For mom of two Ashley Hall, each day is a blur of mealtimes, messy faces, dried-up tears and diaper changes. Like most stay-at-home moms, she finds the work rewarding, albeit exhausting. A blessing, though at times overwhelming. Hall – not her real name – loves spending time with her husband and her two boys. She loves every first step and new word she’s able to witness. She loves being a mom.
And, she loves alcohol.
Cabernets and IPAs, to be exact. Not all (but most) days, Hall anxiously awaits bedtime, counting the hours until her standing date with the bottle in the fridge. “I can’t wait,” the Dallas mom says. “I’m just looking at the clock, waiting for them to go to bed so I can sit on the couch and have silence with a glass of wine.”
Hall says she doesn’t drink to excess. Conscious of her health and her responsibilities to her family, she typically corks the bottle after a glass or two – low-risk drinking, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). (Low risk for women being defined as “no more than three drinks on any single day and no more than seven drinks per week.”)
For Hall, the evening ritual is a welcome respite from the hectic yet monotonous world of motherhood. It’s a time to quiet her racing mind and reclaim her adulthood, to take a minute for herself. “You’re doing kid stuff all day,” she explains. “It’s the point where you feel like an adult. I feel like I’ve earned it after working hard during the day.”
The idea of wine or beer or vodka (you fill in the blank) as a hard-earned reward is hardly novel. Hall is one of many moms who like to imbibe at the end of a long day. Just peruse your neighborhood beer and wine aisle for a taste of the “Mommy needs a drink” culture. Or better yet, spend a few minutes online.
Blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts with names such as “Mommy Drinks Because You Cry” and “Mommy Needs Vodka” are abundant and, while most of the pages are surely tongue-in-cheek, the trend has experts concerned. Drinking, once perceived as a man’s game, has recently become a woman’s sport. If liquor store shelves lined with Skinnygirl Cocktails and bottles of MommyJuice (not to be confused with Mommy’s Time Out) are any indication, women drinkers are no longer a niche market; they’re the market. “Tuck your kids into bed, sit down and have a glass of MommyJuice,” reads the wine bottle’s label. “Because you deserve it!”
An already laissez-faire attitude toward alcohol coupled with a culture that seems not only to approve of, but celebrate, the overindulgence of cocktail moms has resulted in the normalization of what was once taboo. A new crop of moms is using “playdate” as a sort of code word for happy hour, drinking at neighborhood parks and during Little League games, reaching for an afternoon cocktail (and then another and another) to take the edge off of a rough day. Been to a birthday party lately? Look for adult beverages next to the kids’ juice boxes; you can’t miss them. It’s the new status quo.
“It’s a bigger epidemic than people think,” says Avery Rowles, case manager at the Santé Center for Healing in Argyle. “These are well-educated women. These aren’t mal-intentioned women or career drinkers. It’s part of new identity as a cool, hip mom.”
The new normal
“We’ve seen the trend, definitely,” says Robb Kelly of the Robb Kelly Recovery Group in Southlake, though he is reluctant to use the word “epidemic.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has discerned a trend too. American women are drinking more than ever before and are suffering the consequences, the CDC says. The statistics are sobering. Between 1998 and 2007, the number of women arrested for drunk driving rose 30 percent, and the number of women who entered alcohol treatment programs nearly tripled. Between 1999 and 2008, the number of women admitted to emergency rooms for intoxication rose by an astounding 52 percent.
In 2009, the trend began to garner buzz when Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, author of Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay and Naptime Is the New Happy Hour, shocked her followers by outing herself as a problem drinker. For years Wilder-Taylor was the poster child for cocktail moms everywhere, using her drinking as a punch line – fodder for books, blog posts and clever tweets. “For me, it’s become a nightly compulsion,” she wrote, “and I’m outing myself to you, all of you: I have a problem.”
Later that same year, buzz turned to outrage when New York mom Diane Schuler drove the wrong way on a state highway while drunk and high, wrecking her minivan and killing herself, her daughter, her three nieces and three men in another vehicle. The carnage shocked us all, but what many found most surprising about the tragedy was who Schuler was. While the anecdote is admittedly extreme, and no one will ever know what possessed the 36-year-old mother of two (who reportedly showed no prior signs of dependency) to smoke marijuana and down an estimated 10 drinks before getting behind the wheel, the story struck a chord, and with good reason: Diane Schuler was just your everyday mom.
A Gallup poll in 2012 found that 67 percent of women ages 18 to 49 drink, with one in eight women admitting to binge drinking – defined as four drinks or more in one sitting – at least three times a month. Like Wilder-Taylor and Schuler, the majority of these women aren’t troublemakers or lawbreakers but, as Rowles said, “well-educated women,” void of ill intentions. They’re the CEO, the room mom and the president of the PTA, and they have one thing in common: They like to drink frequently and, in some cases, heavily.
