by Ann Hood

The first time I drank single malt whiskey, I was soaking wet and shivering on the isle of Skye. My then husband and I had been touring Scotland for a few weeks. We’d gone on a midnight Ghost Tour in Edinburgh, looked for the Loch Ness monster, and hiked the highest peak in the Highlands. But somehow we had not even tasted one wee dram of single malt.

Years earlier, I’d had a sip of a boyfriend’s Johnnie Walker and decided that would be my last drink of scotch. Turpentine came to mind when it burned its way down my throat. But for the past three days, Bob and I had been walking around Skye in a steady drizzle. The space heater in our B and B didn’t dry our clothes or warm our bones. By the afternoon that we walked into the local pub, it seemed that I might never be warm again. The bartender asked what we wanted. “Anything to take the chill away,” I said. He placed before me a glass of amber liquid. It smelled like smoke and curled its way around my tongue, instantly warming me.

That whiskey was Talisker, and although I became a fan, the price tag kept me from buying it very often back in the States. A dozen years later, I had a different husband, two children, and a better bank account. A bottle of Talisker or Laphroaig was almost always on my shelf.

In April, 2002, my five year old daughter Grace died suddenly from a virulent form of strep. One day she was twirling in her ballet class and the next day she lay dying in the ICU at our children’s hospital. In the days after she died, friends brought us food: lasagnas and stews, cookies and fruit, loaves of fresh bread. They brought bottles of wine too, the big ones. Sitting around our kitchen table, stunned, those bottles emptied every evening.

Sleep was impossible for me in those first weeks. The wine I drank each night managed to make me drowsy, but also had me waking up at three in the morning. The world always looks bleaker at 3 a.m., but when you are grieving, that bleakness takes on even deeper dimensions. I prowled the rooms of our house, as if I might find Grace there somewhere. The emptiness that greeted me in each room sent me into fresh waves of misery. Grief begs for anesthesia of some kind, anything to dull the pain and quiet the screams that threaten to emerge at any moment. Despite my desperate need to be numb, I realized that gulping too many glasses of Australian shiraz was actually making things worse.

The first night I stayed away from the wine, I didn’t sleep at all. Instead, I lay in bed, awake and alert, haunted by the time in the ICU and by images of my little girl dead. The wine had at least given me a few hours respite. The next night I took a few Benadryl. That knocked me out, but made it hard for me to wake up, and kept me fuzzy headed and cotton mouthed the entire next day.

When everyone gathered again at our kitchen table that night, I remembered our bottle of single malt and poured myself a good-sized amount. The thing about good whiskey is that it wants to be sipped, not gulped. My husband had some too, and soon all of us gathered there were sipping whiskey instead of wine. That night, I slept uninterrupted. Not the deep sleep that comes when your children are safe and alive in their beds; that particular sleep will perhaps always elude me now. But for many hours I slept fitfully, and woke to another day without Grace, clear headed and broken hearted.

I cannot say how long this ritual continued. Sometimes it seems that bottle of single malt was passed around our table for many long nights. Like other aspects of grief, one day I looked up and I was once again enjoying a glass of wine with my dinner. The single malt took up its residence on our shelf again, opened on chilly winter nights or special occasions.

My father kept a bottle of Jack Daniels in the liquor cabinet, beside dusty bottles of Drambuie and Crème de Menthe. That bottle came down on the Christmas night his brother died, on the cold January day when my grandmother died, and during the grief filled summer of 1982 when my brother Skip died. The sight of that square bottle with the black label used to make me tremble. It meant something terrible and irrevocable had happened. It meant my father, the person I relied on for strength and support, needed some himself. And now I have my own bottle, saved for those times when the force of grief returns. Grief, it chills me to the bone.

Ann Hood is the author of 8 novels, including the bestsellers The Knitting Circle and Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine; two memoirs and a collection of short stories. Her most recent memoir, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief, was a NY Times Editor’s Choice and one of the top 10 non-fiction books of 2009 by Entertainment Weekly. Her new novel, The Red Thread, was just published on May 1st.

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by Patty Nasey

Last month, my 11 year-old daughter and I were playing Kadima on the beach in the Dominican Republic. It was early evening and we were waiting for my husband and youngest daughter to get ready for dinner.

“Let’s meet them at the bar,” I said. “You can get a mango smoothie and Mommy can get a Presidente.”

“Why do you keep ordering beer?” my daughter asked. “I thought you didn’t want to drink anymore?”

She was right. Sort of.

Almost two years ago, I quit drinking. There was no intervention, no DUI, no court-ordered rehab, no AA.  I didn’t think I had a “problem.”  Sure, I sometimes had one too many and was often the last one at the party, but it’s not like I carried a flask of in my bag or drank every day.  I just liked to have fun. Then I turned 40 and the drinking became less fun.  I had trouble remembering conversations after two drinks, yet I would keep refilling my glass. And my hangovers had become debilitating, sometimes lasting for two days.

