It will come as no surprise that drinking lots of alcohol often goes hand-in-hand with bad decision making. But up until now, scientists had yet to come up with a direct cause and effect relationship regarding alcohol and unprotected sex.

In the January issue of the journal Addiction, a new study reports that researchers in Canada conducted 12 experiments to test the theory. The results–yes, rather obvious–confirmed that drinking alcohol affects decision-making, and the more alcohol one drinks, the more impaired the decision making. As the results show, for every 0.1mg/mL increase in blood alcohol level, study participants were 5 percent more likely to engage in unsafe sex.

While the findings may not seem overly newsworthy, they do confirm the direct connection between alcohol and sexually transmitted diseases. The study’s conclusion states that  ”alcohol use is an independent risk factor for intentions to engage in unprotected sex, and as risky sex intentions have been shown to be linked to actual risk behavior, the role of alcohol consumption in the transmission of HIV and other STIs may be of public health importance.”

“Drinking has a causal effect on the likelihood to engage in unsafe sex, and thus should be included as a major factor in preventive efforts for HIV,” said principal investigator Juergen Rehm of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, in a statement. “This result also helps explain why people at risk often show this behavior despite better knowledge: alcohol is influencing their decision processes.”

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By Alma Katsu

You don’t have to get too far into my novel, The Taker, before you start to wonder about the author’s issues. It’s a dark book because I have a fairly dark outlook on life, which I’ve come by honestly.

My childhood was rough. I won’t go into the reasons to spare my family. Let’s just say my father had an addictive personality. His father had been an alcoholic and my father had been appalled by this, so there was very little drinking in our house. Growing up, I didn’t see people out-of-control drunk. It was all a mystery to me, and like many mysteries, a little bit glamorous to the uninitiated.

When I was in my twenties, I had a boyfriend who was a bad alcoholic. His father had been an alcoholic and had hanged himself in the family’s home. It’s hard to have a happily-ever-after life when something like that happens; his mother was left with three young children to raise and no resources. The boyfriend had a rough life growing up and seemed hell-bent to repeat his father’s fate.

I had no idea what I had gotten into. I kept trying to help him, to fix him, to save him. My mother had been an enabler my whole life so this was my example, this is what I thought you did if you loved someone. When he and I broke up, he did things that pretty much guaranteed the relationship was over, burnt to the ground. Luckily, some friends who understood alcoholism (they were mutual friends and alcoholics who decided to try sobriety) explained the complex emotional dynamics at work. Thanks to them, I saw that it wasn’t within my power to ‘save’ this guy. There was nothing I could do. I had to let go.

One morning, ten years later, I opened the newspaper and read that the former boyfriend had died from a gunshot wound to the head. He’d been playing Russian roulette in a garage with friends. I remember being angry: how typical of him to leave others to clean up the mess, to leave it to his mother to bury him. And I was angry that he hadn’t been able to get his life together and save himself. But that’s when I learned that not everybody is going to be saved.

Don’t take this story to mean that I’m against drinking. I’m not much of a drinker but I enjoy it when I do imbibe. I am very wary of people who seem to lack self-control, however. It’s probably the one character trait of which I can’t help being a bit judgmental.

Alma Katsu is a writer living in the Washington, DC area with her husband, musician Bruce Katsu. She graduated from Brandeis University, where she studied writing with novelist John Irving and children’s book author Margaret Rey, and received her MA in Fiction from the Johns Hopkins University. The Taker is her first novel and will be released on September 6 by Gallery Books/Simon and Schuster. 

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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“One Step at a Time” is a series of original essays by writer and mom Patty N.  who has been chronicling her first year of sobriety.

by Patty N.

The day after tomorrow, my handy 12-Step iPhone app – the one with the sobriety calculator that I compulsively check every day – will finally read, “You’ve been sober for one year / 12 months / 365 days / 8,760 hours.”  Yes!

Needless to say, I will not be celebrating with champagne, like I did after drying out in 2008.  That was the year I set out to prove to myself that I wasn’t an alcoholic. So I quit drinking – except at my 25th high school reunion when, in my whiskey-impaired state, I got into a car driven by an inebriated classmate and, thankfully, didn’t die on the way to Denny’s.  I also drank on New Year’s Eve and blacked out after only a few glasses of champagne.  Then there were the prescription drugs – which I took not exactly as prescribed but, hey, at least they weren’t alcohol.

