This week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released a report stating that binge drinking is a bigger problem than they thought. According to their statistics, “More than 38 million US adults binge drink, about 4 times a month.”

So what are we going to do about it? Apparently, all the blanket recommendations, measurements and equations are falling on deaf ears. No wonder, when we’re all so different.

Rebecca Johnson, a writer, was recently interviewed in Time magazine about her unconventional approach to drinking. At one point, she went to Hazelden, a popular rehab facility, for counseling, but she felt they were pushing an “either-or model.” They suggested that she go away to rehab for a month, telling her she should never drink again. The all-or-nothing approach didn’t work for her, so she tried regulating her drinking with the help of a program called Moderate Drinking.

In my own experience, drinking habits that worked for others just didn’t work for me. I used to be jealous of my friends who could have a glass or two of wine a night, no problem. I tried that, tried to have a carefree attitude, but instead felt wracked with guilt and fear that I would become an alcoholic like my mom. Instead, over the years, I’ve learned to set my own guidelines.

For instance: I only drink wine. Not by myself. Mostly when I go out or have dinner with my husband or friends. Usually no more than 2 glasses, because I know that when I have 3 I get tired, and the next day, I have a hangover.

Occasionally, I break the rules, but these rules work for me. I can have my wine and have my fun when I go out, minus the panic and fear that I’m going to become an alcoholic.

I’m not suggesting that we do away with guidance. Most of us need mentoring, and appreciate all the information that scientists, researchers and others share. Guidance is fine. Strict, all-or-nothing, one-size-fits-all rules are not.

Ultimately, we each have to find our own balance. It may take years. For some people, abstention is the only way.  For others, a looser approach is fine.

This week, a government committee in the UK came up with a great, workable idea to help combat their binge drinking problem. They’re admitting, actually admitting, that the current drinking recommendations, with their talk of units per day, are conflicting and hard to understand. Think about it: Who’s going to bring a measuring cup to a bar, or tell the bartender to pour the extra wine out?

Instead of setting rigid standards, the committee recommends that people have at least two drink-free days out of the week.

For those who like to drink, and who aren’t struggling with addiction, this is a great idea, a jumpstart to becoming more conscious so they can start to set their own guidelines.

The day or two of not drinking helps people create lives that don’t center around drinking. Instead of resenting Big Brother, people can feel like they’re in control of their own lives.

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If you saw a pregnant woman drinking, would you A) Ignore it—her body, her business, B) Shout, “You go, girl!”—you’re sick of the pregnancy police overreacting, C) Give her a dirty look, D) March up to her and inform her that she’s harming her unborn child.

Emotions about pregnant women and drinking run high, especially in the United States, where we tend to be an all-or-nothing culture. Pregnant women have been kicked out of bars, even when they weren’t drinking, and scolded at restaurants.

When I was pregnant, I wouldn’t have minded a sip or two of wine, but I was terrified to order a glass in a restaurant, for fear someone would swoop down and scold me. It was easier to abstain for the nine months, save for a few tastes of champagne on New Years.

Was I being paranoid, or are people really as judgmental as it seems when it comes to pregnant women and alcohol? The Minnesota Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome recently conducted a social experiment designed to find out.

The non-profit hired an actress wearing a fake belly to stand in front of Leinenkugel’s Lodge drinking a beer. The actress stood in the same spot for some time with another friend as cameras recorded reactions from people.

Fairgoers walking by took notice. A few people muttered comments under their breath or gave her dirty looks, and some even gave her kudos for drinking. Many walked away shaking their heads with disappointment, but refrained from saying anything. Joelle Denning and her family were some of them. “It’s really none of my business,” said Denning (as quoted in the Minnesota local news). “She looked like she was in her last trimester. And my doctor told me I could have a glass of wine or beer in my last trimester.”

According to an article on Cafe Mom, Emily Gunderson, a spokeswoman for the organization conducting the experiment interpreted the lack of intervention to mean that people “are not comfortable yet approaching somebody and I think that is part of our mission yet…It’s not illegal for a pregnant woman to drink,” said Gunderson. “Our organization just wants to make sure women have good accurate information before they make those choices.”

