by Pamela Redmond Satran

You there, with the coffee mug full of clear liquid, sipping vodka because you think it won’t make you reek of alcohol at your 9 a.m. meeting: I’m not actually talking to you.

No, this directive is aimed at all you casual Cosmo lovers, you Saturday night vodka martini drinkers, you Bloody Mary and vodka tonic tipplers.

You probably developed your taste for vodka way back before you really knew much about drinking, precisely because vodka didn’t have much taste.  You could mix it with anything — Gatorade, say — and manage to get efficiently wasted without gagging on any of those overly adult flavors.

Plus, vodka was the new liquor, freshly risen from the Russian gulag, the people’s poison.  Drinking it was revolutionary, almost.  In 1968.

Which is exactly why the Evil Young have turned their backs on vodka, which is now officially The Liquor of The 52-Year-Old.  So what, if you want not to act old, are you supposed to drink instead?

Gin is always groovy.  Likewise, most brown liquors, especially Woodford Reserve bourbon or rye, like your Uncle Stanley used to drink.  Tequila, not so much.  Basically, anything you’ve been drinking all these years is bad, and anything your parents served in the early 60s is good.

If you’ve been to a hipster bar recently, you know that mixology is the thing: Precious cocktails concocted from a drop of this and a dram of that.  Last week I went to the most uber-hipster of them all, Freemans Restaurant on the Lower East Side, and happily settled into the hunting lodge-style atmosphere — from before even I was born! –  and ordered a Freemans Cocktail.

Never mind that the bartender had, as the New York Times’ Frank Bruni put it, all the charisma of Cujo.  The glimmering gold cocktail standing atop the zinc bar beneath the stuffed deer’s head looked so poetic, I was moved to hop off my barstool to take a photo to send to my friends Hugh and Kim, who were supposed to meet us that night but had to go out of town.  ”See what splendor you missed?” I was going to say.

But when I sat back down, Cujo said to me, “I can’t have you taking pictures of the product.”

Wha?

“You can take pictures of yourself and your friends enjoying the place,” she continued.  “But you can’t take pictures of the product.”

Whether the “product” was the drink or the animal head or just the whole gestalt, I wasn’t sure, but of course from that moment on all I wanted to do was photograph the stupid place, which I immediately loathed, plus watch Cujo concoct my next Freemans Cocktail so I could broadcast its recipe.  So here’s the product:

Although you can find the recipe online in a more refined version, this is how the bartender actually made mine:

1 tsp pomegranate molasses (thanks to my son Joe, this is an item we actually have in our refrigerator)

1 jigger lemon juice

1 jigger simple syrup

2 jiggers rye

a dash of orange bitters

Shake over ice, strain into a cocktail glass.  Take a liquor soaked orange peel and set it aflame so closely under the nose of an unsuspecting guest that she screams.  Sip and feel instantly 20 years younger.  Or is it older?

(*This post appeared originally on the blog How Not To Act Old.)

Pamela Redmond Satran is the author of the New York Times bestselling humor book, How Not to Act Old, based on her blog of the same name.  She is also the author of five novels, including Younger and The Man I Should Have Married, and the coauthor of ten baby name books that she’s developed into the website nameberry.com.  Her latest project is an online serialized novel called Ho Springs, at hosprings.com.

Psych 101, Freshman Comp., Intro. to Shakespeare, and now–Wine 101?

Ah, the French.

A report commissioned by Valérie Pécresse, the Minister for Higher Education, recommends that French university cafeterias hold wine-tasting sessions to teach students the virtues of moderate consumption.”Why is there sexual education and not viticultural education? You can learn wine too,” said Jean-Pierre Coffe, who co-wrote the report. “Drinking is not drinking a bottle. Wine is pleasure. It’s like love. It’s the same.”

Some believe lunchtime tastings would provide a good opportunity for students to learn a sense of responsibility. After all, wine is part of the French national heritage.

