How many novels can you name that have a sympathetic recovering alcoholic mother at the helm? For me, nothing comes immediately to mind except Anne Lamott’s Rosie trilogy: ROSIE, CROOKED LITTLE HEART, and now, IMPERFECT BIRDS.

Elizabeth Ferguson, Rosie’s mother, is one of my favorite characters to come around in a long, long time–maybe ever. She’s flawed, yet completely lovable–a widow who mourns for her lost husband, but finds a great guy to love, a bookworm who can’t seem to figure out what she’d like to do with herself in the real world, other than read and hang out with her family, a doting mother who has a hard time with the discipline part of parenting. And–a woman who struggles to stay sober.

I’m reading IMPERFECT BIRDS right now, and you can see the legacy of addictive behaviors from mother to daughter, and how Elizabeth is ripped apart with worry for her beautiful daughter Rosie, who is getting deeper and deeper into alcohol and drug use.

Throughout, there are priceless quotes about AA, mothering, alcoholism and life in general. Here’s one, from the point of view of teenage Rosie: “He told her stuff about the meetings….such as that people there said that AA was for problem drinkers, and Al-Anon for problem thinkers, spouses and parents of alcoholics, who hid out in their rooms, secretly thinking alone, having good ideas on how to rescue and fix the drinker. She pretended to listen.”

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 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.

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

Drinking Diaries: When was your first drink?

Laurie Lindeen:  If you don’t count the pulls off of my dad’s Budweiser cans as a small child, or the Dixie cups full of daiquiris during my parent’s gourmet parties, I’d say it was on New Year’s Eve in 7^th grade in a scene I describe graphically in my memoir, Petal Pusher: A Rock and Roll Cinderella Story. A throng of girls took turns taking swigs from my parent’s dusty liquor bottles stored in a cupboard in the hallway next to my bedroom.

How did your family treat drinking?

I grew up in the ‘70s in Wisconsin, therefore my parents had a very casual attitude toward drinking.  Both of my parents were what we call “social” drinkers.  I do remember in about middle school making an association between acting like an adult and drinking and smoking.

How do you handle the subject of drinking with your kid?

My son has a thicket of alcoholic branches in his family tree unfortunately, so we started talking to him about drinking and alcoholism when he was in first grade.

Was there a phase in life when you drank more or less?

I drank a lot more in college and when I was in a band.  Nowadays, I need to tone down the “sailor on furlough” in me that emerges whenever I’m sprung loose from domestic duty and out on the town.

When was the best time drinking ever?

The best time drinking ever happened when I was a sophomore in high school and Patty Vaughn, a junior, had an unsupervised New Year’s Eve party at her parents’ house and I drank beer, but not too much, and I made out with everybody.  Little did I know, I peaked early and should’ve hung it up, or at least toned it down, so I was a more productive young adult.

When was the worst time drinking?

I actually topped my “Mrs. Roper” story that I submitted to Drinking Diaries last spring in New Orleans this past November.  Had I gone back to the hotel instead of to the Absinthe House…I lost an entire day in an amazing city nursing my self-inflicted wounds.

Has culture or religion influenced your drinking?

I’m Catholic and I’m from Wisconsin.  You do the math.

What is the best movie about drinking?

I love the scene in the ballet movie “A Turning Point” when Shirley MacLaine’s and Ann Bancroft’s characters tie on one and get into a purse bitch slap fight.

I also adore Frank Sinatra and Big Crosby getting hammered while singing “What a Swell Party It Was” in the movie “High Society.”

Laurie Lindeen’s essay, “Uncool, Not Cute,” was posted on Drinking Diaries in July, 2009. Her work has appeared in Rolling Stone’s anthology Altarockorama and the online magazine, The Morning News. Find her on the web at www.laurielindeen.com

Last weekend, the New York Times ran a piece called “Baby Barflies,” by Risa Chubinsky, in the “Complaint Box” column of the Metropolitan section. In 500 words, Chubinsky, a 20-something who recently moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn, rants about her visits to neighborhood bars, where she and her friends are frequently faced with toddlers grabbing at their drinks while the moms chat away, and babies crying right up against the bar next to their martinis.

She argues enthusiastically that bars are not for kids, and how aghast she was to see a dad changing his kid’s diaper right there on a vacant table at the Bohemian Bar and Beer Garden. Why, she wonders, are parents not leaving their kids home with a babysitter when they feel the need or want to drink at a bar?

After her piece ran, 376 comments followed (mine is comment #154), with readers defending the author’s tirade, telling her to chill out, or shedding light on all kinds of ways for peace to ensue for bar-loving moms/dads and booze-loving non-parents alike.

As both a parent and social drinker, I love the idea of being able to be at a bar with my kids nearby (if I’m not trying to escape from them, that is), and so was immediately drawn to the notion of neighborhood pubs in England, where many have play areas for young children to stay in sight of mom and dad and vice versa. But with our country’s Puritan ideals and school campaigns teaching children as young as nine years old that drinking is ALWAYS bad, I don’t think that idea would fly.