Educating women is a great and crucial mission, but do we really want to encourage random people to approach pregnant women? How do we know if the woman is taking a few sips, or guzzling multiple bottles of beer? What if the beer was non-alcoholic?

It’s easy to rush to judgment without knowing all the facts. And besides, are we meant to police other women’s bodies?

At the end of the Cafe Mom article, Julie Ryan Evans concludes: “If you were sitting in a restaurant next to a pregnant woman and could hear just how many vodka tonics she ordered and watched her drink them down, that would be a different story. In such an obvious case of overindulgence, I think most people would jump in at that point, or at least I hope they would. But when it comes to people minding their manners when they don’t know enough about the situation to judge, I’m glad to see that at least in Minnesota, they do a pretty good job of it.”

The jury’s still out on this one: Do you think it’s okay to intervene when you see a pregnant woman drinking (if you think she’s drinking to excess), or do you think it’s her body, her business? Did you have any interesting experiences while pregnant?

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A couple of nights ago, our family was eating dinner in a New Hampshire college town. My husband put his wine glass in front of my 18 year old daughter so she could taste the wine. Moment later, the waitress appeared front and center and asked my daughter if she was of legal drinking.

My daughter explained that she was not, and the waitress asked us to keep the wine glass in front of the person who was legally permitted to drink it.

We concluded that being in the middle of a small college town, they probably need to be particularly diligent about the drinking age. But the scenario was pretty bizarre for our family, as we’ve traveled to countries in recent years where waiters have repeatedly asked our clearly underage daughter if she’d be drinking some of the wine they were pouring for us. Needless to say, the laws and attitudes regarding underage drinking vary from country to country. But even here in the USA, where we sipped champagne with our daughter at a restaurant to celebrate her high school graduation–she was given her own flute–the restrictions vary from state to state. 

On the National Institute of Health’s website (NIH), the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism provides loads of information under the Alcohol Policy Information System. When I discovered the page titled, State Profiles of Underage Drinking Laws, I searched under both New York (where we live) and New Hampshire (where we ate last weekend) to determine how the laws varied. What I found instead was a totally confusing explanation where the terms “possessing,” “purchasing,” and “furnishing” come with such unclear nuances that this paragraph preceded the state by state distinctions:

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It used to be that the prototypical alcoholic was a middle-aged person who had been drinking for years and had finally hit rock bottom. Not any more. Increasingly, younger and younger people are declaring themselves alcoholics, or problem drinkers who must abstain. One 22-year-old woman even coined the term “soberista” to describe herself, according to an article in The Guardian.

The list of famous twenty-somethings who have declared themselves sober includes Daniel Radcliffe, the 21-year-old star of the Harry Potter movies (who said he quit because he had “become reliant on alcohol to enjoy stuff”); Kelly Osbourne, 26, of reality-TV and Fashion Emergency fame (who gave up alcohol two years ago after three visits to rehab, citing a “genetic fault”); and Blake Lively, of Gossip Girl fame (who was in rehab at 21 and said, “I don’t want to go to a club and not wear panties.”). Not to mention Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, whose struggles with alcohol have been endless (and endlessly chronicled).

But it’s not just famous people who are jumping on the sober wagon. An entire movement has sprung up in Australia. Chris Raine, the founder of Hello Sunday Morning, describes it as “an opportunity for anyone who is ready to take a three month break from our drinking culture and find out what life is like without a hangover.”

While it’s laudable for sick people to get the help they need, it might be jumping the gun for someone in their twenties to declare that they’ll never drink again, or to slap a label on themselves at all.

As Viv Groskop puts it in The Guardian, “There is something very sad about people labeling themselves as alcoholics before they’re even 30. Come on, guys, at least give yourselves a few years for the problem to develop into something really devastating and worthy of your celebrity status!”