But why?
In search of something
According to Hall, it’s simple. “It’s to de-stress,” she says of her drinking. “Things are going 100mph. Even if I just sit, it doesn’t calm me. It’s either this, or … I guess there is no ‘or.’”
A 2013 survey by Caron Treatment Centers in Pennsylvania found that stress or anxiety, romantic relationships, pressure from family or friends, traumatic experiences and a general feeling of boredom were the “Top 5 Reasons Moms Turn to Alcohol and Drugs.” For Hall, the assessment is spot on; stress management is a common end goal for drinkers. But, for others, having a drink is as symbolic a ritual as it is literal. Moms on Chardonnay playdates often share a bottle to push the boundaries of what’s expected; it’s a way to feel adult, to remember who you were before you answered to “Mommy.” It’s a break from reality. And, Rowles says, a way to connect. “They’re finding companionship in it,” she adds. “Camaraderie.”
Shannon Austin finds camaraderie around a bottle of wine once a week. The Fort Worth mom of three enjoys relaxing at the end of the day with a glass or two of her favorite Malbec, but she says she especially enjoys Tuesday evenings spent at Central Market with friends. While the kids play, the moms crack a bottle. “There are times when it’s harder for me to be open and honest about things,” she says. “That’s one of the nice things about unwinding with a glass of wine with friends. We can spill everything without judgment. We’re all going through the same things. We all know the ‘perfect mom’ really isn’t perfect.” As the wine flows, tongues loosen and the ladies share more freely. For Austin, it’s cathartic.
And, admittedly, it all seems fairly innocuous. Both Austin and Hall say they’re conscious of the impact their own alcohol use will have on their children, so they imbibe cautiously, rarely drinking in front of their kids, and never driving while intoxicated. Hall, who says she’s seen family members struggle with alcoholism, is particularly careful. “I know it could be a problem if I let it,” she says.
Experts are the first to admit that alcohol can be enjoyed moderately and responsibly by some (key word: some). And while most agree one or two glasses of wine with dinner a few days a week probably isn’t cause for concern, for those predisposed to alcoholism, trouble can ensue. “It’s gradual,” Rowles says of the disease’s progression. Increased tolerance and a preoccupation with where your next drink will come from are telltale signs of problem drinking, but there are other, subtler indications that something is awry. “If you’re in touch with yourself, you’ll start seeing some changes,” Rowles says.
- Gradually, your priorities will change.
- You might notice a change in your mood.
- You might become more depressed.
- You might start comparing yourself to others more and liking yourself less.
- You might stop doing things you once enjoyed.
“If you’re unfortunate enough to be alcoholic,” Rowles adds, “once you start drinking, you’re not going to want to stop. Eventually you’re going to cross a line, and it’ll take over your life.”
Losing control
Just ask Kimberly Nix.
“It’s a very dangerous drug,” the local mom says. “It crosses all socioeconomic boundaries. I lost my job, my home and my freedom. I lost my child for two months. I let myself and my family down. I let everybody down around me.”
Nix is a 39-year-old mom of two and a former accountant. She’s also an alcoholic. After spending two months in county jail, Nix sought treatment at Nexus Recovery Center in Dallas, a rehabilitation facility that specializes in substance abuse services for females. Nix has struggled with alcohol much of her life, repeating a vicious cycle of sobriety followed by relapse, but when she was pulled over for drunk driving with her son in the back seat, she hit a new low. She didn’t remember putting the key in the ignition, let alone strapping 9-month-old Noah into his car seat.
“We all think these things won’t happen to me,” she says. “‘Well, this is an alarming story, but it doesn’t apply to me.’ I was one of those people.”
Nix grew up in a middle-class family, by all outward appearances the vision of suburban bliss. But Nix says there was a dark family secret: namely, her father’s alcoholism. Alcohol was a fixture in the family’s home, making it easy for Nix to experiment as a kid, but she says it was when she reached adulthood that things began to spiral out of control. Like most forays into alcoholism, it started slowly. A few drinks on Friday and Saturday that quickly turned into many drinks all day, every day.
She shudders to think of what could have happened had state troopers not picked her up.
Today she’s looking forward to rebuilding her life and her relationships, which will be difficult; she’s facing triple DWI charges, a felony. But she says she’s learned to love herself and be fully present for her children. “I can’t love my children the way they deserve to be loved if I don’t start trying to love myself,” she says. “And drinking myself into oblivion isn’t loving myself.” She’s also learned that, for her at least, parenting and alcohol don’t mix.