Others are concerned because binge drinking is a fairly new problem in France, where children grow up drinking watered-down wine. In November, the Paris city hall launched a campaign aimed at 15-25-year-olds, warning of the dangers of “le binge drinking,” which increased by about 10% between 2005 and 2008.

Alain Rigaud, president of the National Association for the Prevention of Alcoholism and Addiction, was shocked by the proposal, calling it naive. He said it was “marketing for the wine industry.”

Seems to me such a course is in the same vein as the parenting courses some have suggested in the U.S.. Also in the U.S., an organization called Choose Responsibility has advocated that we teach responsible drinking to kids, instead of raising the drinking age.

Why not learn practical and life skills in college?

Other questions: Do you think moderation can be taught? Or are wine tastings just adding more fuel to the college binge-drinking fire?

Photo Source

From time to time, we will post short interviews with interesting people about their thoughts and feelings on women and drinking. There is such a wide array of perspectives about this topic, and we are excited to gain insight into as many as possible and to share them with you.

Ann Hood is the author of eight novels, including the bestsellers The Knitting Circle and Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine; two memoirs and a collection of short stories. Her most recent memoir, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief, was a New York Times Editor’s Choice and named one of the top ten non-fiction books of 2009 by Entertainment Weekly. Her new novel, The Red Thread, will be published by WW Norton in May.

Drinking Diaries: How old were you when you had your first drink and what was it?

Ann Hood: I had a beer with my father when I was 15 or 16.

How did/does your family treat drinking?

My mother is a teetotaler. She used to drink things like stingers and brandy alexanders and if she drank too much, she cried. Once she got drunk on a virgin strawberry daiquiri.

My dad drank beer on Friday nights, Jack Daniels in emergencies and times of trouble, and a lot of anything at celebrations.

How do you approach alcohol in your every day life?

I drink wine with dinner just about every day. And I often have a wee dram of single malt at bedtime.

If you have kids, how is the subject of drinking handled? Do you drink in front of them? With them?

My kids are still young, but we do drink in front of them. We throw a lot of big parties and it’s all very Ice Storm: cocktails, tears, people dancing in the streets.

Have you ever had a phase in your life when you drank or more less?

Not really.

What’s your drink of choice? Why?

I love really cold big buttery chardonnays and for red wines I like malbecs. Peaty single malt. I’m not much for hard liquor. One martini knocks me on my ass. When everyone was drinking cosmos, I joined in, but I wasn’t very good at it. Margaritas are my weakness, so I don’t drink them very often, and only like them if they are made with real lime juice. I do like a pint of beer with a blue cheese burger and real fries.

Can you tell us about the best time(s) you ever had drinking?

Last year touring wineries in Mendoza, Argentina. Happy Hour at my college pub on Friday afternoons. Margaritas on the beach in Troncones, Mexico. Beer with my dad, any time. Chardonnay with an old boyfriend, kissing in between sips. Irish coffees at the Buena Vista in San Francisco.

What about the worst time?

Freshman year in college. Shots of tequila. Threw up everywhere.

Has drinking ever affected—either negatively or positively—a relationship of yours?

Well, someone else’s has. A man I loved was an alcoholic and it ruined our relationship.

Has culture or religion influenced your drinking?

No.

Do you have a favorite book, song, or movie about drinking?

“Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off” and, of course, “Margaritaville.” [The movie] “Days of Wine and Roses.” Lee Remick is the best drunk ever!

What do you like most about drinking?

The taste, the romance, the end of the day or start of the party feel of it.

If you could be any drink, what would it be? Why?

Really good champagne. Bubbly but carries a punch.

After President Obama’s recent physical exam, the White House doctor, Navy Capt. Jeffrey Kuhlman, told the 48-year-old President to try harder to kick his occasional smoking habit and recommended he exercise “moderation of alcohol intake.” Obama was otherwise declared in excellent health and fit for duty. So, what do you think about his occasional vices?