After my year “on the wagon,” I bought myself a big bottle of bubbly and picked up where I left off.  But it became very clear, very fast, that I shouldn’t drink and that I couldn’t stop.  Embarrassed and ashamed, I started counting days in AA.  At first, I felt like I was being punished. I’m the good kid, the hard worker, the hands-on mom, I thought to myself.  How did I end up here?  And, every time I said, “My name is Patty and I’m an alcoholic,” I would think to myself, But I quit for a year! I didn’t drink everyday! I was high-functioning! I can’t be an alcoholic!”

Slowly, though, the veil of self-criticism and harsh judgement receded and a gentle, clear-headed, self-compassion took its place.  I started wondering:  Would I hate myself for having asthma?  Would I attack myself if I had diabetes? Would I be terrified of running into someone I knew at the dentist office if I had gingivitis?  No!!  So why didn’t I view my alcoholism in the same, straightforward manner?  As Dr. Drew says (I can’t help it, I love him), alcoholism is about chemistry, not character. So why would I be ashamed about a condition over which I have no control?

Looking back, I’ve spent a lot of time this year regretting the past and, oftentimes, wishing to shut the door on it.  I realize that’s part of the process. But as I mark this significant milestone, I’d like to quit mourning my old life and start celebrating my new one.  On Sunday, I will go to my regular AA meeting and announce that I have one year of continuous sobriety.  I’ll collect my special anniversary coin and an amazing group of people, whose last names I may never know, will greet me with applause and hugs and flowers from the corner deli.  And I will call myself an alcoholic, without reservation, without judgement, without shame, and with enough strength to finally bust through that cocoon of self-hatred and fly like a beautiful liberated butterfly.

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I have a confession to make.

I’m addicted to “Intervention.” More than once, I have been known to make the bad joke about needing an “Intervention” intervention. I wrapped this year’s Christmas presents while watching three back-to-back episodes. I don’t know why. I’d like to think it’s because I care so deeply about the people on the screen, that it’s good for me to see how far the disease of addiction can go if it isn’t treated, that somehow witnessing these most dramatic and cinematic stages of alcoholism is some kind of workout for my compassion muscles. And it’s true—sometimes the show makes me cry; sometimes I ache for those suffering people. And maybe it’s even pure empathy in those moments; maybe it is selfless caring for another person.

But I’m not kidding myself. I’m not a saint. The truth is, the show is entertaining. And admitting that makes me feel dirty. Despite my very real compassion, I don’t think I’m alone when I say that the thought going through my head most of the time is, “Holy crap, these people are crazy.”  As evolved and sensitive as I like to think I am, I’m a voyeur like everyone else. There’s nothing more compelling than watching someone’s life fall apart, then making bets on if they can pull it back together again.  It’s the stuff great stories are made out of. The higher the stakes, the better the show.

It’s the whole train wreck thing, I suppose; the rubbernecker phenomenon. We love tragedy. We love wreckage. And maybe the show is extra compelling for people who are struggling with their own demons. For some, maybe it’s like watching people you know self-destruct, people you understand at a very deep level, people who resemble yourself. Even if you never got as bad as the girl huffing computer duster or the lady drinking mouthwash, you still know exactly how they’re feeling when they reach for that bottle—even after they’ve puked their guts out, even after they’ve OD’ed, even after going to jail, even after they’ve lost their partner and their kids and their job and their house, even though they promised for the millionth time that they’d stop.

That being said, I’ve never met anyone who said “Intervention” helped them get sober. I know many recovering alcoholics who have fond memories of curling up on the couch to watch the show while polishing off the night’s second bottle of wine. Never, in all those seasons of episodes, did anyone I know ever look at that stumbling drunk on the TV screen, then look at that drink in her hand, and make what seems like the obvious connection. If anything, the thought that ran through her mind as she watched the star’s life unravel was, “At least I’m not as bad as her.”

Is the show meant to save the alcoholic viewers suffering at home? Probably not. First and foremost, it’s a reality show. It wants advertising dollars and it wants ratings. It wants everyone—not just addicts and alcoholics—to share the same morbid fascination with downward spirals.