What are your thoughts on kids frequenting bars?

It’s the Night Before Thanksgiving, and chances are, your teens will want to go out and meet their friends or hang out with their older siblings. You’re so busy cooking, you’ll most likely be relieved to have the house to yourself. But before you let them go, check the liquor!

Turns out Thanksgiving-Eve Night–the night before Thanksgiving–is the biggest night for underage drinking, even more than graduation or prom night. The fridge and the liquor cabinets are stocked, parents are distracted by relatives and dinner preparations, and older siblings or college-age friends are around…

by Meg Akabas

Did I have the “drinking” talk with my kids?  No, I did not.

You may find that shocking since I am a mother of four and a parenting consultant. Let me explain.

If we had sat down and talked to our kids when they were age 14 (or 13, or 16) about drinking responsibly, I’m convinced that it wouldn’t have done a bit of good. As with any other topic, if you wait to talk to your kids about something until they are grown, it’s really too late.

Teaching our children about restraint has been a cornerstone of our parenting philosophy since day one. Research shows that fostering self-discipline in age-appropriate ways early and often is the best way to end up with kids (and ultimately grown-ups) who can control their impulses. And, studies show that teaching children self-discipline generally produces better-behaved and more successful kids.

Babies are not born with self-control; cognitive scientists say that practicing restraint from a young age can significantly improve a person’s ability to curb impulses later in life. My husband and I guided this process, giving our children opportunities to develop self-control by having them experience waiting, sharing, and not always getting everything they wanted (yes, disappointment is OK!).

For example, you could foster restraint using our method of resisting demands for toys and other things by creating a gift list for each of your kids.  When your children see something they want, tell them that you will put it on the list of potential gifts for his or her next birthday or for holiday (whichever is coming up sooner).  When you return home, in fact, write the item on his/her gift list.  The list will satisfy their immediate craving. Then, when birthdays and holidays roll around, they will know what to request from grandparents and other relatives when asked what they want.

However, we found with our kids that often, well before the gift-giving occasion did roll around, even on occasion by the next time we looked at the list to add a suggestion, more than half of the items on the list were already out of favor!  The kids could actually see on their own how much their wants were mere whims that changed even before the item could be acquired. This delayed gift plan was one of many strategies we used to foster self-control in our children.

We also tried our best to be models of restraint and moderation ourselves by keeping an appropriate voice volume, choosing our words carefully, conserving materials, exercising, eating well, and being frugal. (I know – it sounds demanding…it is.)  Even though my husband and I are far from perfect, it seems to have made an impression on our kids, who all appear to be quite self-disciplined as teenagers and young adults.

So, instead of the “drinking talk,” we’ve had discussions (not lectures) about restraint in general on an ongoing basis. We’ve helped our kids to develop self-control in all aspects of life, and made our best effort to model moderation ourselves.  All this superseded the need for a discussion about drinking.

Don’t get me wrong; I distinctly remember telling my kids somewhere along the way about the health benefits and risks of drinking, the absolute, hands-down, non-negotiable rule of never getting into a car with someone behind the wheel who has been drinking, and the dangers of excessive drinking (sometimes fatal) associated with hazing. But, these were discussions that came up at various critical times and special situations (before prom night, before leaving for college) as a reminder of what we had already taught them.

“Everything in moderation” is what we have instilled in our children. And, that goes for alcohol as well. It has worked for us for two reasons: the fact that my children have grown up in New York City and don’t drive is a salient factor. The other factor is that there is no history of alcoholism or any sort of addictive behavior in either my family or my husband’s.  So, for us, moderation has been a strong enough warning. Other parents would need to alter their message to suit their particular situation.

Nevertheless, as a parenting skills educator, my advice to other parents is that your attitude and approach to teaching your kids about drinking should be the same as all other things you teach your children. In short, you must start young and it should be a part of overall values you instill in your children. My point is that a “talk” just isn’t going to cut it as they head off to their first party.

What is my own relationship to drinking?  I have a glass of wine at the very end of most days for enjoyment and as a health measure (though the jury is still out on this one). I admit — wine and cheese are actually my two favorite food indulgences (even over chocolate)! Sure, there are times when I have to resist a second or third glass of wine (or piece of cheese); at those times, a little voice thankfully reminds me what I’ve hammered into my kids — you know — restraint….

Meg Akabas is a parenting skills educator and the founder of Parenting Solutions. She offers individual consultations, workshops and new mothers’ groups as well as information and advice on her website and a free bi-monthly parenting newsletter.  Visit her website at www.parenting-solutions.com, sign up for her newsletter at http://www.parenting-solutions.com/contact/, or e-mail her at parenting-solutions@earthlink.net.

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).