My self-imposed abstinence began in April 2008. I was consulting for a fashion magazine and had been invited to a staff dinner at a Mexican restaurant. After two (or three? or four?) cucumber agave margaritas, I rallied some friends to meet me for a nightcap. I remember champagne, Grand Marnier and a plate of fries. I do not remember the cab ride home. I do not remember losing my phone.  And I do not remember anything my friends and I talked about.

The next morning, I had an 8am breakfast meeting at Conde Nast with the magazine’s publisher and her management team.  I slipped quietly into the executive dining room and kept my throbbing head lowered, trying to avoid making bloodshot eye contact with anyone.  I hoped nobody would notice my trembling hands as I picked up a piece of plain toast and a cup of coffee, and prayed I wouldn’t have to speak since at any moment I could start projectile vomiting like Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

“Are you okay?” one of my colleagues asked after the meeting. “You looked like you were dying in there.”

I was dying. Instead of feeling like the successful, accomplished professional who enjoyed a social drink once in a while, I felt like a pathetic, out-of-control, sloppy drunk.

“I’m quitting drinking!”  I announced that night at dinner with my husband and kids.  Perhaps because I’d worked for so many magazines, I had a habit of making big, headline-style declarations of some new self-improvement campaign.  They had heard me announce with great gusto…

“I’m getting organized!”

“I’m through with carbs!”

“I’m joining a gym!”

“I’m not coloring my hair!”

…only to see me come back from the salon with fresh highlights, eating a bagel while trying to find my gym membership card in my messy, disorganized purse.

But this time the stakes were higher than the number on the scale or the shade of my hair color. And I managed to stay off the sauce for a full year. My husband doesn’t drink much so my sobriety didn’t significantly alter our lifestyle.  My friends assumed I was on another one of my self-help kicks so they just rolled their eyes as I brought my own Fresca to their dinner parties.

In April 2009, I celebrated my year of sobriety with a glass of Veuve Cliquot.  Nothing bad happened. I didn’t get drunk. I remembered the conversations.  So I decided I could start drinking again – but only in moderation and not in front of the kids (interestingly, I wasn’t ready to admit to them that I had caved in on one of my resolutions.)

But the hiding was hard – I found myself lying all the time.  I’d put beer in an opaque glass and say it was Fresca. I’d decline a glass of wine and then gulp down my husband’s when the kids weren’t looking. I got so drunk at a party that I fell down and broke a rib, but told the girls I’d tripped on a step.  When I was bedridden with a hangover after my 44^th birthday party – an event that began with mango margaritas and ended with belly dancing at some Middle Eastern restaurant –I pretended I had the flu.  And when I ordered a Presidente in the Dominican Republic, I told them it was “grown-up soda.” But they knew it was beer.

“I’m on vacation,” I told my daughter as I tried to get her to leave the beach and go to the bar with me.   “Mommy can have one drink.”

She stopped playing Kadima and looked me right in the eyes.

“You know what happens, Mom” she said. “One drink leads to another, then to another, then to another. And before you know it you’re drunk.”

I was dumbstruck.  How did she know what I didn’t yet know –that it’s the first drink that gets you drunk?  How did she know what I was still unwilling to admit to myself – that I cannot drink?

So I didn’t.  I didn’t order a beer that night. Or the next night.  Or the next.  I’m not making any promises or grand declarations.  I’m just trying not to drink. One day at a time.

Patty Nasey is a 20 year veteran of the magazine industry. She has worked at Time Out New York, Jane, Lucky, Teen Vogue, Mademoiselle and SPY, and written for a variety of publications, including Time Out New York Kids, New York Magazine and PAPER. Patty currently works as a retail marketing consultant for Women’s Wear Daily, a division of the Fairchild Fashion Group. She lives in New York City with her husband, two daughters and a dog.

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As much as I like to do drink, I had no problem changing my habits while expecting each of my three beautiful, healthy children. That being said, I was lucky to have an obstetrician who did not have a problem allowing me the occasional glass of wine (once I was past my first trimester).

Though fairly infrequent, each sip that permeated my palate was that much tastier, and I had no concern, or guilt, that a small quantity of wine would affect my baby. After all, I knew that women in European countries drank–in moderation–during pregnancies, and they too, gave birth to healthy children.

In the U.S., there is (of course) an abstinence-only position on drinking while pregnant, but interestingly, there are a number of studies that have come out with some varying evidence. Read below on ModernMom.com about some recent research and let us know, did you drink while you were pregnant?

