Recently, I wrote a post about the origins of the Drinking Diaries for a new website, Better After 50. When the founder and editor asked me to write an essay about how the Drinking Diaries got started, it provoked me to think about the evolution of this blog and how it morphed from a seed of an idea into a gratifying partnership and a forthcoming book–due out in October 2012!

Here’s the piece that originally ran on Better After 50–a site worth checking out even if you’re not yet the big 5-0 (which I’m not, but will be in a few years…).

Cheers to Us–and the Drinking Diaries

by Caren Osten Gerszberg

Leah & Caren, Drinking Diaries co-editors

Do you really need to check your blackberry again?” I ask repeatedly.

“Any new sales you need to vet on Gilt today?” Leah retorts.

On any given day, sitting and working at my round kitchen table—our computers lined up side by side—these are the kinds of quips that pass between me and my co-editor, friend and neighbor. Minutes later, the bickering behind us, we giggle proudly over our triumphant reworking of a long, twisted phrase we’ve teamed up to unwind.

Together, since June 2008, Leah Odze Epstein and I have been co-editing a blog called the Drinking Diaries—a website covering anything and everything related to women and drinking. From celebration to revelation we like to say. A place where there is no judgment, where the stories we and other women share range from comical and celebratory to sexy and despairing. Where we offer news, profiles, research and opinions—all about women and their relationship with alcohol.

Drinking Diaries was conceived, sadly, as a result of my own mother’s drinking. Well into her sixties, my mother’s wine habit went from socially acceptable and culturally expected (she’s French) to deeply problematic. A child survivor of the Holocaust, my mother began using alcohol to numb her pain. I watched in fear and bewilderment as her dependence on alcohol—something I’d never before been faced with—accelerated with warp speed.

Leah, also the child of an alcoholic, whose mother has been sober for over 35 years, was the person I turned to. In my spiraling confusion, I would sit on Leah’s front porch, lamenting about my mother’s drinking which worsened when my father was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. Then, over a Friday night dinner with our husbands, Leah and I decided that there was no place for women to share their stories—the sad, happy and everything in between—of drinking and the effect it has on their lives. We would provide that place.

In an effort to discover who the readers—of the future book we hoped to publish—would be, we started the Drinking Diaries blog. We queried women authors to do Q&A interviews, and let out shrieks of jubilation when we got a “yes” from accomplished writers like Joyce Maynard, Jackie Mitchard and Julie Powell. They all had tales to contribute. We went to blogging conferences and writing workshops, asking women along the way to share their stories. Sex and drinking. Parenting and drinking. Work and drinking. Family and drinking. Culture and drinking. Health and drinking. Nearly three years later, it’s all there.

Somewhere along the way, Leah and I were deemed “experts” on the subject of women and drinking. We’ve been interviewed for radio shows and TV-news programs, and featured on various blogs. Recently, I was asked to write an article, “The Art of Mindful Drinking,” and do a related podcast for a national magazine.

Last March, our efforts continued to pay off. We got a book deal from Seal Press (Perseus) and the anthology of essays we are currently working on, Drinking Diaries: Women Serve their Stories Straight Up, will be published in Fall 2012. Our list of writers is impressive, but more importantly covers a fascinating array of experiences, ages, backgrounds, perspectives and cultures.

Both mothers of three children each, Leah and I start our twice-weekly work sessions with a catch-up walk through a beautiful Long Island Sound-lined park before returning to our office—my kitchen. Over mugs of tea and handfuls of almonds, we bicker like an old married couple over grammar, her blackberry addiction, and my roving attention toward shopping websites. Some stories make us laugh hysterically like two teenage girls. Others hit very close to home. And when we “score” an interview or get a response from a high-profile person we never expected to get, we high-five like football players.

When we’re not working together on the forthcoming anthology, we are working independently from home on new posts for the blog, which we update every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We touch base via email and phone several times a day, basking in glory on a day when the blog has a high number of hits, and sharing frustration when a writer fails to turn in a piece that she swore was coming yesterday.

This journey has grown from seed on Leah’s porch, to stalk with our blog, to blossoming flower next Fall, when the book hits the shelves—both virtual and in bookstores. Leah and my partnership is a labor of love more than a business venture. The stories are there. We are just asking women to scratch the surface and let them out.