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A study out of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, set to be published in the Journal of Marketing Research later this year, found that public-service ads intended to reduce binge drinking may actually lead to more of it.

I’m not surprised. Remember those “Just Say No” public service announcements, back in the 80s? What I recall most is how teens (myself included) flipped the message around to “Just Say Yes” or “Just Say Screw You,” even if we were posturing in front of our friends.  Of course we had to flip everything around that adults told us to do–that’s a teenager’s job. Plus; what 17-year-old wanted to model herself after Nancy Reagan? Not moi.

Seems the ad councils haven’t figured out that phenomenon of oppositional thinking–i.e. if the powers that be say “X,” we’ll do “Y”–because they’re still creating those cautionary ads. The Northwestern study was based on interviews with 1,200 undergraduate students shown ads modeled after anti-alcohol ads that ran in Canada.

Today’s anti-drinking and drug ads may be more au courant and clever–one ad features a hipster bent over the toilet after a night of partying (see below right)–but they’re not working. Why not? Two words: Guilt and shame.

According to Jeremy Mullman in Advertising Age : ”It has long been assumed, of course, that guilt and shame were ideal ways of warning of the dangers associated with binge drinking and other harmful behaviors, because they are helpful in spotlighting the associated personal consequences. But this study found the opposite to be true: Viewers already feeling some level of guilt or shame instinctively resist messages that rely on those emotions, and in some cases are more likely to participate in the behavior they’re being warned about.

The reason, said Kellogg marketing professor Nidhi Agrawal, is that people who are already feeling guilt or shame resort to something called “defensive processing” when confronted with more of either, and tend to disassociate themselves with whatever they are being shown in order to lessen those emotions.

And it doesn’t have to be drinking that a viewer is feeling ashamed about in order to render the ads ineffective or damaging. “If you’re talking to a student about cheating on an exam, and one of these ads comes up, you can bet they are headed straight to the bar,” said Ms. Agrawal, who conducted the study along with her Indiana University colleague, Adam Duhacheck.”

It’s the cycle of shame and blame. You feel bad about something, so you drink (eat, smoke, substitute whatever bad behavior here). Then you get drunk, you get sick, and you beat yourself up about your lack of self control, etc. And what do you do to rid yourself of those hateful feelings? You drink.

So what’s the right approach? Nidhi Agrawal, who helped conduct the study, had two suggestions:  1) Place the ad in “more positive surroundings–such as in a sitcom or a positive magazine article” rather than in a “tense or negative context.” 2) Focus on how to avoid situations that lead to binge drinking rather than on the consequences of the behavior, “because attempting to shame people out of binge drinking doesn’t work.” She also said that “It’s important that the messages be toned down and as positive as possible.”

Richard Todd Aguayo of razorsharp creative put it best in a comment in Ad Age: “‘People don’t care to know until they know that you care.’ Wise words once spoken to me, and I have found them to be true. You can speak words of wisdom to someone, but unless they feel you understand where they’re coming from, they’ll just tune you out. But once you establish a nonjudgmental, empathetic dialogue, folks will be more apt to listen. I also find this to be true in most marketing situations…

That dialogue, that connection based on mutual experience and (more importantly) understanding is what opens the mind and the checkbook. And in the case of these PSA’s, opens the heart and by extension the conscious, to the possibility of a change in attitude and behavior.”

So perhaps the creators of these public service announcements could take a cue from AA, for example, where people who have walked the walk empathize and listen, rather than judge and advise. No one wants to hear Nancy Reagan, who as far as we know never suffered from an addiction, talking down to them from a podium, and no one wants to be taunted with worst-case scenario images that only make them feel worse.

An ad that might have spoken to me, as a college student: Ten Things You Can Do Instead of Drinking: 1) Take a bath, 2) Drink seltzer and cranberry , etc. Just positive ideas and alternatives, rather than lectures that spin the mind to rebellion.

Photo Source (Just Say No)

Photo Source (anti-drinking ads)

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?