Koren Zailckas, the author of Smashed, a memoir of her days as a binge-drinking teen, put it best in an interview:  ”I’ve talked to a lot of addiction counselors who say alcoholism is made up of two things: abuse and addiction. God knows I had that abuse down pat. But I don’t know that I necessarily felt (or feel) that addiction. And so no, I don’t identify myself as an alcoholic. That identity didn’t feel true to me, so I didn’t write it. I also think the brand ‘alcoholic’ prevents a lot of people, especially young people, from seeking help or even reevaluating their relationship with alcohol. In my mind, the whole point of Smashed is to say, you don’t have to be a quote-unquote alcoholic in order to examine the underlying reasons why you’re drinking.”

Abstinence might indeed be the right thing for some young people, but as Viv Groskop writes in The Guardian, “actually it’s just storing up a mammoth midlife crisis. If you thought Friday night in a town centre was ugly now, imagine how much worse it would be if the participants were middle aged.”

It’s the old get-it-out-of-your-system argument. Make something taboo, and it eventually becomes that much more attractive—like ice cream to a dieter.

The Danish brewery Carlsberg is introducing a new “girlie” beer called Copenhagen, which they’re targeting to “modern” men and women. Packaged in a clear bottle, in clean, minimalist style, the design is modeled after the city it’s named for: “an international city of fashion and design.”

Why? Because, according to a spokeswoman for Carlsberg, these modern men and women want “drinks to match their style,” and may “reject a beer if the design does not appeal to them.”

Really? Cause this sounds kind of wimpy to me.

As much as I have to admit the new bottle is kind of cool, the beer itself looks like chardonnay. Supposedly, it’s less bitter than regular beer. But part of beer’s cachet is that it’s an acquired taste, not as easy as wine coolers or those alco-pops they market to teens. Maybe it’s better if the booze goes down with a bite, rather than so easily.

I’ll be sad if beer loses its macho swagger. Isn’t that the whole point of drinking beer? And remember those clear beers—Zima? They ceased production in 2008, though they’re still marketed in Japan. Personally, I thought they were kind of gross.

I don’t know. How do you feel, readers? Is design important to you, in choosing your drinks? Does the bottle, or the label, draw you to a certain brand, or do you go for the taste, the reputation, or the image?

Should the second “A” in AA be dropped? A.A.’s 11th Tradition states, “We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films.” To clarify—it’s okay to identify yourself as “sober” or “in recovery,” but it’s not okay to identify yourself as a member of A.A. or other 12-step groups.

But is this anonymity a throwback to another era, when being an alcoholic was a disgrace? A debate is raging in the media and on the internet, and it’s worth examining both sides.

Last week, the New York Times ran a story by a recovering alcoholic, “Challenging the Second ‘A’ in AA.”  The author, David Colman, calls anonymity a “collective fiction.” At the meetings he’s attended over the years in Manhattan, the people he hears telling their stories are often people he knows–people from work, or well-known authors and actors.

Why should AA be so secretive, Colman and others argue, when that only reinforces the idea that being an alcoholic is shameful? People should be able to share their stories publicly, as many celebrities (Pink, Eminem) and memorists already have (think Mary Karr, Susan Cheever, Caroline Knapp, James Frey).

Maer Roshan, editor of The Fix, a new site aimed at the recovery world, compared the anonymity of alcoholics to gay people being in the closet. “Having to deny your own participation in a program that is helping your life doesn’t make sense to me…You could be focusing light on something that will make it better and more honest and more helpful.”

In a piece for The Fix, Susan Cheever, also a recovering alcoholic, who has written a book about Bill Wilson, the founder of AA writes: “We are in the midst of a public health crisis when it comes to understanding and treating addiction…A.A.’s principle of anonymity may only be contributing to general confusion and prejudice.”

Then came the rebuttals. Mary Elizabeth Williams wrote a piece for Salon–“Can AA survive our tell-all era?” She argues that you can’t really compare celebrities, writers and other people in creative professions to others. Not everyone has the freedom and clout to come clean. Entertainers like Eminem and Russell Brand are supposed to run wild and free—admitting their alcoholism only contributes to their mystique. But what about doctors or teachers, or people who don’t live in ultra-liberal Manhattan? As Williams writes, for these people, there could be “profound social and career repercussions” if their colleagues and clients “know that a year ago, [they were] getting obliterated before work.”

