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
guy 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