Moms Drinking in Secret

Channel 2 News here in Los Angeles did a segment yesterday evening on mothers who drink while caring for young children. They spoke with a woman who recounted how her children were impacted – she said she didn’t drink every day, but when she drank, she blacked out.  The woman now has over a decade of sobriety, but is well aware of the damage she did.

Many of you probably heard about the story of the mother in New York who took her kids and her nieces and nephews camping, got drunk and stoned, got on the freeway, and killed everyone in her car except her son (she died as did two people in another vehicle).  It was a horrific story.

Women are often a lot better at hiding abusive drinking than men – I’m not saying this to be sexist, but from experience.  Certainly there are men who hide it well, but for women, the social pressure to hide heavy drinking is often greater.   Certainly the culture of men downing beers while watching sports is totally accepted.  There isn’t any equivalent cultural acceptance for women slamming back vodka shots.

Women who stay at home with their kids have ample time to drink secretly – they don’t have a boss looking over their shoulder for one.  If they have a few drinks while the kids are at school, who’s to know?

Many states now have special laws related to drunk driving while kids are in the car – surely men drive their kids while intoxicated, but if you ever pass an elementary school during pick-up or drop-off time you will see the majority of drivers are women.  Are any of those women a little tipsy from afternoon wine?  Are any of them in a blackout like the woman on channel 2 news?

Secret drinking is a tough one – it’s a lot harder to know someone needs help if you don’t even realize the extent of the problem.  It’s a lot easier to feel pressure to try to get help if no one has figured out you have a problem. In the case of the New York woman who killed so many driving drunk, the family was absolutely dumbstruck – they were flabbergasted. They truly had no clue she had any sort of problem.

There’s a good chance this woman didn’t even drink that often.  It turns out, women often binge drink rather than drink every day.  It’s unfortunate that the definition of alcoholism in so many peoples’ minds is that of someone who drinks every day – takes a nip in the morning to cure the shakes – and is obviously inebriated all the time.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

If you are someone trying to figure out if you are an alcoholic, stop trying to figure it out. If you are thinking you might be an alcoholic, know that normal drinkers don’t really consider this question. By the time you are trying to assess if you are in trouble, you are pretty much deeply in trouble.  You might not get drunk every day. You might only drink Friday through Sunday.   You can still be someone who needs help.

I think we need to get rid of the stereotypes and recognize that the best definition of alcoholism is this:  If when you drink alcohol, thinks don’t go so well, you probably shouldn’t be drinking alcohol.   Certainly if you black out when you drink, even if it’s only on weekends, that’s a problem.  If we could get away from the image of the falling-down perpetual drunk as the type of person who needs help, a lot more people would reach out when alcohol starts to interfere with their ability to live life fully.