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I think I have a problem with alcohol.<\/p>\n
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According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, a woman consuming more than ten drinks per week has \u201chigh risk\u201d habits. This ten-drink measurement is based on a five-ounce glass of wine, which is roughly half of the average glass size, and the amount I roughly NEVER pour myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is this, amateur hour?\u201d I\u2019ve said to people who stop pouring at the halfway mark of a glass. I\u2019ve laughed about my drinking. I\u2019ve made it part of my persona. My Facebook friends have tagged me in pretty much every wine meme known to man. (Yes, I’ve seen the wine bottle Christmas tree and yes, it\u2019s completely amazing).<\/p>\n
After a family member experienced a mental health crisis, I started hearing words like \u201cself-medicating\u201d, \u201caddiction\u201d, even \u201calcoholic\u201d to describe his behaviour. In attempting to understand him, I\u2019m learning that I might also have a problem.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s talk about the drinking.<\/p>\n
My drink of choice is wine: two, sometimes three glasses a night. Every night. Not just on weekends, not just on special occasions, not just after a particularly bad or good day. Just always.<\/p>\n
By my estimation, each of my drinks is eight-ounces. Multiply that by 14 drinks per week (assuming only two per night) and you get 112 ounces, which is more than double what most addiction experts consider to be the line between low and high-risk drinking.<\/p>\n
This was a sobering discovery (pun intended), but what\u2019s scaring me more than my consumption of wine is my relationship with it.<\/p>\n
I love wine. I love the taste, as well as the science and story behind each bottle. I love to shop for wine (main purchase criteria: animal on the label, less than $15). I love to pour it and sip it and swirl it in my glass. Drinking wine makes me feel sophisticated, even though I\u2019m usually sporting a messy bun and pajama pants.<\/p>\n
The first glass is like a reward at the end of the day, a nightly ritual that affirms I made it through. It\u2019s a way to unwind and help manage the making dinner\/ bath time\/homework\/someone spilled the cat food\/\u201dI have to build a working paper mache volcano by tomorrow\u201d type of chaos. The second glass is poured as I\u2019m cleaning up the kitchen, watching the clock and asking, usually for the tenth or eleventh time, for the small people in my house to please for the love of God put on their pajamas. My third glass is either on the couch with my husband when the kids are down, or while reading in by myself in bed or in the tub. In short, there\u2019s rarely a time between 5 and 10 p.m. every single night that I\u2019m not drinking. And yet, there was no mindfulness to it. Sorry to go all Oprah \u201clive your best life\u201d on you guys but the truth is I wasn\u2019t even stopping to consider what I was doing. I didn\u2019t care about taste, drinking was purely functional: open mouth, insert wine, repeat. When my husband and I switched to boxed wine (!) we did so because boxes last longer and cost less. We congratulated ourselves on this practical and thrifty solution to our inventory problem. Quantity and convenience became our purchase criteria; two words that, I\u2019m guessing, rarely come up in conversations about responsible drinking.<\/p>\n
Like many people, alcohol is a key ingredient in my social life, especially if the function requires an abundance of small talk or meeting new people. Wine helps me be (or just feel?) social. Having said that, I also drink with people I\u2019ve known my whole life. AND when I\u2019m alone. AND on my paddle board.<\/p>\n
![\"wine-on-paddleboard_\"](\"https:\/\/cdn2.hubspot.net\/hubfs\/3295812\/Imported_Blog_Media\/Wine-on-paddleboard_.jpg\")
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When I became a mom, wine was right there with me, becoming a critical part of \u201cme time.\u201d But in making alcohol our reward for surviving another day, both my husband and I have completely normalized its consumption within our home. Until recently, we drank openly in front of our daughters because we didn\u2019t think we had anything to hide. Wine was wine, not \u201cmommy juice.\u201d We actually thought we were modeling responsible behavior by never driving after drinking and never getting out of control. TV and movies would have us believe that alcoholics are people who drink in secret, who drink until they fall down or pass out; people who abuse their loved ones and get fired from jobs. I\u2019ve never done any of that so everything must be fine.<\/p>\n
When our nine-year old informed us on the walk home from school one day that \u201cTHERE\u2019S ALCOHOL IN WINE AND ALCOHOL IS A DRUG AND YOU SHOULD NEVER TAKE DRUGS\u201d we told her that drinking alcohol is okay as long as you\u2019re responsible and only have a little bit. Kid logic translation: drugs are okay as long as they\u2019re consumed in moderation. WTF? While most people wouldn\u2019t react by running home and emptying out their liquor cabinets, they might at least take note of the fact that their kids are watching. I did neither.<\/p>\n
The blog I started when we adopted our first daughter is called Wine and Smarties. On Twitter and Instagram I\u2019m @wineandsmarties. I chose these names because I wanted something that spoke to my identity as both a woman and a mother. I thought it was cute and clever. And while there may not be a direct route between Instagram and Betty Ford, given that I regularly caution my college students about their social media presence (\u201care you sure @hotgurl69 is the message you want to send to future employers?\u201d) \u201cwine and smarties\u201d is an example of how much of my identity was tied to the \u201cmommy drinks because you cry\u201d culture.<\/p>\n
If you ask my daughters what mommy\u2019s favourite thing is, they\u2019ll say wine. If you ask them what happens when someone spills mommy\u2019s wine, they\u2019ll hold up their hands like claws and bare their teeth. What does my husband fill my stocking with every year? Bottles of my favourite wine.<\/p>\n
When she was five and we were driving past the LCBO my oldest daughter yelled \u201cHey mommy, there\u2019s your store!\u201d When carrying a box of groceries in from the car last summer, my youngest grunted as she put it down and said: \u201cat least it\u2019s not as heavy as a case of wine.\u201d Instead of being horrified or, again, taking note of what they <\/em>were taking note of, I turned these into funny anecdotes. I told and retold them, even posted them on social media – a humble-brag about how cute and precocious my kids are.<\/p>\n The worst part for me, the part that hurts my heart the most and truly makes me question what the good God damn I\u2019ve been thinking, is that all this was done while parenting two daughters whose birth families have actual mental health AND addiction issues. I\u2019ve blogged about the special care adopted kids need, how frightened I am about what the future holds when they start processing the past. And I\u2019ve done it all with a glass of wine in my hand. On the days when I feel the lowest, the most ashamed, I think about whether or not one of the biggest dangers to their health and future relationship with alcohol and addiction might have been coming from me.<\/p>\n Despite everything I\u2019ve written, I do believe, emphatically, that we should be able to have it both ways: if she chooses, a woman should be able to parent unapologetically with a sippy cup in one hand and three fingers of scotch in the other. But if we\u2019re going to normalize drinking, let\u2019s also normalize the conversation about what to do when it becomes a problem. Let\u2019s talk about the drinking in a way that doesn\u2019t make us feel like the sloppy uncle who gets whispered about after falling down at family dinners. If you\u2019re willing to share the horrors of your post-baby sex life, you can talk about this. Mommy\u2019s drinking is not a dirty little secret. If you think you have a problem, please talk to someone. Get help.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you\u2019re worried you have a problem with alcohol, CAMH recommends you talk to someone you trust, like a doctor or nurse, or contact an addiction assessment centre or a self-help group like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). If you’re in Ontario you can also try:<\/em><\/p>\n Ontario\u2019s Drug and Alcohol Helpline at 1-800-565-8603. Open 24\/7.<\/p>\n CAMH Information Centre at 1-800-463-6273.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I think I have a problem with alcohol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-918","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-mom-moments"},"yoast_head":"\n