identify as an alcoholic and continue. Since I quit, I realized there were a host of other very important questions I could have asked myself in order to really understand the role alcohol played in my life, and to examine the true nature and quality of my life.

One of my favorite relationship books is The Hard Questions: 100 Questions to Ask Before You Say “I Do” by Susan Piver. This slim volume poses deceptively simple questions for discussion by couples about to get hitched. By focusing on several key areas – home, work, sex, family – it raises questions from the ordinary to the profound to challenge and inspire couples to gain a deeper understanding of one another.

The beauty I saw in this book was that it didn’t skim over the “small” stuff. Anyone who has ever been in a relationship (ie, everyone) knows that it’s often the little things – the subtle details – that spur continual frustration, ongoing tension, and huge arguments. While big questions of whether to have kids and what spiritual beliefs to impart to said kids are fairly standard pre-vow fodder, who does the food shopping and who will balance the checkbook might never attain that level of conversational importance.

Similarly, I believe there are subtle – hard – questions when it comes to drinking. Most people are familiar with the “big” questions you should ask yourself if you think alcohol is a problem – Do you black out? Do you need a drink in the morning? Have you injured yourself or others while drinking?

But equally important are the subtler questions related to quality of life and living in awareness. (Note: you can substitute many different behaviors – shopping, working, eating, etc. – for drinking in the list below.) Following are some thoughts I’ve collected on the hard questions related to drinking; feel free to add to this list:

1. Are there things you do not or cannot do unless you’re drinking? Dance? Laugh? Speak the truth? Open up to others? Take risks? Joke? Joke hurtfully? Cry? Argue? Hit? Smoke? Do drugs? Have sex with your partner? Have sex with someone other than your partner?
2. What prompts you to drink? Stress? Sadness? Anxiety? Uncertainty? Celebration? Can you imagine what it would feel like to not drink in response to that prompt?
3. When was the last time you had fun without drinking? Who were you with and why did you have fun? Are the people you’re with and the reasons you have fun different when you are drinking and when you aren’t drinking?
4. When was the last time you relaxed without drinking? What are other ways in which you relax? How do these different ways of relaxing affect you while doing them and afterwards?
5. Has drinking kept you from doing anything? Getting a good night’s sleep? Getting a better job? Ending a crappy relationship? Writing a book?
6. Have you ever considered not drinking for a period of time? 1 week? 1 month? 1 year? How does it feel to consider life without alcohol for a period of time?

Beyond the big question of whether or not you’re an alcoholic, it’s important to ask the (perhaps) harder question of whether alcohol (or something else) interferes with your basic level of awareness, if you in fact use it to avoid certain things in your life. The answers will be different for everyone and only you can find the correct balance for yourself. But asking is a good place to start.

Jenna Hollenstein is a writer and nutritionist living in New York City. Through her blog, Drinking to Distraction, she explores the themes of addiction, awareness, distractions, Buddhism, meditation, and living in the moment.

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By Melissa Burton

We live in an alcoholic world. Even if you’re a sage of sobriety, it’s incredibly difficult to resist the barrage of alcoholic images that wash over you wherever you turn—from the sexy studs gazing out at you from Budweiser billboards to the sweating glasses of Pinot Grigio  that a waiter traipses across your favorite restaurant. For a recovering alcoholic, images like these are a constant tease. Like Pavlov’s dogs, we go on autopilot when it comes to our cues and responses. Even the mere sight of liquor kicks up my cravings. When I’m at home, the familiar routines of recovery protect me from going off the rails. But when I travel it’s a whole different story. Which is why, for me and many other alcoholics I know, flying can be such a torturous experience.

Take my recent trip from New York to Los Angeles. As soon as I enter the terminal in JFK,  cocktails begin to beckon me as shamelessly as hookers at a Shriner’s Convention. After enduring a half-hour line and a clumsy pat down at security, I sullenly trudge towards my gate, dragging my leaden bag behind me. As I make my way across the airport I pass an endless procession of cheesy bars and lounges. Despite their over-priced drinks and ludicrous decor they seem strangely enticing—a restful oasis amidst all this airport awfulness. Suddenly a familiar voice starts up inside my head,  “Stop, relax, have a quick cocktail!” it whispers. “Does a watered down daiquiri at JFK even count as a real drink?” The flush-faced revelers at the bar all look so happy and content; a stark contrast to the sour dowagers biding their time  at the gate. Is there really any question about where I’d rather be? The serenity I have carefully cultivated during my many years of recovery starts showing cracks, replaced by a panicky craving. I take a series of deep breaths and try to ignore the enticements, keeping my fragile sobriety intact for the moment.