Most people probably have no idea how it feels to be a slave to substances, yet they still find “Intervention” compelling. There’s something that connects with everyone, or else the show wouldn’t still be on the air after so many years. Maybe most viewers don’t have the same disease as the sick people on TV, but part of them understands their obsession. Maybe we all know what it feels like to keep doing something even though we know it’s a bad idea; we know what it’s like to keep chasing something we know we’ll never get. We’ve all tasted that insanity, some of us more than others, and maybe there’s something cathartic about watching it inflated to epic proportions, something sublime about watching it pushed as far as it can go.

And maybe that’s what our obsession with train wrecks is really about; maybe the fascination is in the imagining that the mangled person could be us. We watch as their lives unravel, and we try to connect the dots—What if my parents got divorced like hers? What if I was molested like she was? What if I was bullied that badly as a kid? What if I had gotten into that accident like she did? Is it so impossible that it could be me on that TV, talking into the camera, spelling out my name for the viewers at home? Maybe when we slow down to look at the car crash on the side of the freeway, what we’re really looking for is if the victim has our face.

Amy Reed lives in Oakland, California. She is the author of the Young Adult novel Beautiful. Her next book, Clean, comes out in August 2011 and is about five teens’ experience in rehab for drug and alcohol addiction.

In response to an article on The Huffington Post, “Rush People Who Have 1-2 Drinks to AA?” one person wrote: “I’ve been in recovery for seven years. Zero alcohol intake. I thought complete abstinence was the point. Have I been wrong all this time?”

The author, addiction expert Stanton Peele replied:

“You need to be a critical consumer of information for your own life. But, if your decision to abstain for life was based solely, or largely, on the idea that human beings with problems that qualify them as alcoholics never reduce their drinking – you probably should consider the scientific information that this idea is false.”

Peele was referring to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s (NIAAA) detailed study of 43,000 drinkers nationally , which found that three-quarters of alcoholics recover without treatment, and more than half drink safely.

It seems there’s some discrepancy over the use of the word alcoholic.

I’ve always thought (and many of my friends have fought me on this) that if someone was diagnosed as an alcoholic, the only “cure” or solution was to never drink again. I also felt, based largely on my mother’s experience, that it would be nearly impossible for alcoholics to quit drinking on their own, and that they need some combination of therapy, detox, and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

But I missed an important distinction. According to NIAAA, there are two forms of alcohol dependence: time-limited, and recurrent or chronic. As the writers at NIAAA put it, “In most persons affected, alcohol dependence (commonly known as alcoholism) looks less like Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas than it does your party-hardy college roommate or that hard-driving colleague in the next cubicle.”

Your party-hardy college roommate? Most likely, her drinking will ebb and flow as she goes through different ages and stages. Just because someone has a heavy-drinking stage of life does not necessarily mean they are a candidate for AA.

In my opinion, it’s confusing to label time-limited alcohol dependence as alcoholism.  I think that there should be a distinction made between heavy drinkers and alcoholics.

What do you think, readers?

We Want to Know…What Is Your Definition of An Alcoholic? Do you think alcoholics can safely drink again and/or recover without treatment? Should there be a distinction between problem drinkers and alcoholics?

“One Step at a Time” is a series of original essays we will be running monthly. We are excited to have writer and mom Patty N. share her fresh perspective as she embarks on the road to sobriety.

STEP FOUR

by Patty N.

The Fourth Step – a searching and fearless moral inventory – is not so much a step as it is a personal fact-finding mission, a sort of self-guided tour of the past designed to help us figure out why we drank.  Just after my 90^th day of sobriety, a clue appeared in my Inbox.

Doug Harrison* wants to be friends on Facebook.

I clicked on the link expecting to see the freckle-faced boy I knew in high school. Instead, a middle-aged man with a receding hairline and a face I no longer recognized greeted me. But just seeing his name  – Doug Harrison – sent me right back to the summer of 1981.