Williams also points out that telling people you’re in AA opens you up for criticism, skepticism and debate, which might weaken your chances for recovery.

Yes, anonymity may seem old fashioned in this era of reality TV, but still—as Williams writes: “AA’s business model of having no official spokesperson and of attraction rather than promotion…is not for everybody, but you’ve got to give it props for its refusal to turn itself into TLC network, quick-fix shlock.”

It’s easy to understand both sides of the debate, but I say, if you want to write a memoir or come out of the closet as an alcoholic, that’s fine, but don’t make it policy that everyone should have to do the same.

If they dropped the anonymous part of AA, millions of people who could have been helped will turn away from the organization because they don’t have the desire to share their sobriety with the world—or their neighborhood.

Anonymity also protects children of alcoholics. If I ever asked my mom, “Who goes to your AA meetings,” she would explain AA’s code of anonymity, and how important it was for people’s information to remain private. I, in turn, felt secure that the other people at her local meetings wouldn’t be blabbing all over the neighborhood about the personal information my mom shared. What if some kid in my class got hold of that information?

I shudder to imagine some reality TV show, “My mom, the alcoholic,” where the camera goes inside an AA meeting, the recovering alcoholics performing for the camera. Just because the parent agrees to reveal personal details of his or her life, doesn’t mean the child is ready to deal with the repercussions of those revelations.

by Patty Nasey

Life is different today/I hear everybody say

Mother needs something today to calm her down.

She goes running for the shelter of a mother’s little helper

And it helps her on her way/Gets her through her busy day.

~Rolling Stones, 1967

Just in time for Mother’s Day, a California-based winery recently filed a lawsuit in federal court asking a judge to declare that its MommyJuice Wine does not infringe on the trademark of rival vitner, Mommy’s Time Out.  When it comes to wine, MommyJuice’s attorneys say, there’s no monopoly on the word ‘mommy.’

Both wines promise harried caregivers a respite from the demands of motherhood.  Mommy’s Time Out offers a “well-deserved break” although, judging by the picture on the label, this “break” involves sitting alone with a bottle in a corner. It looks like more of a punishment than a reward. The MommyJuice imagery is a little more inviting, featuring a cute cartoon of a mom with four arms, sitting in the lotus position while juggling a house, a computer, a spatula and a teddy bear.  The website offers a “gift set” with a bottle of wine and a baby onesie that says: “When I whine, Mommy wines.” And the copy on the label reads: “Being a mom is a constant juggling act, so tuck your kids into bed, sit down and have a glass of MommyJuice.”

“Sexist!!” was my first reaction to this latest development in the Mommy Wars.  I have plenty of male friends who suck on cigars while watching their kids, but I doubt they’d smoke a stogie called Daddy’s Binky or Papa’s Paci. Of course they wouldn’t!  So how is that not one but two vintners are fighting for the right to put Mommy on their label?  Maybe it’s because we really haven’t come such a long way, baby.  Our moms had Valium; we have MommyJuice.  Why not just call it Mother’s Little Helper and end the lawsuit.

“Why are you so angry about this?” a friend asked as I shouted from the top of my feminist soapbox.  Indeed, I had no problem
with National Mom’s Nite Out, a series that took place last night all across the country. But something about those mommy wines got me in a rage.  “You know,” she said, “if it’s hysterical, it’s historical.”

And then I remembered Veronica.*  She and I got married and pregnant around the same time. I watched in awe as Veronica transitioned gracefully and effortlessly into her new role as a wife and mother.  When my daughter was just 10 weeks old, I couldn’t wait to get back to the controlled environment of my office while Veronica stayed home, organized play groups (I used to send my nanny) and breast fed for a year.