After settling into a cramped seat in the back of the plane, I’m  joined by a frazzled blond in her late twenties who sullenly plumps herself down next to me. As soon as she’s buckled in, she begins frantically stabbing at the flight attendant’s call button, crossing herself as though seated in a pew at St. Patrick’s. When the stewardess finally arrives, she anxiously demands to know how long she has to wait to order some wine. After takeoff, the flight crew begins taking drink orders and dispensing colorful little bottles all around. In no time at all, everyone around me is flying high—the general mood brightens noticeably while mine continues to plummet. Once again I fight off the urge to join in, and resign myself to a long, boring flight, while the blond bimbo blithely sucks downs her fourth bottle of Merlot. Flipping through the channels on my in-flight TV, I stumble on a marathon of back-to-back episodes of Millionaire Matchmaker and spend the next five hours watching hook-ups that all revolve around drinking and bar hopping.  When we land in Los Angeles, I leave the plane with relief and head to the safety of my hotel.  As soon as I check-in, a buff bartender hands me a glass of complimentary wine and brightly informs me that Happy Hour has just kicked off in the lounge.

Cranky and disoriented from my long day of flying, I find it increasingly difficult to deny the magnetic pull that the tacky lounge exudes. I no longer have the strength I did when I began my day—I feel weak and uncertain as I pass the lounge and head upstairs in the elevator. Once I’m safely tucked away in my room, the key to the mini bar key beckons me cruelly.  To avoid tempting fate, I struggle not to open the fridge, only to find a bottle of Merlot prominently placed between the peanut M&M’s and bottled water. How many times in one day do I have to refuse alcohol while I struggle to remain sober?  For a few moments I contemplate.  I remind myself that if you’re trying to curb impulse shopping, you’re supposed to go back and make a few visits over the course of a few days before you make your decision. But how many times does a recovered alcoholic have to “visit” the concept of taking a drink before they are justified in caving in to the urge?

My addict brain wants to scream at every poster and every person who tempted me with a cocktail. I search my mind for some snarky retort to the poor person who innocently offeres me a cocktail. Oftentimes, I think the cards are stacked against me. I get tested over and over again. My next relapse sits patiently waiting for a changing of the guard in my psyche. I berate myself mentally and wonder why I can’t just let it go and get over the controlling voice that keeps urging me me to drink. This is my daily mantra.

For me, staying sober is a daily struggle. My cravings are an ever-present threat that I’m always trying to escape.  As I write this, I close my eyes and taste the warm, full, satiating flavor of a glass of really fine red wine, the soft burn it produces as it slips down my throat, the sweet bouquet that wafts from the glass. And just as quickly as I slip back into my mental love affair with alcohol, I must turn it off and return to my reality.

At tenuous moments like these, I try to remember the disasters that induced me to get sober in the first place. When I finally decided to stop drinking, I was a sad and lonely and desperate person. I was ready to give up.  I have no desire to retreat to that old life. Instead, I  am determined to stay healthy and happy, reconnect with my family and friends, and stop disappointing everyone who cares about me. I try to remember how great it feels to go to bed sober, and to wake up in the morning unabashed and with a clear head. Mornings have always been the best time of the day for me—I have a feeling of strength and growth and gratitude for making it through another day. In fact, a day after my flight, I feel my old self regaining control over the frazzled mess I’d become. I don’t give another thought to alcohol for the rest of my trip.

As I’m constantly reminded, I can only hope for a daily reprieve from this disease. Since nobody can spend their lives free from the lure of alcohol, it’s crucial to build up a core of strength and spirituality that will protect us from life’s inevitable enticements. It’s not always easy, but after some time and practice,  I’ve built up the strength to ignore the mini-bottles of Absolut and the open bars and hotel happy hours. I can fly without getting high. That’s the good news. The bad news is I have to fly to Mexico City next month.

Melissa Burton is the executive director of Loft 107, a sober living center in Brooklyn. This essay originally appeared on The Fix, a website about addiction and recovery.

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