Photo source

What do American Idol and drinking have in common? Besides being potentially addictive, they’re both ubiquitous. So what could be more fitting than American Idol drinking games?

Yes, while Simon, Ellen, Kara and Randy sip from their plastic tumblers of Coke, you could be having a party–drinking beer, wine, Jack Daniels, or what-have-you–creatively combining two passions.

Here, courtesy of BJ Abel of Associated Content, are a few drinking games. Not that you’d be playing them, of course, but for American Idol fans, they’re kind of amusing:

Game Number One:

The rules are simple. When a Judge says one of their stock phrases, drink. You can assign a specific judge to each contestant or everyone can drink on every Judge.

Here are the most common phrases or actions used by the Idol Judges:

Randy

“It was just alright for me, dude”

“You made it your own”

“I wasn’t feelin’ it”

“That song was too big for you”

“Dawg” or “dude” to female, “baby” to male

“Keeping it real” or “good lookin’ out”

Simon

“It was a complete and utter mess”

Talks about being honest (example. “If I’m going to be honest”)

Asks if the contestant knows that “this is a SINGING competition”

Uses the word “karaoke” or “cabaret”

Uses the word “Horrible” or any variation of the word (i.e. horrific, horrendous, etc)

Kara

Demonstrates how she could have sung it better

“Pitchy” is used

Talks about how she would sign the person today

Calls a contestant “sweetheart” or “sweetie”

Ellen

Says “I like you. I really like you”

Calls a contestant “adorable”

Game Number Two:

Create an action that players have to do every time a contestant or judge says a key word.

Every time an American Idol contestant says “I am the next American Idol,” the  last person to stand up has to drink

If an American Idol contestant claims they are sick, the first person to say “BS” gets to give a drink to someone.

Every time one of the judges uses a key word or phrase, the last person to stand up has to drink. Some examples are:

“Pitchy”

“That was a perfect song”

“This is what the competition is all about”

Be creative and be sure to use your favorite American Idol Phrases to have more fun.

ANY WORDS OR PHRASES WE MISSED?

Photo Source

From time to time, we will post short interviews with interesting people about their thoughts and feelings on women and drinking. There is such a wide array of perspectives about this topic, and we are excited to gain insight into as many as possible and to share them with you.

Alice Feiring, a lapsed Dance/Movement therapist and James Beard Award winning wine writer has penned her blog, AliceFeiring.com, since 2004, which has been named by Food & Wine and Forbes as one of the top wine blogs and received a Beard nominations as well.

Her book, The Battle for Wine & Love or How I Saved the World From Parkerization, was published by Houghton Harcourt in 2008, and another book is in the works for Fall 2011 publication. Feiring is a wine writer for the Wall Street Journal magazine and has written essays for the New York Times.

Drinking Diaries: How old were you when you had your first drink and what was it?

Alice Feiring: I was probably 3 and it was Manischewitz mixed with seltzer.

How did/does your family treat drinking?

Drinking was a non-issue. I was raised as an orthodox Jew. I started to drink every weekend–Friday night and Saturday lunch– from the moment I could sit on a lap at the table. My grandfather loved to share whisky with me, just a wee bit, and I’d sip from my father’s beer or highball in the single digits. No one was fearful of alcoholism. Drinks and wine were sampled not guzzled. It was merely part of the culture and in its place.

Can you tell us about the best time you ever had drinking?

A Romanée Conti dinner in New York City, 2006. It was wild. I’ll probably never see as much from that revered domaine in my life. My only regret was that I had to stay professional about it. If there was ever a worthy hangover to earn, that was the one. Unfortunately, I woke up clear headed.

What about the worst time?

I’ve never drunk to the point of getting sick, so my war stories are different. Mostly they consist of being at wine dinners were I find the wine undrinkable and am yearning for a good glass. But there was another kind of frustration a month ago. In France, I brought a special bottle to share at a winemaker’s house. It was my mistake. I presented it as if a gift. The bottle sat on the counter, taunting me. The winemaker’s wines were quite good but still, I was dying to taste that 1998 Overnoy Ploussard! I’ll never make that mistake again.