For those of us who have watched–and enjoyed–the epic frat party film, Animal House, it’s easy to see that these boys are having one good, drunken time throughout. According to a recent study, the alcohol-induced male elation is not purely fictional.

The study, published in Biological Psychology, shows that men experience greater pleasure form drinking alcohol than women do. Apparently, liquor triggers the male brain to release a higher amount of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that causes euphoria and pleasure.

When the high subsides, however, it’s not all fun and beer pong. Researchers say that the additional dopamine may help expain why men, especially those who can hold their liquor, are twice as likely as women to become alcoholics.

“It’s not just that people who release more dopamine like it better,” says John H. Krystal, chair of the Yale University psychiatrity department and one of 11 authors of the study. “They also learn to want it more.”

On two separate days, the researchers tested how the brains of 21 young social drinkers reacted to alcohol. On one day, the men and women were given juice mixed with a tiny amount of alcohol. Then the researchers used PET scanners to measure the dopamine release in the subjects’ brain. They expected the effect to be minimal, Krystal says, and it was. But they wanted to control for the possibility that people would feel euphoric just because they thought they were getting drunk. On the second day, when the subjects were given stronger drinks, dopamine levels were higher–and the men’s brains released more than twice as much dopamine as the women’s.

The researchers’ goal is to develop ways to “damp down” dopamine release in the brains of people predisposed to alcoholism. With the use of medications and other treatments, young drinkers with a family history of alcoholism may be able to lessen their chances of becoming problem drinkers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Patty Nasey

Life is different today/I hear everybody say

Mother needs something today to calm her down.

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

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

~Rolling Stones, 1967

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Names and minor details have been changed.

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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?

A new gene variant that may protect against alcoholism was recently discovered at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

The results of the study report that 10 to 20 percent of the population carries a gene variant (called CYP2E1) that makes them get drunk more easily–and therefore makes them less susceptible to alcoholism.

According to an article in USA Today, Dr. Kirk Wilhelmsen, the study’s lead author, explained that the finding, “potentially changes the paradigm about how we think about how alcohol affects the brain.” While the finding doesn’t yet have any treatment application, he says, “my expectation is this is actually going to lead somewhere.”

Wilhelmsen and colleagues collected hundreds of pairs of siblings, all at college-age and all with at least one parent who was an alcoholic. The study participants were given a mixture of grain alcohol and soda that was equivalent to about three drinks that they drank at regular intervals. They were asked to answer questions describing how the alcohol made them feel: “I feel drunk, I don’t feel drunk; I feel sleepy, I don’t feel sleepy.”

The 10 to 20 percent of the population that carry the gene variant typically avoid drinking often or in large quantities because they can’t “hold their liquor.” As a result, they are less likely to become alcoholics in the long run. The new finding offers hope for a treatment of alcoholic if scientists can develop a way to modify the gene or copy its effects.

“We have found a gene that protects against alcoholism, and on top of that, has a very strong effect,” Wilhelmsen said in a statement. “But alcoholism is a very complex disease, and there are lots of complicated reasons why people drink. This may be just one of the reasons.”

The findings are published in the online version of the journal, Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, and will appear in print in its January 2011 issue.

“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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“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 TWO

by Patty N.

Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  That pretty much sums up my relationship with alcohol, especially in the past 5 years. I’d drink moderately, then get drunk, then beat myself up, then quit drinking, then decide I could control it because I’d been able to stop, then start drinking again, then get drunk, then quit, then start all over.  It was insane. I was insane.

But there was something about A.A.’s Second Step – the idea that I had to buy into this “Higher Power” thing in order to get sober — that made me a bit uncomfortable.  Not because I didn’t believe – I was raised Catholic, I converted to Judaism in 1996, I certainly believe in God.  It just sounded a little too much like “Jesus Saves” which totally freaked me out.  Because I had been “saved” once before — and it was scary.