My apartment looked like a war zone; Veronica’s was spotless. I bought Gerber’s baby food; Veronica mashed her own.  I was still carrying a few pounds of baby weight when I got pregnant with my second child; Veronica did Strollercize in Central Park every morning and looked better than before she was pregnant.  She was my go-to mom who could juggle it all like the lady on the MommyJuice label, while I felt like balls were dropping all around me.  And then her second child was born.  She started smoking again, the apartment got a little messier, the food took longer to make, it was harder for her to find time to exercise. After she weaned the baby, she started having a glass of wine once the kids went to sleep. Within two years, the glass at night had turned into a bottle; the cigarettes had become marijuana. The “I deserve a break” message she had told herself had insidiously evolved into “I can’t do this without a drink.”  And Mommy’s “time out” became an all-the-time habit.

When her kids were only 3 and 5, Veronica went to her first rehab. When her husband came alone to social events or playdates, he covered for her saying she was home taking a nap or feeling sick. I just assumed she was exhausted like the rest of us. She returned from rehab only to relapse within the year. She tried a second rehab where she met a recovering Crystal Meth addict. She relapsed again only this time she got hooked on Meth. After several failed attempts to get clean, she ended up leaving the country, granting her husband a divorce and giving up custody of her kids.

I bumped into her just before she moved away. She was almost unrecognizable — a fragile, hollow shell of her former beautiful self.  I had been so angry at her when I learned what had happened, but that day I  just hugged her as we stood on the sidewalk sobbing. Six years later, I still can’t look at her kids without breaking down and crying.

Of course, there are plenty of moms who can safely enjoy a “time out” with a glass or two of wine. and will celebrate on Sunday with a well-deserved drink. But seeing the word “Mommy” on not one, but two wine labels reminds me of my friend — and of the millions of women who won’t be spending Mother’s Day with their children as they battle the powerful disease of addiction. These mothers don’t need another “little helper.”  They need help. And on Mother’s Day and everyday, I hope and pray that they may find it.

*Names and minor details have been changed.

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I’ll have a venti…glass of wine?

In a bid to be more than just a coffee company, Starbucks has been serving beer, wine, and upscale appetizers in its Olive Way store, in Seattle’s popular Capitol Hill area. Now Starbucks plans to open a new cafe concept in Portland that will serve beer and wine, in mid-June, 2011. This Starbucks will be located next to Powell’s books in the Pearl District. Eventually, Starbucks may offer alcohol in thousands of stores worldwide.

You may be wondering why—thinking, If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But according to USA today, the company gets 70 percent of its business before 2 pm, and would like to see more late afternoon and evening action.

While I understand the move from a marketing and business perspective, I’m not thrilled that our alcohol-infused society is about to become even more so. Many tweens and teens hang out at Starbucks during their lunch hour and at night. This will just reinforce the feeling that alcohol is a harmless relaxant, on par with coffee. But as we all know, alcohol is risky for many people. And will Starbucks have to start carding people?

I recently read a piece in the New York Times about nail salons offering cocktails to women getting their nails done. And then I read “Bar Crawling from Boutique to Boutique,” about upscale men’s stores serving drinks (to men who were shopping—they didn’t mention women, or women’s boutiques). Apparently, it loosens the men up and gives added incentive for them to go shopping, say, before Happy Hour. Why not “pre-game” with that scotch on the rocks, while trying on clothes? I’ve also been reading about the trend, at hip and cool companies, to stock the refrigerators with booze. What’s next, a little tipple for teachers, between classes? A chardonnay at church or temple? 

Not to be a joykill, but I think it’s important to have gathering places that are alcohol-free. I consider myself lucky that I can drink in moderation, but not everyone is so fortunate. Nearly 14 million Americans have alcohol disorders and more than half of us come from alcoholic backgrounds. Even though a boozy Starbucks sounds like a fun idea for those of us who enjoy alcohol, I say, leave the booze to the bars.

What do you think, readers? Am I being a buzzkill here?

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By Leah Odze Epstein

I always feel slightly sheepish when I order pink wine out in public, like I’m a lightweight or something. A girly girl who can’t hold her liquor. Still, I can’t resist. The color makes me happy. It makes me think of the sunset club on the Greek Island, Ios (yes, there was a sunset club, and yes, the sunsets were pink against a blue sky. No. I did not drink rose. I drank an obscenely delicious chocolate-milky concoction called an Ios Kiss, that involved lots of Bailey’s Irish Crème, but that’s another story that involves a twenty-pound weight gain). Pink wine reminds me of summer. Pink wine feels light and playful. It transports me back to the days of pretend tea parties. All this is to say, it ain’t that macho. And sometimes, when I drink, I like to be macho (in a womanly sort of way).

