As we at Drinking Diaries well know, the spectrum of drinkers is a broad one indeed. Between the two poles—abstainer and alcoholic—is a world of stops along the way. We could have a field day coming up with names for the different kinds of drinkers (and maybe one day on this site, we will), but for now, suffice it to say that the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) has begun to address the spectrum on its new Web site, Rethinking Drinking.

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal quoted Mark Willenbring, director of treatment and recovery research at NIAAA: “Most people don’t know what ‘drink responsibly’ means—they think it means not getting tanked…But there are levels of drinking that raise your risk for alcohol problems just like high cholesterol raises your risk for heart disease.”

So just what are those levels for women? The organization says women are at low risk for serious drinking problems if they have no more than 7 standard-size alcoholic drinks a week (for men, it’s 14). That’s one a day, people.

Or—you could save up for the weekends and have all seven in one night! Right? Wrong. NIAAA recommends no more than 3 drinks on any single day.

The key is knowing the size of a standard drink, and the site helps with that. At some restaurants, a glass of wine could actually be more than one standard-sized drink. A wine bottle usually holds five 5-oz. glasses.

Other features of the site:

–A tool where you can plug in your average intake and see how you compare with the general population and problem drinkers.

–An “urge tracker,” where you record times when you wanted a drink and why, what you did and what you might have done differently.

–A section on “refusal skills” that helps you plan ahead to say no in social situations.

Check out the site. Let us know if you find it helpful. And if anyone wants to take a stab at coming up with a list of names for the different kinds of drinkers, please feel free.

Soon to appear in Italy on billboards, buses, and in women’s rooms at bars, restaurants and nightclubs: a shocking photo of a fetus at the bottom of a full cocktail glass, covered by ice and wine, topped with an orange slice. The ad campaign, launched in the northeast Veneto region of Italy, is designed to get pregnant women to stop drinking. The message: “When mom drinks, baby drinks, too” (“Mama beve, bimbo beve”).

The campaign comes in response to findings by the Italian Institute of Health that 65 per cent of women in Italy consume alcohol during their pregnancy. Officials chose to target the Veneto region, which includes Venice, because it has Italy’s second highest rate of alcohol consumption, with around 67 per cent of women saying they drink regularly.

While health officials cite the risk to the unborn fetus when a mother drinks alcohol, and the rights of the fetus as the reason for the ads, critics, such as the governor of the Veneto region, Luca Zaia, say the ad runs the risk of  giving a “distorted image of women and in particular expecting mothers.”

The drink depicted in the ad is a popular drink from the region called the “spritz”—white wine and Campari, with a shot of sparkling water.

Few would argue with the need for pregnant mothers to cut way down on their alcohol consumption (some say cut it out entirely, while others say an occasional glass of wine is okay). But is this ad effective?

For expectant mothers who do not have a drinking problem, and are able to cut down their drinking or cut it out entirely, this ad is upsetting and irrelevant.

Pregnant women with pre-existing drinking problems are another story. They need help, not finger-pointing. Will shaming or shocking them make them quit?

What about the rights of mothers-to-be? And finally, what about a public service announcement aimed at fathers-to-be, as their support is crucial. “If Dad drinks, then so does Mom,” the ad could say.

One more thought, which we raised before on Drinking Diaries. Perhaps a better approach might be to highlight the positive: i.e. How and where to get help if you’re pregnant and you can’t stop drinking. A shaming, shocking image is just as likely to drive a stressed-out woman right back where the health officials don’t want her: to the bar.

Over the last several years, I have watched my mother’s memory come and go, lapse and return. She has had an MRI of her brain and does not have Alzheimer’s. As a matter of fact, her more-than-competent doctor has described her brain as “robust” for her age.

So, why then, at the age of 76, does my mother call me looking for my father when he’s been deceased for nearly four years? And why can’t she remember the names of her very close relatives? Although my mother is sober now, it seems that her on-and-off-again loss of memory is a result of a period of heavy drinking within the past ten years.

A new study conducted in Brazil focused specifically on cognitive problems caused by heavy alcohol use among 1,145 people who were 60 years old or older. The study found that 8.2 percent of the 419 men and 726 women studied were heavy drinkers, or drinking at levels that are considered high risk. (For women, heavy drinking is four drinks or more during a day or more than seven drinks a week.)