I was fifteen years old, heading into my junior year of high school and had absolutely nothing to do – no job, no camp, no family vacation, no responsibilities. Bored and a little lonely, I spent my days at the country club pool where my best friend, Amy, was a life guard. Doug, also fifteen, worked at the club as a golf caddy, and he would come swimming every day after work. One evening, he showed up with two cans of Budweiser for the three of us to share.  I hated the taste, but I loved the buzz. That was my first drink.

Soon after, Doug invited me to go tubing down the Truckee River with his brother, Steve – a senior – and a group of his friends.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked. Steve Harrison was the most popular guy in high school. He was the star of the basketball team, dated the head cheerleader and drove a brand new Camaro Z-28.

“Steve told me I could bring a friend,” Doug said. “And I want to bring you.”

A couple days later, Steve’s Camaro roared into my driveway.

I can’t believe I’m in Steve Harrison’s car, I thought. It smelled like new leather and Coppertone. Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” blared from the cassette deck.  Steve’s blue eyes met mine in the rear view mirror.

“Welcome aboard,” Steve said. “Do you know Deb?”  He nodded toward his tan, buxom girlfriend, who was dressed in a bikini top and cut-off shorts.

Of course I knew Deb. Everyone knew Deb. But she had no reason to know a geek like me.

“Hi,” she said, flashing her bright white homecoming queen smile.

“Hey,” I said, flashing my mouthful of metal. I self-consciously crossed my arms over my flat chest.

As we drove toward Truckee, Steve tossed two Mickey’s Big Mouths into the back seat. I studied Deb, her polished toes resting on the dashboard, as she effortlessly drank her beer. When I took a sip of mine, I actually gagged a little. Beer tasted bad enough and this cheap malt liquor was even worse. But I forced it down anyway.

I was definitely lit when we got to the river and, by the time we finished tubing, I’d had at least two more Big Mouths and a bag of green grapes. I stumbled into the back seat of Steve’s car.  Everything was spinning. Then, knowing I’d never make it to the bathroom, I leaned out the window and vomited on the door of the Z-28 in front of Steve, Doug, Deb and all of their friends.

They all started laughing and chanting, “Grapes! Grapes! Grapes!”  That’s the last thing I remember before I passed out.

I woke up just as Steve was pulling into my driveway. My head was pounding and I felt so humiliated that I’d thrown up in front of the popular kids – and on Steve’s car!

What if my stomach acid ruined his paint job – I’ll never be able to go back to school, I thought.

“Sorry I got sick,” I said, unable to make eye contact.

“Hey, that’s okay,” Steve said. “It was pretty funny.”

“Yeah,” Doug said, “It was fun.”

My mom was in the kitchen when I went inside.

“How was it?” she asked.

“It was fun,” I said.  “It was really fun.”

The next day at the pool, Steve and Doug cheered, “Grapes, grapes, grapes” when they saw me.  I was still a little embarrassed, but I loved the attention.

“Wow,” Amy said, “It sounds like you had a good time.”

My definition of fun became distorted that day on the Truckee River and, as I dig deeper into this personal excavation that is the Fourth Step, I’m able to see how often I confused self-destructive and even dangerous drinking with fun. Being the center of attention, making people laugh, and joking my way out of uncomfortable feelings – all of these became staples of my drinking life for the next 30 years. I denied my disease and dismissed my behavior, choosing to believe I was just a fun drunk. But nobody goes to A.A. because they’re having fun; we go because we can’t pretend anymore.

Doug Harrison wants to be friends on Facebook. CONFIRM or IGNORE.

I wanted to just click IGNORE and get rid of that thumbnail sized reminder of my embarrassing summer of ‘81.  But A.A. promises that if we thoroughly follow each Step, “we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.” Or in my case, throw up on it.  I knew what I had to do – I had to click CONFIRM.

*Names has been changed.

To read Patty’s earlier entries on Drinking Diaries, click here.

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Yesterday, HealthNewsDigest.com announced that the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institutes of Health Office of Research on Women’s Health will fund a new five-year study focusing on addictive behaviors in women involving tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs and overeating.

The $2.5 million faculty-training grant awarded to Yale University researchers in the Department of Psychiatry will involve training scholars to conduct interdisciplinary research on addictive behaviors in women, as well as explore potentially new gender-specific prevention and treatment strategies.