Has drinking ever affected—either negatively or positively—a relationship of yours?

My first real boyfriend had an alcoholic father and was afraid to drink. I was just discovering wine, learning about it and it was painful not to be able to share my adventure with him. It was particularly painful when we were in France. I didn’t want to push it because his reactive formation is a force to deal with. However, it was symptomatic about a lot that didn’t work between us.

Do you have a favorite book, song, or movie about drinking?

Can I have two? It’s not exactly about wine but I love the drinking in Plato’s The Symposium and then there’s ‪In the vine country‬ by E.A. Somerville 8 Martin Ross, written in 1893. It’s a fun ride about discovering Bordeaux. In fact, I’m going to reread it this week.

What do you like most about drinking?

Well, it depends what I am drinking. Sometimes for thirst. Sometimes for fun. Sometimes for the effect. But my drink of choice is wine and for me it is sharing sensuality and exploration of where agriculture meets science meets art meets man and culture.

How has alcoholism affected your life?

Believe it or not, when I was a dance/movement therapist, I used to work with substance abusers, and of course a significant number were alcoholics. But I remember one group feeling terribly guilty that I could drink and they could not. It seemed so unfair.

Consider these two drinking scenes from the party hearty  Vancouver Olympics:

Jon Montgomery wins gold in men’s skeleton and someone hands him a pitcher of beer, which he chugs, to the delight of the fans. According to the Winnipeg Free Press, “Millions of Canadians watched him capture Olympic gold and celebrate by chugging a pitcher of beer…Now, Manitoba’s fast-talking, beer-drinking Olympic champion Jon Montgomery will be watched by millions more when he makes an appearance on [Oprah’s] talk show.”

The Canadian women’s hockey team beats the U.S. After all the fans have cleared out of the arena, the women have a raucous celebration on the ice–drinking beer, pouring champagne into each other’s mouth, smoking cigars. Controversy ensues.

Some feel it was inappropriate for the women to celebrate on the ice, instead of in the locker room; others are up in arms because one of the revelers, Marie-Philip Poulin, is just shy of 19, Canada’s legal drinking age. Still others feel the women are setting a bad example for their fans by drinking at all. In the end, Hockey Canada apologized for the incident.

At Drinking Diaries, we have maintained all along that for women especially, drinking is a loaded topic. This incident just cements it in my mind. Many have said that it would have been okay if the women had been in the locker room, but not on the ice. What irks me is the hypocrisy. We can drink, but we should hide it.

Hmmm. Jon Montgomery certainly wasn’t hiding his, and now he’s the MAN.  

And what about all the alcohol ads we’re bombarded with during the Olympics?

As for the hockey players as role models, if my child heard about the hockey players’ celebrating by drinking, I would just say: “Honey, if you put in the years of clean living, hard work and dedication these women have, and you win a gold medal, I give you my permission to celebrate however you want.”  Period. End of story.

So what did other people think? In response to an article in the CBC National Post, Vancouver, most people felt the hockey players should be allowed to have their fun. Dick Pound, a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) who handed out the medals to Team Canada, said:  “I think it’s kind of like killing a mouse with an elephant gun…These kids have worked like dogs for years and months, and the pressure is off. They had a huge game and a great win. Hey, let them have some fun.”