One of the more surprising findings of the study was that heavy drinking affects the cognitive function of women more than men. “The effects of heavy alcohol use on memory and other cognitive functions were more evident in women,” said Marcos Antonio Lopes, the author of the study. “Our findings suggest that alcohol use does not have a linear relationship with cognitive decline.”

In other words, women who continue to drink heavily into their senior years run the risks of losing cognitive function and are more prone therefore to falls and significant memory loss.

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Recent research published in the British Journal of Nutrition found that, like red wine, a little bit of champagne or sparkling wine a day could be good for your heart. This research comes just in the nick of time as sales of champagne have been continually declining, particularly in the United States.

Polyphenols found in red wine help the heart by slowing down the removal of nitric oxide from the blood, which lowers blood pressure and reduces the risk of heart problems and strokes. Similarly, elevated levels of nitric oxide found in champagne cause blood vessels to dilate, and has the same effect as red wine.

And while we’re on the subject…

Madame Jacques Bollinger, otherwise known as “Aunt Lily,” took over Champagne Bollinger when her husband, Jacques, died in 1941. It was war time and, with no gasoline to fill the trucks and tractors, Lily took to her bicycle to tour and manage the vineyards, personally supervising every aspect of the business.

 Her most lasting legacy, aside from the bubbly we drink today, is her famous quote about champagne, published  in London’s Daily Mail, October 17, 1961:

“I drink it when I’m happy and when I’m sad.
 Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone.
When I have company I consider it obligatory. 
I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and I drink it when I am.
 Otherwise I never touch it, unless I’m thirsty.”

A la vôtre…

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Along with family, close friends, and travel, yoga and wine are high on the list of things I love. Just sounding out the two words in the same sentence has me smiling.

Clearly, I’m not the only who feels this way, as a growing number of yoga retreat centers are now offering wine tastings and gourmet cooking classes.

In a recent New York Times article, “When Chocolate and Chakras Collide,” Julie Moskin reports on the trend of spas and retreats catering to an increasing population that seeks the intensity of both fine flavors and the high one gets from deep breathing and yoga poses.

Yoga is an ancient practice that gradually trains your body and mind to be in a state of peace, while wine is most certainly a fleeting remedy, which can raise your spirits and relieve your inhibitions. But, according to an online story in iYoga Life, the two have more in common than you think.

“Yoga teaches you how to age gracefully just like a great bottle of wine ages gracefully,” explains David Romanelli, an instructor at Exhale Santa Monica, who teaches yoga and wine workshops across the country. “Pouring a glass of wine is a celebration of one moment in your day that you want to hone and protect.”  Says the posting, Romanelli has risked his reputation with unconventional yoga and wine workshops.

Like anything else, there is controversy on the topic, where some yogis do not agree that food and wine are compatible with the enlightenment one seeks from yoga.

“Yoga purists say that many foods — like wine and meat — are still off limits,” writes Ms. Moskin. “Others say that anything goes, as long as it tastes good. The debate is exposing rich ores of resentment in the yoga world.”

So what do you think–are wine and yoga compatible?

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If you knocked a few back during last night’s Super Bowl (and perhaps after if you’re a Saints fan), the upside to all those calories is that you may have been improving the density of your bones.

According to a new study published in the February issue of the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, published by Wiley-Blackwell, beer is a significant source of dietary silicon, a key ingredient for increasing bone mineral density.

After analyzing 100 commercial beers, researchers from the Department of Food Science & Technology at the University of California, Davis, determined the relationship between beer production methods and the resulting silicon content, concluding that beer is a rich source of dietary silicon.

They discovered that beer, especially pale ales (as opposed to darker beers), contains high levels of silicon known to slow down the bone thinning that leads to fractures and boosting the formation of new bone. The recent finding backs up previous research which also showed that the drink was good at fending off brittle bones – especially in women.

“We have examined a wide range of beer styles for their silicon content and have also studied the impact of raw materials and the brewing process on the quantities of silicon that enter wort and beer,” said Charles Bamforth, lead author of the study.

Now it may not be the same as a glass of milk, and I may have to rethink my penchant for dark ambers, but next time I sip from a cold bottle of another favorite, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, I’ll remember that I’m doing just a touch of good for my health.