When I was 12, my friend Roberta invited me to Wolf Mountain, a weeklong sleep away camp located near the small Northern California town where we lived. She told me it was co-ed so we could meet boys (not like the all-girls Catholic camp from which I had recently returned).  She told me it was “Indian Camp” so we would sleep in giant tee-pees.  She did not tell me, however (maybe she didn’t know) that the camp was run by fundamentalist Christians.  Every night at the campfire, Running Bear or Spotted Wolf (all the staffers had Indian names) would announce the campers who had accepted Jesus Christ as their “personal savior” that day.  I had no intention of adding my name to the list. I’d had my First Communion, I went to confession regularly, I was going to be Confirmed in the coming year. I assumed I was on the fast track to Heaven.  Then on the last night, all the campers were herded into a barn-like auditorium to watch a film about the Rapture. The film depicted, in terrifying detail, the moment when all of the “true Christians” would be gathered together to meet Christ upon His return, leaving all of us fakers behind to die a lonely, miserable death on Earth. It scared the crap out of me. Afterward, I sprinted back to my tee-pee, dropped to my knees and begged my counselor, Little Duckfeet, to save me, too.

Rationally, I knew that A.A.’s traditions were nothing like Wolf Mountain’s salvation-by-intimidation approach.  Still, around my 40th day of sobriety when my sponsor wanted to meet to review the Second Step, visions of Little Duckfeet danced in my head.  I told her I needed more time.

That same week, I was invited to an event at the very trendy Standard Hotel in New York City’s Meatpacking district. Some of my former Conde Nast colleagues had rented the terrace overlooking the High Line with panoramic views of downtown Manhattan.  As we got off the elevator, a young, good-looking waiter greeted us with a tray full of champagne.  I watched enviously as my friends lifted the gold-filled flutes, clinking, toasting, and drinking.  Then my insanity came knocking.

I can have one drink.

I have been so good, I deserve it!

How can I not have a glass of champagne?

Everybody else is drinking, why shouldn’t I?

I walked toward the bar.

“Champagne?” the bartender said as he popped the cork on another bottle.

I imagined the bubbles in my mouth, tickling my palate at first and then becoming sweet and smooth as my troubles melted away with each sip.  I wanted to say “Yes” so badly, and had I been trying to get sober on my own, I probably would have.  But I thought of all those people I had met in my A.A. meetings — unfailingly honest, day after day, sharing their experience, strength and hope with me. They’d given me their phone numbers, invited me for coffee, clapped and cheered when I announced my sober day counts: 12 days…23 days…36 days…41 days.  As the waiter filled up the glass, I imagined calling my sponsor to tell her that I’d have to forfeit those hard-earned days of sobriety and start over. I pictured myself telling all those people who had been rooting so hard for me that I “went out” over a glass of champagne.  I couldn’t do it.

“Just a Perrier with lime,” I finally said. The waiter handed me the unfamiliar drink and I winced as the bubbles stung the inside of my mouth. It was a lot to swallow – this unsatisfying champagne substitute, this strange state of sobriety, this saying no when I wanted to say yes, this Second Step. But I did it.  While physically I was at a glamorous Conde Nast event, mentally I was in a church basement with these strangers I’d come to know, trust and rely on for help. Together, they formed a power that was greater than myself. Together, they helped rescue me from my own insanity.

In the book, Twelve Jewish Steps of Recovery, Rabbi Kerry Olitzky writes, “It doesn’t matter if God has a long white beard, what matters is there’s someone beyond you and beside you.  You just have to connect with it.”  I realized that day that it’s irrelevant whether I am Catholic or Jewish; Born Again or Atheist. What’s most important is that I’m not alone.

Read Patty’s first post of this series here.

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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.

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

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

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.)

I’m Leah Odze Epstein, and I am a blogger. Actually, I’m co-editor of Drinking Diaries, and this is my first official off-the-cuff blog post, spurred on by a reader who threw down the gauntlet and said, “Why don’t these bloggers just BLOG?” Hmmm. Good question.

Last night, when I couldn’t sleep (probably because of an overloaded back-to-school schedule, as the mother of three kids), I was thinking about how my mom, a recovered alcoholic who has been sober for over 30 years, explained to me that alcoholism was a disease, and alcohol was not the only cause. It is a disease of the emotions as well as a chemical disease (involving blood sugar issues, the body’s ability to metabolize alcoholic, etc.). She always said to me, “You don’t have the personality for it,” which somehow made me feel better.