Here are some of the livelier comments:

“This is the most ridiculous double standard. No one blinked an eye when Jon Montgomery chugged a stein of beer, but heaven forbid that our gold medal winners in hockey would be anything other than ladylike!” –Bloody Mary

“Who the hell cares? Alcohol is THE drug of choice for most people in the western world, including members of the IOC, I bet, and we’re to freak out because a bunch of athletes who worked their asses off for years and have now pulled off a major victory, of which most Canadians are proud, have celebrated with a few drinks??!! I say drink up girls, and well done.” –Dietley:

“The ladies’ desire to celebrate is entirely understandable – they have been under enormous pressure, carrying a large piece of the nation’s hopes and expectations on their shoulders.” –Umbra Fever

“Oh here we go. Celebrating in front of who? The cleaning crew? 30 minutes later the arena was most likely cleared out. They tend to clear out fast…A good promotion of sport values? Then why is alcohol sold at these events? Do they think that the players don’t drink? For eff sakes they won a gold medal, let them celebrate with the cleaning crew if they want.”–Hockey Chick 68:

“Were they drinking non-Olympic sponsored beverages?” –Superquad 1968

“If they celebrate in the changing room, that’s one thing, but not in public.” –Nix O’Neill

“Kind of sums it up for the IOC: it’s all about appearances and artifice. Give me messy, unrehearsed reality ANY day. If they want to chug & puff, let ‘em chug & puff – they’re (fabulously talented) human beings, not icons.”

And what did the hockey players themselves have to say? Some apologized, but team Captain Hayley Wickenheiser felt there was a double standard at work: “I don’t brush it off, the underage [part] and being on the ice,” said Wickenheiser. “Those things maybe could have been done different. But at the same time, it’s celebrating, it’s hockey, it’s a tradition we do. When we see a Stanley Cup winner, we see them spraying champagne all over the dressing room, you see 18-year-old kids there and nobody says a thing.”

What do you think, dear Blog Readers? Do you think it’s okay for the athletes to celebrate their victory any which way, or do you think they crossed a line?

Source–women’s hockey team photo

Source–Jon Montgomery photo

Do African American adults drink less than people of other ethnic backgrounds? A fascinating new study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), says yes. Over 25,000 African American adults participated in the survey on drug use and health.

The current alcohol use rate for African Americans aged 18 and older is significantly lower than the national adult average (44.3 percent versus 55.2 percent) according to the new study. The study also reveals that African American adults have a lower rate of binge drinking than the national adult average (21.7 percent versus 24.5 percent). Young African American adults (aged 18 -25) are less likely to engage in binge drinking than young adults in the general population (25.3 percent versus 41.6 percent).

One notable exception to the generally lower levels of alcohol use among African American adults:  the rate of binge drinking among pregnant women aged 18 to 44, which is higher than the national average for pregnant women in the age group (8.1 percent versus 3.6 percent).

At the same time the study reveals that African American adults have a higher rate of illicit drug use than the national average (9.5 percent versus 7.9 percent). The difference in rates of current illicit drug use tends to be more pronounced among African American males aged 26 and older.

To read more about the topic, Chaney Allen’s I’m Black and I’m Sober is a classic on an African American woman’s experience of alcoholism. Anyone else know any great books (fiction, nonfiction or memoir?) that touch on the subject of African Americans and drinking?

Photo Source

As temporary home to the Olympics, Vancouver has been crowded with throngs of tourists for the past two weeks. With the excitement and thrills come lots of celebrations in the city’s bars, many of which have been spilling out into the streets.

So it’s only fitting that drinking should also make its way onto the art scene. In a recent article in the New York Times, Charles McGrath describes a new exhibit at Vancouver’s Playwrights Theater Center on Granville Island (the artsy area of town), which looks at the fine line between drinking and “drinking” and between the “bar as mere watering hole and as self-activating performance space.”

The installation, created by British neo-conceptualist Theo Sims, is set in a 12-by-20 foot plywood box, and recreates the Candahar, an Irish pub in Belfast, fully equipped with beer taps, a brass rail, and a TV tuned to Irish horseracing. The bar is tended by two Irish men wearing fedoras and thick Irish sweater—two real bar men (and brothers) who are also scripted performers for the exhibit.

“The purpose of the installation,” said the artist in the Times piece, “is to stimulate social interaction, encourage people to re-examine their preconceptions and start cross cultural conversations.”