Here’s a toast to the city that never sleeps and to New Yorkers, who are living longer than before. But wait! Maybe you should fill that glass with sparkling cider instead of wine…

According to a study released this week by New York City’s Department of Health (reported via DNA Info Beta: Manhattan Local News), although New Yorkers are living an average of 5 months longer than in previous years, (Women born in 2007 can expect to live to 82; men to 76.3) the city seems to have a drinking problem. Is it any wonder, with the smorgasbord of open-all-night bars and clubs? Dancing and having fun extend your life, but then there’s the drinking and drugging that go along with all that fun. Hmmm.

The good news? Deaths from heart disease and cancer are dropping.

The bad news? Drug overdoses and alcohol-related diseases, such as liver disease, as well as violence and unintentional injuries, were still among the leading causes of premature deaths for New Yorkers, according to the report.

The Bloomberg administration took some credit for the lowering of heart disease, citing the city’s ban on smoking and transfats. But what are they going to do about the little drinking problem? Close the bars? Raise the price of alcohol or even–gulp–restore Prohibition. Yikes!

Think 20-somethings are the biggest boozers? Think again. A new study of Danish and English women found that women with high incomes and good jobs drink more often and more heavily than almost any other group of women. According to the researchers, society’s preoccupation with teen and college-age drinking has led them to overlook another group of heavy drinkers: professional, middle-aged women.

Why the discrepancy? Researchers says it’s because middle-aged drinking is seen as civilized, compared to the drinking-fueled antics of 20-somethings. Middle-aged drinking is simply not as sexy and visible (Is there a “Gossip Girl” or “Sex in the City” for 40 and 50-somethings?) Picture a 20-something drinker and you picture a gaggle of women hitting the bars, socializing. Older women, with serious jobs, relationships and perhaps, families, tend to do more of their drinking in private, at home. But just because they’re not jumping up on bars or hooking up with random men doesn’t mean they’re consuming less.

Over the holidays, I couldn’t resist going to the latest chick flick, IT’S COMPLICATED, a middle-aged woman’s wet dream, whereby Meryl Streep looks amazing and gets romanced by not one, but two, suitors. I don’t know about you, but most of my friends’ moms who were divorced waited years till they found someone else, while their exes seemed to hook up right away. I’m sure that’s not always the case, but let’s face it: IT’S COMPLICATED is total fantasy-land, people, including the drinking.

Oh, the drinking. IT’S COMPLICATED literally made me want to drink. Everyone had such a rosy glow, and when Meryl throws back a few, then a few more, at the bar with Alec Baldwin, she laughs! She dances! She glows! And she has the time of her life. Sure–things do get “complicated,” but if complicated means great sex and lots of admirers, what’s so bad about that? Yes, Meryl Streep’s character does get sick from all the booze. But still–even the scene of her barfing into her nightstand drawer is cute and funny, rather than sad. It’s all in the lighting. Plus, in the movie, she has a fabulous career as the owner of a high-end bakery, a beautiful house, three gorgeous, well-adjusted kids, and an ex-husband who still carries a torch. Oh yeah, and a killer wardrobe.

Meryl Streep drinks with her warm and witty group of girlfriends. She drinks with her ex. She drinks with her kids, and has a ball. She even smokes pot, and makes it look fun (you’ll have to see the movie for yourself to see the Steven Martin/Meryl Streep pot-smoking party scene–hilarious).

All this is to say that the middle-aged, highly educated professional played by Meryl Streep–and all the other middle-aged and above characters in the film who have great wardrobes, big smiles and great jobs–make the twenty-somethings look tame by comparison. So what gives? Is this another part of the IT’S COMPLICATED fantasy-land, or is there some truth to the thought that established women drink just as much as twenty-somethings?

If you’re 40- 50 or 60-something plus and you’re reading this–do you drink more, less, or the same as you did in your twenties?

Right now, while raising three kids, I definitely drink less, mostly because I’m too tired at night, and I’d rather take a bath or read. But I can envision a time, down the road, when the kids are away at college (like Meryl Streep’s kids in IT’S COMPLICATED) and I start traveling, hanging out more with friends, and yes–sharing bottles of wine…Wow–that sounds like fun. (Not to be a downer, but for some women, who have struggled with alcohol-related issues, the drinking in IT’S COMPLICATED must seem like a sugar-coated fantasy–like Russian roulette, because you never know who’s going to be adversely effected).