Over the years, I’ve debated many people on the disease front–people who don’t believe alcoholism is as much a disease, but a failure of will or a lifestyle choice. It’s confusing, because so-called high functioning alcoholics throw a wrench in the works–can’t everyone just cut down? Isn’t it just a question of moderation and self-control?

For alcoholics, it’s not that easy. My mother had to go through detox–and after that, she was told she should never drink again because she is allergic to alcohol, and she hasn’t.

I would argue that my mother’s definition is true: an alcoholic is someone who is allergic to alcohol, and should never drink again. Just as my husband and daughter have celiac disease, and their bodies cannot tolerate wheat or gluten-containing products, some people have an allergy to alcohol. I think a distinction needs to be made between alcoholics and heavy drinkers, and that the label high-functioning alcoholic can be misleading. Most alcoholics eventually hit rock bottom. Many people can benefit from moderation management, I am sure, but they are probably not alcoholics.

I’m not saying that alcoholics should not make amends to the people they hurt, using their “disease” as an excuse. I’m just arguing for  increased understanding of the distinction between heavy drinking, a drinking problem and the disease of alcoholism.

What do you think, readers? What is your definition of an alcoholic?

by V.C.

Nothing prepares you for seeing your 21-year-old son in handcuffs–still stinking of booze, beltless, pants falling down–led from the court pens at his arraignment for DWI.  Nothing prepares you for watching your baby hold out his hands as the cuffs are removed, or the noise they make.

With each clink of the cuffs, your heart breaks and you ask yourself, why was I such a bad mother?  Why couldn’t I save him?  Did I do too much or too little?

What flashed through my mind were a series of firsts when he was just a child.  His first steps, his first day at grammar school with his Power Rangers lunch box in hand, the look on his face when he hit his first home run.  And then much later, his first drunk.

He was fifteen at the time, and that night he wore the bill of his ball cap down low.  He sported his hip-hop clothes and his hip-hop swagger, and he told me he was just going to the park to hang out for a while.  He wouldn’t look me in the eye, though. And on this night, while my husband slept, I stayed awake, instinctively knowing something was off.  He came home, cap askew, eyes bloodshot.

“What did you drink?” I asked him.

“Nothing.”

“What did you drink?” I repeated, looking deeply into his eyes.

“Vodka.  Don’t tell Dad.”

“I won’t.  But you will,” I said.

Well done, Mommy, I thought to myself.  Have the boy take responsibility for his own actions.

The next day, my husband and I projected a united front as he confessed his sins to his father.  He had drunk vodka out of a Gatoraid bottle.  Alot of it.  We gave him the “talk” about drugs and drinking.  With a family history of alcoholism, we had more than a workable knowledge of the perils of drugs and alcohol.  Still.  We wanted to believe it was innocent—a mere experiment.  But Brian, as he grew older, seemed to gravitate to the seedier side of life.  He didn’t always go to school.  He’d gotten hurt playing baseball and had given up sports.  He wanted to be “cool” so he smoked cigarettes.  He smoked weed.  We confronted him all the time.  My cool, cocky son replied, “Don’t worry, I’ve got a handle on it.”  We wanted to believe him.

Soon the incidents of drunkenness escalated, and he just got better at hiding it from us.  Until he couldn’t.  He would come home drunk and collapse on his bed.  His room stank of booze.  One morning I found vomit next to the bed.  And then one winter break, when he was eighteen, I had had enough.

“You can’t live here anymore,” I told him.  “I won’t live with a drunk.”

He called me while I was at work contrite.  “I’m sorry.  I have a handle on it,” he said.  “But I don’t have a problem.  I got a little out of control, that’s all.”

“One day you will have to stop,” I said.

After each incident he behaved for awhile.  To show us.  To show himself that he had a handle on things.  But ultimately the feelings of Insecurity, of Less Than, of Fear were always simmering underneath his cool exterior.  He was big on the outside, but on the inside he surely felt small.  And now he’s 21 and legal, and so he’s begun drinking in earnest.  He’s allowed into bars any time day or night, and that’s where he goes to feed his feelings.