It all sounds so civilized when you look at it this way. And it makes me think about the purpose of bars and the community gathering that must’ve been so integral for communicating and sharing events years ago. Now with Facebook and Twitter, people can “gather” virtually and video chat while sipping ale in their pajamas. Not quite the same.

*Photo source: Kim Stallknecht for the NY Times

by Lauren King

And then I was born…. and the cycle continued.

My name is Lauren and my dad was an alcoholic.  Watching him drink was as normal as breathing.  I can remember the daily progression of his love affair with alcohol.   From the time he stopped at the gas station to pick up his twelve pack of beer, to the quick onset of the slurring of his words, to finally passing out to the point that not even an earthquake could wake him up.  All of this was very confusing for me as a young girl but there was one thing that I was sure of.  I knew his drinking took precedence and that was because he was an alcoholic.

The one truth that I carried with me into my teens was that I never wanted to grow up and be like my dad, a drunk.  What I found out once I started drinking myself was that I had an uncontrollable desire to drink just like my father did.  The best way I can describe it is that I craved alcohol like a vampire craves blood.  I needed it to sustain me.  I needed it to help me cope with my feelings.  I needed it to converse with others.  I needed it to feel normal in my own skin.  The big question was, how could I hate my father’s alcoholism so much, yet end up with the same addiction that he was battling?

My addiction came hard and fast.  Starting at fourteen it progressed to the point that at the age of seventeen I found myself standing at a crossroads in my life.  Get sober or die.  I knew that if I didn’t get sober that I was going to end up overdosing or going to sleep one night and not waking up from all the damage that the drugs and alcohol were doing to my body.  Standing at that fork in the road, one path looked dark and the other had a light at the end of it.  It was the light of hope.  As I chose the path of recovery I knew that I wanted the cycle to end with me.  I now have two beautiful girls of my own and know that I may one day face the fact that this disease may slam right into their generation.  As a family we are now armed with information along with hope, which are two of the most important tools to have in our arsenal to help us fight against this disease from ravaging our family once again.

Lauren King the co-author with her mother of ADDICTED LIKE ME, A Mother-Daughter Story Of Substance Abuse and Recovery (www.addictedlikeme.com), has spent the past twelve years living a sober life. She is currently pursuing a degree in Chemical Dependency. She lives in Surprise, Arizona, with her husband and two daughters.

by Karen Franklin

My father’s alcoholism was an embarrassment.  Some families had their dirty little secrets but my dad was so extreme with his drinking that I felt like everyone knew, which made it feel even more humiliating.  My family lived in a two-story house with my mom’s brother and family upstairs.  I imagined what they must have thought as they listened to my father’s drunken rages against our family.  I hated everything about alcohol; how it smelled, how it tasted and how my father behaved when he drank it.

So how did it happen that I too touched the bottle to my lips at the age of thirteen and became an instant alcoholic?  I was smarter though because I didn’t need to drink every day, only when I felt I needed it.  I moved far away and married a man who was a quieter version of my father and we started a family.  His increased drinking and abuse of drugs soon disillusioned me.  If he was the problem, why did I still feel so empty after I divorced  him?  I curtailed my partying as I took on the role of single parent and breadwinner while creating an illusion that my life was under control.  That worked well until the addiction started to show up in my young teenagers.

When the pain of watching my children being consumed by addiction became greater than my occasional need to self medicate, I knew that it was time to break the cycle.  I understood that my family was once again being destroyed by addiction and it was time to take action to stop this legacy of pain.  I became willing to take whatever action was needed. My sobriety date is one month behind my daughter Lauren.

In a way… I guess you could say we saved each other.

Karen Franklin, the co-author with her daughter of ADDICTED LIKE ME, A Mother-Daughter Story Of Substance Abuse and Recovery (www.addictedlikeme.com), has spent the past twenty-one years recovering from the legacy of her family addiction. She resides in Phoenix, Arizona, with her husband and has committed her life to helping others in their personal recovery process.