I don’t know about you, but after I’ve completed a long run, I feel like I’m entitled to drink anything or eat anything. Hence, the reason I haven’t lost weight when I’ve trained for the two half marathons I’ve run. And I’ll bet that many, many triathletes and marathoners celebrate their finishes with pasta or pizza and beer.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who feels she deserves a treat after exercising. A kind Drinking Diaries reader sent a link to this article, which came to the surprising conclusion that people who drink may exercise more than people who don’t (or who only drink lightly).

And then there are The Boston Hash House Harriers, a group of runners who meet once a week and call themselves, “a drinking club with a running problem.” First, interested runners meet at a pre-determined location, and then they follow a trail, with stops along the way for beer or water breaks. You don’t have to drink alcohol to be a member, but most people, it seems, do, and you have to be 21 to join.

Read below about the “Beer Check(s)”  and the end of the trail (quoted directly from the Boston Hash club’s website):  

Will a slap in the face sober you up? How about exercise? Or a cold plunge? Does coffee really help reverse the effects of a bender? Last night’s Mythbusters featured an hilarious segment on urban myths about alcohol.

The funniest part of the episode was realizing how painful it is to get drunk when you HAVE to.  Adam and Jamie lined up the shots, and gulped them down. “Almost like medicine,” one of them said.

To test their myths, before they got drunk, Adam and Jamie performed a standard coordination test that involved tracing a maze-like line. They measured both their accuracy and their speed. They also blew into a breathalyzer to analyze the alcohol content in their bloodstream.

Can you guess which two urban myths were plausible, and which were not, according to Adam and Jamie’s findings?

Even though running on a treadmill almost killed Adam (see You Tube video here), they found that exercise sobered them up. The other thing that worked? A slap in the face!

Coffee and an icy face-plunge were shown to be myths.

But as they say on the show–don’t try this at home! That treadmill fall looked painful, and I almost got ill watching them pound the shots.

If you want to test your knowledge of more urban myths about alcohol, Mythbusters has a series of fun questions on their site. (They also did a beer goggles myth busting test, and found beer goggles to be plausible, but their test didn’t seem too scientifically sound to me, although I’m sure plenty of anecdotal evidence supports the urban myth that the more you drink, the more attractive you find the opposite sex).

Just in time for New Year’s Eve festivities, a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition last week revealed that champagne is good for the heart. Reported in The Daily Telegraph, the research has “found that champagne has the same health benefits as previously found in red wine.”

The study team’s leader, Dr. Jeremy Spencer of the University of Reading in the U.K., told the newspaper, “We have found that a couple of glasses a day has a beneficial effect on the walls of blood vessels, which suggests champagne has the potential to reduce strokes and heart disease. It is very exciting news.”

The research set out to answer the question regarding polyphenol levels in champagne. The antioxidant was known to be present in red wine and absent from white wine, but as champagne contains both red and white grapes there was uncertainty over polyphenol levels.

This is particularly good news for the champagne industry, as this research comes at a time when champagne sales are declining continually, particularly in the US.

And the benefits are not limited to alcoholic drinks. The study also found high levels of the antioxidant in cocoa beans, meaning a mug of hot chocolate is just as as good. Except, Dr. Spencer points out, “It doesn’t seem as much fun somehow.”

Other sparkling wine alternatives, such as cava and Prosecco have also been found to contain the antioxidants.

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Turns out my favorite line from Anna Karenina also applies to hangovers.  I used to think that all hangovers were alike–your head pounds, your mouth feels stuffed with cotton, you feel shaky, dizzy, pukey–but apparently, I was wrong.

Just in time for the holidays–your personal guide to the “Six Stages of Hangovers” (reprinted from About.com Cocktails, but this hangover rating scale has apparently been passed around for years, albeit in different versions):