About Drinking and Pregnancy

by Caren Osten Gerszberg

In the wake of the Diane Schuler tragedy and the resulting bad press of the average mom who drinks an average amount of alcohol in a responsible way—I say enough is enough. We need to stop demonizing ALL women and mothers who drink, because many of them drink in a manner that is okay, as in…moderately.

Perhaps the ensuing onslaught of negativity towards women who enjoy alcohol has one saving grace—that those who do have a problem, drinking in secret and getting behind the wheel of a car after one cocktail too many, will hopefully be motivated to address their habits and potential addiction for fear that such a calamity could be part of their own story.

But for the many women and mothers among us who enjoy a glass of merlot, a cold brew or the occasional martini, the media’s response is not an acceptable indictment. Women are entitled to partake in the cocktail clutch just as men do. Yes, we are the ones who typically drive the kids around, and play with the fire that turns out an evening meal, but just like men who pal around and throw back a few at the bar, poker table and tailgate, there are women who want to do the same. Only many are more likely to do so while the kids are playing nearby or while putting dinner together. As long as there is no danger, why is this equivalent female version of drinking being labeled as dangerous?

Which leads me to another issue—drinking in front of our children. I have three of my own, and drink regularly in front of them. They are aware of the pleasures their parents derive from a glass of wine and see them do so responsibly. Some people feel it’s setting a bad example to drink while the kids are around, assuming the younger generation will therefore mimic their “proper” behavior and forever stay away from the bad stuff called booze. But what about kids learning and understanding that mom and dad can have a drink because it tastes good and they like it? That parents are people who are allowed to partake in certain activities that kids can’t. Until a certain age, we can drive; they can’t. We can vote; they can’t. We can drink; they can’t.

I realize this is not a simple matter for some women. That drinking can be loaded with complexity. A family history or relationship with an alcoholic can turn the act of drinking into a web of doubt, guilt and fear. But that’s not who I’m addressing here. I’m speaking about those in control—those for whom drinking is not fraught, or complicated, but merely one of life’s simple pleasures. And that is nothing to be ashamed of.

Caren Osten Gerszberg is a co-founder and editor of Drinking Diaries. To watch her interview about women and drinking on the ABC News Now show, “Moms Get Real,” go to http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8367782.

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.

by Rachel Sarah

Seven months after giving birth to my daughter, her father walked out the door.  Now that my daughter is nine, she has asked me a bit about her dad (although not as much as I’d anticipated). I’ve said: “He was so excited to be your father, but he wasn’t ready.” That’s not the whole truth now, is it?

When I met my daughter’s father, on an airplane, one of the first things I noticed about him was the smell of alcohol on his breath. To most women, that would have been a red flag. But I had this rescue complex (some call it “co-dependency”!) and thought I could handle people, even help them, especially men. Yes, your typical wounded-bird syndrome.

I haven’t written much about alcoholism and how it has affected my life, but over three years ago, for a guest blog in the Washington Post, I wrote about having a baby with an alcoholic.

In four hundred words for a guest post, you can’t get too deep. So I tried to keep it honest and concise:  A year before I had my daughter, I knew that her father was bipolar – and an alcoholic. I also knew that I was co-dependent.

Readers came out in droves to respond. One guy said I was “irresponsible” for “getting pregnant by [your] bipolar, alcoholic boyfriend…”  Another reader–”Been there”–added, “Here’s some advice that will benefit all readers. Don’t have sex with bipolar alcoholics. And if you do, and you end up pregnant, put the baby up for adoption.”

They didn’t stop there, and I probably should have gotten some support. What I did instead was this: I closed up. I stopped writing about alcoholism. I haven’t written more than a few lines about being with an alcoholic. Until now.
 
Why? Because as the years pass – and my daughter gets older — I get concerned. You see, I grew up in a family that kept secrets. Alcoholism runs deeply on my mother’s side. We laughed at the men in her family, and got embarrassed. But we didn’t really talk about it.

And now, as I said, my daughter is starting to ask.

So, tell me: how honest and open should I be with her about her father’s alcoholism? She’s going into fourth grade now. She’s smart, spunky, and sensitive. At a recent pediatrician appointment, her doctor talked to me about the fact that depression and alcoholism run in her genes. 

So, if I don’t tell the truth, will I just be keeping secrets too? I take responsibility for my own addictions. I was obsessed with curing her father, and thinking that I could save him. But I’ve grown up, and moved on.

If I don’t come clean with my child, who will?

 
Rachel Sarah is the author of Single Mom Seeking: Play Dates, Blind Dates, and Other Dispatches from the Dating World  (Seal Press) (www.singlemomseeking.com). She’s also the founder of one of the top blogs for single parents, Single Mom Seeking (www.singlemomseeking.com/blog).