Pink wine is not to be confused with zinfandel, that sickly-sweet scourge of the 80s that, I have to admit, got me through my early wine-drinking days and was the perfect transition from wine coolers—wine with training wheels.

The pink wine I’m talking about–the pink wine I’m not ashamed to say I love–is rosé. And I’m not the only one. A Forbes piece on rosé declared that it “is no longer the pink-headed stepchild of the wine shop,” and cited this statistic from the Wine Market Council: “Of those Americans who drink at least one glass of wine each week, 18% of the time they drink pink.”  Still, it’s clear that rosé has a long way to go. New Zealand winemaker Kim Crawford makes a rosé called Pansy! which is, according to Forbes, “mostly marketed to the gay community.” Seriously?

Then call me a pansy.

The key to finding a great rosé—not too sweet—is educating yourself. Taste as many as you can, and see what’s good. Eric Asimov has some great suggestions in his New York Times column, The Pour, on drinking rosé in the winter.

Do you drink pine wine? If so, what’s your favorite?

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In her New York Times article, “Where Alcoholism Drinks in the Laughs,” Alessandra Stanley points to the discrepancies between drinking in real life and drinking as shown on TV. Though people are boozing it up more than ever on TV, the shows “present a conflicted, all-or-nothing portrait that isn’t realistic so much as it is a reflection of the American love-hate relationship with liquor–all or Prohibition.”

In real life, as Stanley points out, “Drinking is fun, until it’s not.” On TV, drinking is either comedy or tragedy, all good or all bad.

She writes: “There is an element of denial in even the most extreme depictions…Most television shows can’t deal with [the] contradiction[s].” And so drinking is either minimized (as in David Hasselhoff’s new reality show, where there’s only a passing, joking reference to his alcoholism) or depicted as all fun and games, with a rosy glow (think “Cougar Town,” and “Jersey Shore,” where drinking is mined for laughs and the alcohol flows with no truly serious consequences).  And then there is alcohol as tragedy (think “Intervention” or “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew”).

Where is the middle ground, on which most of us stand? In Stanley’s opinion, “Mad Men” is one of the few shows offering a balanced view of drinking, showing both the pleasures and perils–with the romanticized cocktail hours on one hand, and a glimpse of the long-term effects of such boozing last season.

We all know, intellectually, that television isn’t reality. Even so, the images are pervasive, and they begin to seep in and influence behavior. How many women started ordering up those bathtub-sized pink cosmos after “Sex and the City,” even if they tasted like crap and made you blind drunk after one? It all looked so fun, you wanted to jump into the scene!

Maybe it’s time for a series based on the true spectrum of drinking stories. “Drinking Diaries,” anyone?

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We interrupt this blog to bring you a holiday advisory: Think twice before drinking and shopping. Or at least shop first, then celebrate, rather than vice versa. Unless you want to end up with deliverymen on your doorstep the next day, waiting for you to sign for that Barca Lounge Massage Chair that seemed so fantastic the day before, after you’d had a few glasses of wine.

Here’s a funny tidbit:

On a recent Friday afternoon in Bar Louie at the upscale Legacy Village in Lyndhurst, Ohio, four women — all mothers in their late 30s — laughed and raised glasses in the corner. They try to get together at least once a week to shop, sip and socialize. They’ve learned their lesson about what the order should be.

“Now we get our shopping done first,” said Cassi (none of the four wanted her last name used). “If you drink before, you just get too brave. You spend too much money.”

“I get shopping goggles,” said Kim, citing a recent incident when she dropped $90 on a sweater while tipsy.

“The next morning, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, what was I thinking?’” Perhaps the worst place to get your drink on is in your own house, near your computer.