“The stark reality is that addictive behaviors in women currently rank among our most prevalent health concerns; disorders involving these behaviors are linked to some of the top causes of mortality and preventable disease,” said Carolyn M. Mazure, the study’s principal investigator, a professor of psychiatry and psychology and director of Women’s Health Research at Yale. “Our unique training program fills a great need for new researchers who can bridge many areas to fully understand addictive behaviors in women.”

The ultimate goal, says Mazure, is to enable scientists to continue making contributions to the prevention and treatment of addiction, concluding in direct benefit for women and their families. Amen to that.

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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.

by Caren Osten Gerszberg

I don’t know about you, but my Thanksgiving came with a mixed blessing.

Surrounded by a large number—18 to be exact—of family and close friends, I revel in the togetherness of this day. It is with great joy and appreciation that we fill our family’s table with people we love and consider as family, even if we are not of blood relation. I cook for days, mostly alone, and without stress or anxiety develop a menu including an array of dishes that I know most at our table—kids included—will enjoy. With abandon, I sauté and carmelize, roast and bake and love practically every minute of it. With my husband, I select wines we will drink throughout the afternoon and evening, and make sure all beverages are in check.

Yesterday arrived, and although I wondered if my 24-pound turkey, who I’d named Matilda, would ever actually be done (she took about 6 hours), my hopes were high for a lovely day. My husband and kids played basketball out front in our driveway, and my dog trailed me, sensing when I was going to use the turkey baster and hoping she’d get to lick a drip of anything meat-related. Following an urge to blast some loud music, I decided to be a bit zen and put on Mozart instead of Dave Matthews. The day was going without a hitch.

And then, my mother arrived. At 75, she looks good physically, and I was glad to see her. But the predictable was only moments away.

“Can I please have a glass of wine?” she asked.

“You can have one glass, with dinner, so just wait until then,” I answered.

My mother, a French native who has always loved wine, grew to love it too much about ten years ago, and her love morphed into an addiction which continues to plague me at every event—both big and small, mundane and celebratory.

Moments later, a friend was chasing me around the kitchen, clutching a glass and obviously uncomfortable as my mother anxiously followed her.

“Here, Caren,” she said. “This belongs to your cousin but your mother was drinking it when he got up to go to the restroom. I thought you may want to know.”

I looked at my mother-turned-child, and like the stern authority I needed to be—lest she get drunk, slur her words, and become an embarrassment to her grandchildren—I told her: “NO! You can have some wine with dinner and you need to wait.”

We sat down at the table. She drank a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and without hesitation, asked for more. This continued throughout the meal. And dessert. While we talked Thanksgiving trivia and my son told Thanksgiving jokes, friends were moving the bottles to the other end of the table, trying to make the temptation a little less for my mom. She followed me into the kitchen, asking again and again, until finally, I picked up the phone.

“I need a taxi. How long will it take?” I inquired, trying to breathe deeply and keep calm.

Ten minutes later, I ushered her into a taxi. She complained but I stood firm. I was just trying to cut my losses before it got worse for both of us.

Once she was gone, I could finally relax, but not without feeling brokenhearted. I wanted my mother to be here, to share in a tradition to which she exposed me. For years, she had seamlessly hosted a house full of people, where being grateful went along with a table laden with scrumptious food.

But she’s not the mother I knew. I miss my mother. But I still love Thanksgiving.

by Maura Kelly

The first time I got drunk was during a New Year’s Eve party my parents
 threw when I was a kid. I stole three unattended glasses of red wine and 
secretly gulped them down while sitting underneath the kitchen table. Less than an hour later, my Dad tells me, I passed out in the middle of the living room, snoring.

I was 3 years old.

Getting my lips on booze was an easy thing to do in my Irish 
immigrant family. As a kid, I sipped the foam off the top of my dad’s 
beers, or sneaked slurps of his favorite drink, gin and tonic. I liked 
to surreptitiously fill up on ignored champagne during weddings and 
holiday parties. More than anything else, I craved the giddiness the 
bubbly affected in me.