• One Star Hangover:
  No pain. No real feeling of illness. Your sleep last night was a mere disco nap, which has given you a whole lot of misplaced energy. Be glad that you are able to function relatively well. However, you are still parched. You can drink 10 sodas and still feel this way. You are craving a steak bomb and a side of gravy fries.
• Two Star Hangover:
  No pain, but something is definitely amiss. You may look okay but you have the mental capacity of a staple gun. The coffee you are chugging is only exacerbating your rumbling gut, which is craving a rootie tootie fresh and fruity pancake breakfast from IHOP. There is some definite havoc being wreaked upon your bowels.
• Three Star Hangover:
  Slight headache. Stomach feels crappy. You are definitely not productive. Anytime a girl walks by you gag because her perfume reminds you of the random gin shots you did with your alcoholic friends after the bouncer 86′d you at 1:45 a.m. Life would be better right now if you were in your bed with a dozen donuts and a meatball hero watching the E! fashion awards. You’ve had 4 cups of coffee, a gallon of water, 3 Snapples and a liter of diet coke, yet you haven’t peed once.
• Four Star Hangover:
  Life sucks. Your head is throbbing. You can’t speak too quickly or else you might puke. Your boss has already lambasted you for being late and has given you a lecture for reeking of booze. You wore nice clothes, but that can’t hide the fact that you missed an oh-so crucial spot shaving, (girls, it looks like you put your make-up on while riding the bumper cars.) Your eyes look like one big vein and your hair style makes you look like a reject from the class picture of Grover Cleveland HS, class of ‘84.
• Five Star Hangover:
  AKA “Dante’s 4th Circle of Hell.”
  You have a second heartbeat in your head, which is actually annoying the employee who sits in the next cube. Vodka vapor is seeping out of every pore and making you dizzy. You still have toothpaste crust in the corners of your mouth from brushing your teeth in an attempt to get the remnants of the shit fairy out. Your body has lost the ability to generate saliva, so your tongue is suffocating you. Death seems pretty good right now. You definitely don’t remember who you were with, where you were, what you drank and why there is a stranger still sleeping in your bed at your otherwise empty house.
• Six Star Hangover:
  Otherwise known as the “Infinite Nut smacker”
  You wake up on your bathroom floor. For about 2 seconds you look at the ceiling, wondering if the cool refreshing feeling on your cheek is the bathroom tile or your vomit from 5 hours ago. It is amazing how your roommate was as drunk as you, but somehow managed to get up before you. You try to lift your head. Not an option. Then you inadvertently turn your head too quickly and smell the funk of 13 packs of cigarettes in your hair. Suddenly you realize you were smoking, but not ultra lights… some jackass handed you Marlboro reds, and you smoked them like it was your second full time job. You look in the mirror only to see remnants of the stamp “Ready to Rock” faintly atop your forehead… the stamp on the back of your hand that has magically appeared on your forehead by alcoholic osmosis. You have to be to work in t-minus 14 minutes and 32 seconds and the only thing you can think of wearing is your “hello kitty” pajamas and your slippers

Just in time for the holiday season, so full of liquid temptations: a new drug called naltrexone was approved by the FDA for use in the treatment of alcoholism. If taken daily, naltrexone can curb the urge to drink. The drug works by blocking the effect of drugs, known as opioids, on the brain. While it is not meant to take the place of AA, psychotherapy and other treatments for alcoholism, naltrexone–which is generally used for a 3 month period–can lessen cravings for alcohol. In clinical trials, patients using naltrexone to curb cravings were twice as successful as patients taking a placebo.

Time Magazine named Naltrexone as one of the health highlights of 2009. And given the statistics on alcoholism–in the U.S. alone, 14 million residents are battling an alcohol addiction–naltrexone will most likely be welcomed as a powerful weapon in the battle against this tough disease.

In an attempt to keep its citizens from drinking too many Hot Toddies and G&Ts (that’d be gin and tonics) this holiday season, the United Kingdom’s Department of Health is offering a free cell phone application for keeping track of just how many drinks those chaps are consuming.

The alcohol tracker application, which can be downloaded from the NHS Choices website (for Windows or iTunes), will display graphs tracking the drinking patterns of its user. By entering the amount of wine, beer, whiskey, or whatever they’ve consumed, the tracker will then calculate the units of alcohol imbibed, and ultimately present personalized feedback on their drinking habits.

The motive behind the new tracker is both to shrink the number of drunk-driving accidents and reduce excessive drinking, which has been linked to a range of health problems, stated a BBC report. “It is all too easy to lose track of how much you drink,” said the UK’s public health minister Gillian Merron, “ so as the festive parties build up, this innovative tool will help people keep tables on their drinking – wherever they are.”

Drinkaware, a “responsible drinking charity,” has backed the tracker device, and its CEO Chris Sorek comments, “Trying to stick within the daily unit guidelines will help people avoid the January slump and the long term health implications associated with drinking too much alcohol.”

I say, “Long live the Queen.”

And when do we get that app in the U.S.A.?