Karry’s been there. “I was at home drinking,” she remembered, “and I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I need bras.’ ” She found a couple at Nordstrom.com and spent $55 — each.

Several years back, The Baylor College of Medicine even issued a public advisory: “Don’t drink and shop during the holidays.” Drinking before shopping relaxes you, to the point where you may linger in the stores and spend more money than you normally would.

On the other hand, shopping can be stressful, especially on Black Friday, with visions of trampled shoppers floating around your head. So maybe a few drinks can take the edge off, or help you relax when you try on bikinis.

Drinking and shopping–pro or con? What do you think?

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by Katherine, college student

It’s true that alcohol is a part of college for many people.  Whether you attend a wet campus or a dry one, it doesn’t really matter—most students will have had experience with alcohol by the time they graduate. As a college student myself, the thing I look forward to each week is going out on the weekends with my roommates and friends. It’s the social aspect I value, not the alcohol, but alcohol generally accompanies our evenings.

Throughout college, I’ve always considered my immediate group of friends to be a pretty healthy, responsible bunch. We drink socially, but in moderation. We all value our grades, health and jobs, so finding a balance is important. I remember being nervous freshman year about the decision to join a sorority because of the media stereotypes of dumb and skinny “sorority girls” who meticulously count calories and drink heavily. The group of friends I found, however, seemed to be just like me and valued the same things I did.

My senior year of college, I grew closer with a few girls who had previously only been friends of friends. I started to notice some strange behaviors among them. Thursday night was always the big night out, and we would often eat lunch at the sorority house together.  One particular young woman’s eating habits stood out to me. She would nibble on a few fries or maybe a salad, but that’s it. Later at night, while we were all getting ready to go out and eating dinner or munching on snacks to make sure we all had something in our system, she would take four or five shots instead.  By the time she got to the bar, she was wasted because there were no nutrients or calories in her body to sustain her. That didn’t stop her from drinking more. Blacking out seemed to be a typical occurrence for her.  I wasn’t surprised if I heard in the morning that she had lost her wallet, phone or some other valuable.

Our friends had hushed conversations about it, because we didn’t really understand what she was doing. Generally, anorexics are so worried about calories that they don’t even drink alcohol. She would eat, technically, but not enough to sustain her for a night of drinking. So what could she be doing? There were also whispers that laxatives were a daily part of her diet. Still, though, no one ever really addressed her about it. Personally, I didn’t feel close enough to her to say anything about it.

Spring break was the point where I realized this was truly disordered eating. Her suitemates and close friends were worried about her because she barely ate anything the whole week. Our resort was all-inclusive, which meant that we had meal service available at almost any time of the day. As hearty eaters and lovers of all things food, my immediate friends and I took full advantage of the all-inclusive dining. However, I rarely saw her sit down to eat a meal. When she did, she would pick at the food on her plate, saying she wasn’t hungry. She did, however, take advantage of the all-inclusive drinking, which was available from morning to night. The only time I really saw her eat anything the whole week was near the pool, where there was a buffet of snack foods for guests.  She would pick at chicken fingers or wings only after she had been drinking heavily all day and didn’t have as much control over her inhibitions.

When I saw a video a few weeks ago on Newsy.com about “drunkorexia,” it was like a light bulb went on. I realized this behavior was exactly what my friend was doing. I find this extremely sad because I have a hard time believing that the behavior will end once she is out of the binge-drinking days of college.  There must be deeper psychological issues rooted in this than just calorie counting. Aside from the mental effects, the combination of drinking and not eating is horrible for your body, stomach and liver.  Not all calories were created equal, and booze calories should not equate the calories you get from food and nutrients.  It’s one thing to skip the extra cookie if you want to have a glass of wine later, but skipping all your meals to make up for all the alcohol you’re planning to drink is a severe problem.

I found the Newsy video to be extremely insightful on what drunkorexia is and what sort of debate surrounds the issue.  It raises the question if swapping food for booze is a reasonable way to count calories, or if this is a serious problem. It includes clips from interviews with students who engage in the behavior as well as experts talking about drunkorexia’s dangerous effects.