Though I was usually able to keep my habit a secret, I unintentionally outed myself when I was a high school sophomore, the day a distant relative got married. During the reception, as I table-hopped looking for flutes filled with toasting fluid, I introduced myself to an older man. The stranger was so friendly that I asked him if he’d give me his champagne. He not only obliged but poured me my own glass of red wine. When he saw how quickly I drank the stuff, he poured me another and another.

Trying to consume as many as possible before our transgression was
 detected, I drank furiously until, a few Zinfandels in, I wondered why 
my head didn’t feel connected to my body anymore. I glanced down to look
for my nose, which I was sure had fallen off and was mingling with the 
leftover scraps of filet mignon and baby potatoes on the plates in front
 of me.

I excused myself in alarm to go to the ladies’ room. But my aunt,
 unaware that I was drunk, intercepted me, dragged me to the dance floor
and forced me to do the Chicken with her. Eager to appear normal, I
wiggled my butt as hard as I could — so hard, in fact, that I lost my
balance and plowed headfirst into the dance floor.

Following my performance, I passed out in a private room. After my
dad found me there, he told me we were going home. I stumbled out to his 
car, sat in the passenger seat and threw up in his lap before he even 
started the engine.

In front of my dad, I feigned shame about what I’d done, but the 
next day I bragged to my friends about it. Barfing meant I’d been really
 wasted, and I thought that was as cool as sneaking cigarettes in the
school bathroom. Of course I was getting drunk in non-family
 settings by that point, too, and generally doing my best to develop a
wild reputation. Every once in a while when I was intoxicated I did
something really dangerous, like drunk driving or walking along the
railing of a third-story porch. But I thought those things, while
 regrettable, added to my tough-girl legend.

My boozing increased exponentially during four years at an Ivy
League college. I was never competitive about grades or
extracurriculars, but I was competitive about partying. As an undergrad,
I spent most of my hours getting intoxicated or recovering from a
hangover. By the time I graduated, I was getting drunk at least three or
four times a week. Most boozing nights, I would have at least eight
or nine before I started to lose count. Wild Turkey and Diet Coke — a Diet Turkey — was my cocktail of choice
 since the alcohol content was high, the calories were low and it went
down fast. But I also drank  just about anything I could get my hands on except beer, because it never
 messed me up fast enough.

One night, a little more than a year after I had finished college,
I did something I had done a number of times already: Inebriated, I took
 home a stranger I met in a bar. (I hooked up drunkenly as an undergrad
all the time, but my campus was so small it was almost impossible to
find someone I didn’t know.) The next morning, when the guy left my
Adams Morgan apartment, I figured I’d never have to see him again. But
he got my number from information and called every night for a week.
When I wouldn’t pick up his calls or ring him back, he started coming to
my window at night and screaming my name from the sidewalk. After a few
nights I was unsettled enough to pick up the phone the next time he
began leaving a message and ask him to please leave me alone. He
repeatedly asked why I had acted so passionately that night, angrily 
resisting the explanation that I had done so primarily because I’d been
 blind drunk. Luckily, after we hung up I never heard from him again.

Though that incident seriously spooked me, I decided the problem
 was him, not me. So I didn’t change my ways. My next significant 
and inevitable scare came when I was 25. Around 10 p.m. one Saturday, I
went to an open-bar party for a friend. The next thing I remember, it
was Sunday afternoon and I was lying in my West Village apartment in my
underwear. It seemed clear a visitor had spent the night with me, and my
apartment door was unlocked, as if a person without a key had let
 himself out. Later that afternoon, after I had tried for hours to dredge
up any memory of what had happened, I started phoning friends to see if
anyone knew what I had done. No one was surprised I couldn’t recall 
much. They were used to my blackouts, which had been happening regularly 
since college. Only one friend knew anything: She had watched me getting 
into a cab with a guy she had never seen before.

Another friend — who was not that much of a drinker — happened to
call that day and was shocked when I told her about the mystery du jour. 
”I’ve been volunteering with a rape crisis hotline and it sounds like
you’re a rapist’s ideal target,” she said. “Are you sure you weren’t
 attacked last night?”

Though I thought she was overreacting, her response helped me realize
my behavior was not cool, and potentially life-threatening. I was lucky
 the guy, like all the other unknowns I have been alone with over the
 years, wasn’t a rapist or a murderer.