What do you hens think?

by Priscilla Warner

I suffered my first panic attack when I was a fifteen-year-old waitress at the Brown University cafeteria. As I stood behind a counter dishing out peas, I felt an electrical current tear through my body. My heart raced, skipped beats, and flopped around in my chest. My lungs tightened up so fast that I was breathless. Or so I thought.

I was actually breathing too quickly. I began to hyperventilate. My throat closed up, my body trembled, my arms grew rigid and my fingertips tingled. I thought I was dying.

But I managed to get home, curl up in my parents’ bed, and watched dazed as a family physician paid a house call, examined me and announced that I was “just a little bit nervous.”

Was I ever.

He wrote me a prescription for a tranquilizer, and I carried the pills with me everywhere, on high alert for the next attack. Now that I’d been prescribed a drug, my condition was official: I was a freak.

I knew that for sure.

None of my teenaged friends had a defective central nervous system that reared up and exploded, catching them completely off-guard, turning them into a quivering mess.

Back in 1968, no one ever used the term panic attack. Nobody was in rehab, or at least admitting it. A few kids were messed up enough to disappear, leaving town for places unknown. But I was normal enough to stick it out. Or try to, as I played the role of a mentally healthy adolescent.

I didn’t have panic attacks every day. And I didn’t take Valium all the time. I never talked to my family or any of my friends about the fact that I faced death on dozens of occasions when the all-too familiar symptoms of an attack – tightening lungs, a pounding heart – snuck up and clobbered me.

Sometimes the attacks were so powerful that the Valium didn’t work fast enough. Desperate to counteract the terrifying symptoms, I enlisted the help of a secret friend. I opened my parents’ liquor cabinet and vodka bottle. The fiery liquid was a faster fix.

I’d wince while it burned my throat. But soon my terrified lungs would be bathed in a warm glow, spreading down my arms to my shaky fingertips, soothing my whole body. And slaying the dragon, which I knew I could not do on my own.

As my hormones shifted through adolescence, and I went off to college, it was comforting to know that I had two weapons in my arsenal against anxiety – Valium and alcohol.

They were a lethal combination, and I knew that, thanks to the tragic tale of Karen Anne Quinlan, a 21-year-old girl in New Jersey, who had collapsed at a party after drinking alcohol and taking Valium. She lay in a coma for years, a constant reminder to me of the dangerous path I was on.  As a result of her cautionary tale, I never mixed alcohol and Valium. But I wanted them both with me at all times.

A bottle of Valium was easy to conceal in a pocketbook, but I couldn’t carry around a pint of vodka. Nowadays you can buy flasks in many shapes and sizes, made of all sorts of material, including sterling silver. But I bought my flask in 1968, and it wasn’t even really a flask. I think it was actually a hot water bottle. I found it at a drugstore. It was plastic, white and bulky and eventually it turned dingy, rusty and scratched.

It was way too big, but I made it work. The cheap vodka I poured into it made a sloshing sound as I lugged it around in my purse – glug, glug, glug. But I didn’t care how it sounded as long as nobody saw it was there.

I took my secret flask with me everywhere – walking around town, in cars, on planes, trains, automobiles and boats, on dates, to college classes, on job interviews and into ladies’ rooms. A swig here, a swig there – whenever I felt a panic attack coming on, I took a gulp of medicine. For years, the fiery liquid distracted me from what was raging in my central nervous system.

Until finally I burned out.

The alcohol began to betray me. My body rejected the medicine that had soothed me. I’d wake me up in the middle of the night with a start. I’d lie in my bed wide-eyed, shivering and shaking. The warm, mellow glow turned into jolts of all too powerful, unwanted electrical energy.

So I dropped my old friend. I stopped drinking altogether.  I took the advice of a good psychiatrist and began taking a tiny dose of Klonopin instead. It’s tasteless, legal, unexciting and clinical. But it works.

The bulky, plastic drugstore “flask” of my youth seems comically out of place in the emotionally healthy life I’ve managed to build for myself now. It’s a relic, like the electric-colored bell-bottom jeans I collected for years. But the bell-bottoms were a badge of honor, hanging from my slim hips with a sexy, nonchalant air. And the flask was a dirty little secret, a shameful crutch that no one in the world ever knew about.

Priscilla Warner co-authored The Faith Club and is currently writing a memoir about her journey from panic to peace. You can follow her progress at: priscillawarner.wordpress.com