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A few interesting findings:

One in four college women will be victims of sexual assault during the years before graduation, according to new estimates by the Department of Justice.

Alcohol played a role in many of these assaults and date rape cases (97,000 last year, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism).

A study by the Center for Public Integrity found that students often don’t report rape because they blame themselves or don’t realize that it was a crime at all.

We can see why alcohol use would complicate things for women. One: If you were drunk when an assault occurred, you may not remember exactly what happened. Even if you did remember, shame might play a role. From my own college days, I remember hearing more than a few horrifying stories from friends and acquaintances (about women under the influence being filmed having sex without their consent, about women at parties being spied on, women waking up, unsure of what happened the night before).

We want to know…did alcohol use in college ever muddy the waters for you in a sexual encounter? Did you tell anyone, or keep it to yourself?

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Ladies Night. Ladies Drink Free. Ladies half price. Just one of the ways bars and clubs assure a ratio of more women to men, so the men will keep coming back and paying the cover charge.

One man—former Cravath lawyer Den Hollander–got fed up with the pricing difference, and took it to the courts. His personal reasons? He was looking to get back into the social scene, and was put off because bars were charging double for men. He felt this was unfair for men who didn’t have the cash.

Taking it to another level, Mr. Hollander argued that charging more for men was unconstitutional. Try to follow the reasoning here: While private establishments are allowed to discriminate, the state is not. The state grants bars and clubs their liquor licenses. Without liquor, the thinking goes, these establishments wouldn’t be popular, and couldn’t charge admission. Therefore, the state, via the bars, is discriminating against men.

So did the court agree with Mr. Hollander?

Last week, a panel on the Second Circuit court ruled no—that bars charging men more than women is not unconstitutional. As the Wall Street Journal Law blog explained, the court ruled that the bars were not “state actors.” The bloggers said: “We cannot agree that the state’s liquor licensing laws have caused the nightclubs to hold ‘Ladies’ Nights;’ liquor licenses are not directly related to the pricing scheme.”

(On a side note, the same man–Den Hollander—once sued Columbia University for offering women’s studies courses).

Which brings me to this question: What do “ladies” actually think of Ladies Night and half-price or no cover charges for women? It’s one of the perks of being a woman—or is it?

In my opinion, Ladies Night seems to be based on the Victorian notion that women have to be lured into shedding their angelic masks.

I don’t go to many bars these days (three children, not enough leisure time to sit in bars!), but you can be sure that if I really wanted to go somewhere, I would pay a cover charge to get in.

On the other hand, the sorts of bars I always preferred were dive bars that charged no cover.

I’m not sure why Ladies Nights persists. It sort of scares me: the notion of men, eager to pay any price to hang out with scores of tipsy women.

What do you think of Ladies Nights and women drinking for free or half price? Do you agree with Den Hollander that they’re unfair to men; or do you say, “suck it up, Den, they’re great”; or do you look at them with a wary eye?

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When I was pregnant–all three times–I drank the occasional glass of wine with my obstetrician’s blessing. I waited until the first trimester to indulge, and subsequently reveled in every last–albeit limited–sip.

It seems that many women, according to a recent article in the New York Post titled “I’m Drinking for Two,” continue to do the same despite the continual controversy. But what to do when you are faced with the almighty waiter, or bartender, who thinks they know best about you and your baby’s health?

I recently heard a story about a pregnant woman who was at restaurant and when she asked the waitress for a glass of wine, the waitress answered, “We don’t serve alcohol to pregnant people here.”

Needless to say, the customer was angry and wondered where this waitress got off telling her what she’s allowed, or in this case, not allowed to drink.

Why is that bartenders and waiters wield such great power in the world of consumption? I suppose it’s they’re the ones in control of all those bottles, glasses, soda fountain dispensers…and peanuts.

But when an obese diner orders an ice cream sundae for dessert, does the waiter suggest they go for the fresh fruit? I don’t think so.

I have a good idea how I’d respond to a waiter who thought it was okay to take those kinds of liberties.

But I’d be curious to hear what people think about that scenario—should pregnant women be able to order a glass of wine at a restaurant?