The thing that finally made me turn a corner was telling my therapist that I had never kissed a
g uy sober in my life. Not in my whole life, and I was in my 
mid-twenties. The fact had never shocked me until that moment, when I
 said it out loud. While alcohol might have helped me get physically
 intimate, it was preventing me from getting emotionally intimate and 
from developing into a mature, healthy, normal adult. I always thought 
alcohol made me sexy, powerful, brave and interesting. But I started to 
realize that more than anything, it made me ugly, weak, cowardly and 
boring. It made me a loser. And that reality was scarier than the threat
 of death.

So the last time I got drunk was March 3, 2001. Have I missed it? Sure, it was difficult to get through the first few parties without it.
And often, when I feel frustrated or unhappy, I am tempted to whiskey my
woes away. But then I realize a vicious hangover will only make my
 dissatisfaction with life worse, and that a meaningless sexual encounter with a stranger will not provide happy memories. It’s also been great to find that kissing and all that goes with it is actually better when I’m
 sober. Though I never thought I would, I feel more in control of myself,
my prospects and my experiences now that I’m not drinking.

I desperately wish I could be a kid again and do it all over.
Instead of sharpening my drinking skills during my young adulthood, I
would have read more poetry, written more short stories, acted in more
 plays, maybe learned to play the guitar. Maybe I would have fallen in 
love. And I often wonder how different my writing career might be if I
had never had the handicap of a heavy boozing habit.

Getting wasted isn’t cool. It’s not courageous or tough or
rebellious or bold or beautiful. More than anything else, it’s a waste 
of your time and your youth.

Maura Kelly recently finished her first novel and is looking for a publisher. Her personal essays have appeared in The New York Times, the New York Observer, The Daily Beast, Salon and other publications.  She writes a dating blog for Marie Claire www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/dating-blog/.

(*A longer version of this essay was originally printed in The Washington Post in 2002.)

by Caren Osten Gerszberg

I don’t drink on Mondays. Sometimes I’d like to, but I’ve decided that for at least one day during the week, I need to rest my liver from the dinner-time wine I drink each of the other six days. (Note: when on vacation, non-drinking Mondays do not apply.)

I’m not an alcoholic. At least I don’t think I am. But I’m trying to figure out when fun drinking becomes serious drinking—like it did for my mother.

When I was growing up, my French-born mother sipped wine freely and daily. I can picture her in the kitchen, stirring a bubbly cassoulet in a dark blue enamel pot, preparing a plate of cheeses, churning the pepper mill—with a glass in hand or waiting close by. An habitual part of her cooking process, wine was also served at every evening meal. Long, narrow, green-tinted bottles with strangely spelled words were as much of a staple in our fridge as a container of milk.

Drinking was part of her culture, and a seemingly harmless one. But later in her life, my mother started using wine as a way to escape, numbing herself from demons past and transitions present. My biggest fear is that I may, one day, do the same.

I mean, I do indulge in those regular glasses of vino. And in minutes, they seem to calm me, relax me, dull me from the stresses of my daily life as a freelance writer struggling in an economic crisis, a mother of three—two of whom are hormonal adolescents—and the daughter of a depressed, recently widowed Holocaust survivor.

I try to focus on the good things in my life—my loving husband who has a stable income, so far, and my three healthy, beautiful kids. But still, I like to drink.

Of course, there were times in my life that I didn’t drink for months, and I survived. I can count them for you–one, two, three–cause that’s how many kids I have. I didn’t drink for the first three months of each pregnancy, and then with my obstetrician’s blessing, I had the occasional half glass of wine, and it felt so good. You see, I don’t drink simply because of the wine’s soothing effects as it enters my blood stream, but also for the taste. The touches of citrus and oak in a complex chardonnay, the berry flavors and tannins that roll from my tongue and down my throat from an intense cabernet—those are flavors I savor.

I don’t think I have a drinking problem. But it’s my personality to grapple with the question, praying that I don’t ever abuse it. So in my effort to keep control, maintain my joie de vivre, be true to my European heritage, and not ever slide down that slippery slope, I’ll keep on drinking. Except on Mondays.

Caren Osten Gerszberg is a writer and the co-editor of the Drinking Diaries. To see her work, go to www.carenosten.com