Megyn Kelly did a 2018 TODAY interview in a segment called “Mommy Burnout”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxNPUEkeyvI

She spoke with 3 moms in their 30’s-40’s who were eager to start a conversation about moms and alcohol because of their own cringey experiences. That interview gave a voice to something that had started to creep into many of the parenting accounts on social media.

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve seen it, too:  the merchandising, memes, movies—all of them joking about “mommy juice” or “mommy’s sippy cup.” The jokes work, like all humor does, because they touch on a trend—a sharp rise in alcohol consumption in women, moms in particular.

One mom of two writes: ”I lived for the nightly glass of wine. All the moms were doing it. Well, at least that’s what those cute little wooden signs in every store said. “They Whine, I Wine,” “You’re the Reason I Drink,” “Mommy’s Sippy Cup.” These slogans were my lifeline. I mean, if people were making hand-painted tea towels about drinking and parenting, then selling them in high end boutiques owned by chic women, how bad could it be? The signs, t-shirts, online memes and hilarious blogs took away any ounce of guilt that I may have associated with carrying a baby in one hand and a wine glass in the other.”

The author of those words is our guest on today’s podcast, Samantha Perkins. 

Samantha Perkins, mom of 2

Samantha Perkins is the author of Alive AF-One Anxious Mom’s Journey to Becoming Alcohol Free. Samantha is passionate about sharing her anxiety remedies and universal truths she has discovered about living without alcohol. She chronicles her life on the blog, Alive AF (Alcohol Free), which inspired this book. She is especially interested in uncovering the ubiquitous role that alcohol plays in our everyday lives—in everything from parenting, mental health, relationships and career choices. Samantha hosts wellness retreats, leads an online sober book club and helps women (especially mothers) rethink their relationship with alcohol.

Your book walks through your relationship with alcohol, growing up and thru college, all the way into your marriage and becoming a mom.  Samantha grew up in a family with a mom who drank very moderately and a dad who might occasionally have alcohol around the holidays. Alcohol was always there, but not really talked about. In school, the emphasis was on DARE programs and saying no to drugs, but alcohol was never included in the drug category.

Samantha mentions 3 camps of people when it comes to alcohol.  Abstainers, drunks, and the gray-area drinkers.   1/3 of Americans are abstainers, although sobriety is often stigmatized. Most fall in gray area category—struggling but no one would necessarily pull you aside to say something. And if you’re not driving drunk, blacking out, and throwing up every night, then you pass the online tests of qualifying as an alcoholic–which is the far (bad) end of the alcohol use spectrum. Jolene Park, a sober mom advocate and social media presence, frames gray area drinking this way: You know you don’t have a problem the way it’s portrayed in movies, etc., but you know it’s a problem for you.

A June/July 2021 article by Kate Julian (senior editor) in The Atlantic  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/america-drinking-alone-problem/619017/  lays out the history of drinking in America.  Apparently, Plymouth Rock was not the Mayflower’s original destination. The crew was running out of beer kegs and feared they wouldn’t have enough to last them back to England so they landed early & let the Pilgrims off, where they complained bitterly all thru the winter at the lack of beer.  !!! 

Ever since, America has experienced a pendulum swing between excess and abstinence.  Alcohol use was way up in the 70’s and 80’s when movies like Animal House and Dazed & Confused were popular.  Then we had MADD (mothers against drunk driving), DUI penalties got stricter, and we gained an understanding FAS (fetal alcohol syndrome). Consumption started to decline again in late 80’s and 90’s.  Most popular sitcom of the 80’s was set in a bar (CHEERS) and the most popular sitcom of the 90’s was set in a coffee shop (FRIENDS). 

It’s safe to say we’re now in another upswing.  From 1999-2017, alcohol related deaths in the US have doubled (70k+/yr). It’s now a leading driver in the decline of American life expectancy. 

The pandemic has increased the frequency of drinking for sure as a means of coping with stress.  And it’s affecting disproportionately women and those with kids at home.