That day, I cried at that court rail, and I didn’t care who witnessed my tears. I cried because I had and STILL HAVE such high hopes for him.
After the arraignment he got into the car, still drunk.

“This was not so bad,” he said.

“No,” his Dad said.  “It’s much worse.  This is as good as it gets,” he warned.  “If you keep drinking, what you have in your future is more jail.  More pain.  Hurting someone else.  Hurting yourself.  Save yourself NOW.  We love you.  You are a good kid with a bad problem.”

Our son is not even aware of the ripple effect that his contact with the criminal justice system will have on his life.  It will affect job applications and work; there will be drug and alcohol testing for at least six months, car insurance will double for five to ten years, and of course there is our trust.  The shock to our system as parents hit us like a lightning bolt.
We hope that this is a wake up call for him.  We don’t need any other signs for we know that this is either the end of a problem and he will straighten up and get his act together, or it is just the beginning of a life gone awry because of alcohol abuse.

My son, my son, I want to hug him and shake him awake at the same time.  I want to slap him and then kiss his stinging cheek and tell him everything is going to be all right because I am his mother and I desperately want to make it so.  But even a mother’s love can’t put a Bandaid over a bullet wound, and so what I do is I tell him he still has the power to choose the life he wants to lead, and that he must choose wisely and choose well.  And then I echo his father’s words,” Don’t let this day be as good as it gets.”

As of this writing Brian is almost five months sober and we are very proud of him.

V.C. lives and works in the New York metropolitan area.  She is married and has two children.  She has written two memoirs, which are not yet published.

Welcome to the DRINKING DIARIES.

Whether we are drinking it or not, alcohol remains a potent part of our lives. Our culture is saturated with it, steeped in it. We confront alcohol everywhere we go—from the home to the office party, date night to ladies’ night, happy hour to super bowl. Every season has its own liquor—there’s the champagne at New Year’s, beer on St. Patty’s Day, summer’s mojitos, autumn’s new vintage of velvety red wine, and winter’s warming brandy. Each religion has its prescribed ritual, from egg nog at Christmas to Manischevitz at Passover. Every culture has its signature drinks, from ouzo to sake and rum to Aquavit. Skol! Kampai! Cin cin! Salud!

Ask anyone you know to scratch the surface and she will find a drinking story. Maybe it’s the night she got smashed and so belligerent she spat in the bartender’s face. Or the time her alcoholic mother poured wine into a Sprite bottle so she could ride an Amtrak train, her self-medicating uninterrupted. It may be that her teenage daughter’s scar—from the time her beer-drinking boyfriend crashed the car—is healing, while hers is not. That the deepest philosophical question the stressed-out mom ponders is: “How big the glass?” Or the eyebrow-raising looks she gets when she mentions she doesn’t touch the stuff.

Here you can read other women’s drinking stories and/or spill your own. The Drinking Diaries will have guest posts and interviews, as well as links to articles, studies, and just about anything that has to do with women and alcohol.

For the two of us, alcohol is a loaded topic.

Leah: For my first grade school photo, my alcoholic mother put my sailor dress on inside out. My mother stopped drinking when I was nine years old, but by the time I hit fourteen, my older sister was sent to rehab. I spent half my adolescence at self-help meetings, and although I would rather have been hanging out with my friends, I found the personal narratives of fall and redemption riveting. From high school to college student, writer to stay-at-home mom, I have run the gamut from abstainer to binge drinker.

Caren: I grew up in a home where wine was always around. My European parents drank every night with dinner, and my mother–a French hidden child survivor of the Holocaust–often bragged about how she’d corrupted her American friends with the joys of a late afternoon glass of wine. But later in life, my mother’s wartime demons came back to haunt her and her social drinking morphed into need. Since then, I—a lover of wine in moderation—have been wrestling with what drinking means to me.

We want to reach out to women, like us, for whom alcohol—for whatever reason—is also a loaded topic. And so, we started THE DRINKING DIARIES…

Please check back on MONDAYS and THURSDAYS for the latest round of new posts!