“Playdates and Mommy and me time, alcohol should have no place in that,” she says. “Alcohol and raising children really don’t mix.”
Like the Schuler tragedy, Nix’s story is extreme. But it highlights a problem seen nationwide: good moms, with the best of intentions, hiding a dirty little secret.
Elizabeth Vargas, co-anchor of 20/20 on ABC News, was one of those moms, and the latest to publicly out herself as an alcoholic. For years the highly successful mom of two hid her own secret: She was a high-functioning closet alcoholic. After calling it a wrap each day, Vargas would head home, where she spent her evenings self-soothing with her drink of choice: wine. One glass helped anesthetize her stress and anxiety, so two or three or four seemed even better. Her young boys, numb to the everyday sight, called it “Mommy’s juice.”
Eventually, Vargas realized she had a problem. “I started thinking, ‘Well, you know, I’ll only drink on weekends,’” she told George Stephanopoulos in a January interview. “I’ll only drink, you know, two glasses of wine a night. I won’t drink on nights before I have to get up and do Good Morning America. But those deals never work.” When her denial finally ran out, Vargas admitted she had a problem and sought help.
Now she’s learning to live in new skin – the skin of a recovering alcoholic. Like Nix, she’s also learning to be a sober and fully present mom, for the first time in a long time.
Children see, children do
One in four children grows up in a home where a parent abuses alcohol or drugs, and the negative consequences for these children are heavy: anxiety and depression, mental, physical and behavioral problems and poor academic performance, according to the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACoA). But even children who grow up in households where alcohol has a more subtle presence, perhaps as a perpetual dinner table guest but not an overt problem, can face negative outcomes.
For one, kids are perceptive, and if you’ve had too much, they know. “They might not be able to say what’s changed, but they know something happened,” says Natalie Baerwaldt, children’s services director at Nexus Recovery Center. “I’ve had 4-year-olds say, ‘Mommy goes into the bathroom and she comes out and she’s different.’”
Kids are also sensitive, and as drinking by a parent escalates, they often begin to feel as if they’re playing second fiddle to alcohol. According to Rowles, kids pick up on the fact that Mom (or Dad) has temporarily checked out and “begin to internalize that they’re a burden,” even if they can’t put their feelings into words.
And above all else, kids are easily influenced – “like sponges,” as we’ve heard ad nauseam. Experts say even parents who practice moderate drinking need to be aware that they might be sending the wrong messages. “If you’re growing up and you see your mom and dad drinking on a regular basis,” Kelly says, “you think it’s OK to drink on a regular basis. I think we’re sending the wrong signals.”
Research shows that parental drinking habits influence the choices of children, both the extent of their drinking and the age at which they choose to start. Children who grow up seeing Mom and Dad drink regularly and heavily are more likely to binge-drink as teenagers and to try alcohol at an early age, and children of alcoholics are four times more likely than children of non-alcoholics to develop their own addiction.
“If you do something over and over as a parent, expect your child to do exactly the same,” Kelly says. “Every child wants to be like Mommy and Daddy.”
It’s just alcohol
Rowles stopped drinking in her 20s, long before she started treating others for substance abuse or had children of her own. But as a parent, she says she understands the feelings that drive so many women to drink. Motherhood, wonderful as it is, can be an isolating experience riddled with feelings of anxiety and inadequacy. As a concept, the “Mommy needs a drink” movement is meant to relieve mothers of these pressures – giving them permission to say, “I’m not perfect and that’s OK!” But the promotion of alcohol, even jokingly, as an escape or coping mechanism, or something deserved as a reward for a long day of diapers and dishes, is problematic at best.
The good news, Rowles says, is that “most of the cocktail moms aren’t going to turn out to be alcoholic.” Many women – probably most – are able to enjoy alcohol without consequence. But for everyone who can stop at one drink, there’s someone who can’t, someone for whom drinking is a dangerous and seemingly necessary compulsion. Someone like Wilder-Taylor, Schuler, Nix … or Vargas.
Perhaps, at its core, that’s the problem with the “Mommy needs a drink” movement and the cocktail playdates and mommy-centric wines that come with it: They minimize the dangers of alcohol while maximizing the perceived benefits. They give alcohol more power than it deserves, communicating the message that the answers to our problems can somehow be found in a bottle.
“When it becomes a focus and takes up more time than it should, there’s an issue,” Rowles says. “Look at the big picture of your life. Don’t make it bigger than it is. It’s just alcohol. In and of itself, a glass of wine is just a glass of wine.”
Yes for some, a glass of wine is just a glass of wine.
Until it’s not.
Published March 2014