In a NYTimes article on why women get drunk faster than men:

Because women’s bodies have a higher ratio of fat to water, they reach a higher blood alcohol concentration after a single drink than men, even when matched for weight and size.

Enzymes also play a role. A landmark study published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1990 found that in women levels of gastric alcohol dehydrogenase, a compound that breaks down alcohol, are on average nearly half what they are in men. It also found that the amount of alcohol metabolized after its first passage through a woman’s liver and stomach is 23 percent of what it is in men.

Women often report using alcohol for stress and anxiety relief. The irony is, the chemistry of alcohol INCREASES your brain’s anxiety and stress response. When she began researching its effects, she began to ask herself whether she really wanted to “drink some stress” each evening or whether she should pick a different activity to practice presence.

Here’s what we all want to know as the bottom line:   Am I drinking too much?  How much are other people drinking?  Is alcohol actually that bad?   The CDC defines excessive alcohol use for women as 4 or more drinks on one occasion or 8+ a week. With only two glasses of wine per day, we’d be well into that excessive category.

Why women? Why moms in particular?  Women are twice as likely to suffer from depression/anxiety disorders; women are more likely to use alcohol to cope with stress & negative feelings. And, women tend to play the comparison game. So it’s the wrong question to ask yourself “am I drinking as much as she is?” or “are others drinking as much as I am?” Your curiosity should be personal. You don’t know what another mom may be struggling with, what her genetics are or family history, but you know your own.

An earlier rise in women drinking was in the 70’s (increase in women in workforce—and no reduction of their work at home=stress).  Today, women face economic/social change and loss of social/family networks.  Most drink alone (wine while cooking, Baileys in morning coffee, water bottle secretly filled with something harder).

Samantha writes “The idea of drinking at home felt scandalous to me [as opposed to going out to bars or parties]. I had never done this and I loved it. It was the equivalent of curling up with a blanket on a cold afternoon. Drinking in the comfort of your own home, wearing your pajamas and having no social expectations was the greatest thing ever.. And since we were still going to bed at a reasonable hour and getting up early in the morning, I saw this as responsible.”

As we disconnect further from others, try to “do it all ourselves,” and still feel isolated, lonely, and exhausted, moms often report feeling like they deserve wine (or other) as a break. But it can start to creep up earlier and earlier into the afternoon.

Samantha decided to do life alcohol free when her kids were 5 and 3. Her husband didn’t immediately follow suit, and she says it wasn’t up to her to expect that conformity. He has more recently stopped as well, but sometimes it can be an issue in a marriage when one spouse makes a decision the other isn’t on board with him/herself.

MARKETING:   Last Aug, Busch launched Dog Brew (bone broth packaged as beer for your pet so “you’ll never drink alone again.” It sold out. 

Nowadays, we have Sip & shop events, wine bars at some grocery stores, movie theaters, nail salons…..

 Sometime in the 90’s, the ban on advertising hard liquor was lifted. There’s also been an uptick in ads for wine & alcohol in general. 

Wine culture doesn’t MAKE you have a problem but can exacerbate the propensity.

We tell ourselves that our “happy hour”:

Helps us unwind

Helps us sleep

Helps us deal

Helps our anxiety

Helps us be more social

Is the duct tape that’s holding us together

Is something we deserve b/c we’re doing this really hard thing

Samantha agrees that’s a familiar soundtrack. In addition, we as moms seem to heap the negative and judgmental self-talk on top of everything. If we wake up with the dry mouth again and feel irritable and snappy, we’re terrible moms and have no self-control. We vow THIS day will be different, but the stresses and anxiety compound and we find ourselves doing a lot of WAITING. Waiting for happy hour, waiting for the nightcap, waiting for a certain time in the afternoon when we can pop the cork on the next bottle and “destress.” Samantha got tired of living life as an incessant waiting game, and she decided she wanted to see what living life NOW felt like.

WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS?

If moms of young kids are drinking, (& sometimes driving) with toddlers in tow, what effect is that having on the children? Are they old enough to notice? 

Your first son was very anxious. Do you think he was picking up on your anxiety or was he just wound like you? Or maybe some of both? Samantha says probably some of both.

From The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence (2021,Jessica Lahey): “Children’s perception of alcohol norms, such as drinking habits and frequency of use, come from observing their parents, and this education begins at a very early age. In one study, children as young as three were able to identify alcoholic beverages in photographs.”   Children begin to internalize cultural rules (including family rules) around drinking before preschool.  Modeling a healthy relationship (whether abstinence or moderation) may just be one of the most important lessons we teach our children.

Kid radar: in all the stories I’ve read, the kids universally say they like mommy/daddy better when they’re not drinking; they’re more present & more available to them.

Samantha:  did your kids notice? Did you think they did? Samantha says her kids had to notice her irritability, impatience, snappishness. Whether they connected that to her drinking every day, it’s hard to know at the ages they were, but they DO talk about it as a family now. They DO discuss it like any other drug and note that it’s bad for you and your body. She admits she won’t know what choices they may make as young adults, but having the conversation is so important! We can’t just trust they’ll pick it up on their own.

A lot of moms who’re leaning on that nightly ritual ask similar questions to the ones you asked. 

Maybe we’re asking the wrong questions???

Samantha: What were the dangers of the comparison game? She writes, “On the rare occasion that I did cross paths with someone who no longer drank, I automatically assumed they had a dark history and were still silently and anonymously wrangling with their demons. I would place that person in the category of “those that can’t drink,” while I safely stayed in my group of “those who can drink.” I felt reassured and maybe even a little relieved when they would confirm my beliefs with a drinking story about something I hadn’t done. Like getting a DUI, or drinking and snorting cocaine or drinking and leaving their kids home alone. I would think to myself Check! That’s it! There it is! There’s that thing they did that makes them different from me. I’m still safe to continue drinking.”

Instead of justifying that you’re not at the dreaded “rock bottom,” maybe you don’t have to wait until you hit that level?

Get curious (not judgmental) about your behaviors. Instead of list of reasons why not, are there any reasons why? 

What ELSE am I numbing besides stress/anxiety/negative feelings?   (can’t selectively numb only the bad feelings; the good ones get dulled, too.) Samantha writes, “I didn’t know this yet, but I had diluted my ability to connect to myself, to my family and to my life by pouring ethanol all over everything.

Laura McKowan (We Are the Luckiest: the Surprising Magic of a Sober Life) suggests instead of asking “is this bad enough to have to change?” asking “is this good enough to stay the same?”

Samantha:  Your discovery—and hence, the title of your book—is that being Alcohol Free made you more “alive.”  In what way(s)?  She says she became more present, felt more joy, was able to participate and feel moments of joy with her children and husband again instead of seeing it all through a dim fog of increasing anxiety.

SOBER actually means “clear headed.”  2 Tim 1:7 Let us not sleep…but let us keep awake & be sober.  Christ came so we could life life ABUNDANTLY and with fullness, living with ALL the emotions and feelings that come with being human.

Samantha uses a mantra, “I’m not drinking right now”, which seems like it would work for lots of things we are trying to change. Moment by moment, at a wedding reception, birthday party or other gatherings typically known for alcohol, she tells people she’s not drinking right now, to keep her focused on her goal of remaining alcohol free. In answer to that first question when you enter the party, “What can I get you to drink,” it’s perfectly fine to say “I’ll drink water right now,” or stash some sparkling St Croix in your purse so you have something to do with your hands.

Our pain/behavior may be COMMON in that many women share the struggle, but it’s not NORMAL. There’s a difference. You’re not alone, but ALSO this isn’t who you are or were created to be, and with support you can learn different habits.

You can follow Samantha Perkins on social media, where she often hosts sober mom meet-ups and discussions.