Wine Moms: Friend or Foe?

The idea that drinking a lot around (and because of) kids has become, alarmingly, romanticized as totally okay. What the F.

A few years ago, I made the decision to stop drinking alcohol. I was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a little sad to part ways with my old fermented friend: my nightly glass (or five, sometimes) of wine, who was always there at the end of the day to provide me with lots of empty calories, an impressive propensity to gorge on cheese, and the swift removal of all my good sense and reasoning abilities.

Quitting this vice was, for me, absolutely necessary, because alongside that familiar, warm glass of liquid comfort came the promise of stupid fights with my husband, in which I would say silly, sloppy things that were mostly untrue. Things that stung. That innocent glass of red made me see red, too, causing my anger at a variety of things in my life to bubble up and spill over into my false, self-medicated sense of calm. My wine and cheese induced amnesia then happily ensured that I forgot about the sloppiness and meanness come morning, even though my dear husband has a memory like a vice and would remind me the moment I awoke. Ah, good times.

Good. Times.

Wine (and really all other forms of booze) routinely served me the tantalizingly toxic cocktail detailed above for many-a-year; it ruined vacations, evenings out, evenings in, and very nearly ruined important, well established relationships. My relationship with my husband, however, and more intensely, my sweet children, were not ones I was willing to part with. And I would, if I continued.

In fact, if I continued down the red-tinged road I was trundling along, I would, eventually, lose everything.

Thankfully, my ever supportive husband also stopped drinking in a show of super spousal solidarity, and after some soul searching, tears (mine,) tantrums (…also mine,) and multiple trips to the bottle depot, we finally reached a blissful, slightly post-traumatic, but totally sober paradise in our home. And what bliss: our home, which was once filled with so much toxicity, is now filled with love, occasional yoga, genuine laughter, and copious volumes of sparkling water. Ahhhh.

Oh, how wine did totally not serve me. Of all the issues I had while heavily under wine’s foul thumb, the worst by far was how it affected my parenting. It hurts to think about and reflect on, to be honest, but I’ll do it for you, dear reader.

I have, on a good day, very little patience as-is. Throw a little (bottle) of wine in the mix, and you have a cranky, shouty, impatient demon who is selfish, demanding, and won’t share her cheese. (That’s all me, in case it wasn’t clear.)

Which brings me to the principle point of this post and the reason that I have a beef with the increasingly normalized stain that is wine mom culture. For many, blending alcohol and parenting is not the cheeky, funny, sexy meme everyone giggles at on Social Media. For a great many, it’s a toxic, downright deadly mix, and it’s not funny or entertaining in any way.

Think I’m a killjoy? Maybe I am. But it’s not something I take lightly — not anymore. And I have so much reason in this department.

The tricky thing about wine mom culture is that seemingly everyone’s partaking in the hooch, so it’s easy to convince yourself that your potential addiction is okay. In fact, wine, in small quantities, is widely considered healthy. Wine is full of antioxidants, and has been touted as a great way to improve your heart health — when drinking responsibly. Plus it tastes delicious, and nothing goes better with cheese or chocolate. Trust me, I know.

I’ve done the leg work.

But just because something tastes good and makes you feel good for a spell, that doesn’t mean that it’s good for you, or for the people you cherish the most.

Disclaimer: just because you enjoy wine, and you are a parent, does not mean that you have to quit, if you aren’t abusing it. Hell, a stiff drink sometimes feels like a requirement to get through some of our mom and dad traumas. Does it make you an addict if you dip into the locked cabinet from time to time? Absolutely not.

Unless, of course, you fill that single glass to the brim, and then continue topping it up throughout the night.

Unless, before you know it, you drank the entire bottle in one sitting.

Unless you get into vicious, volatile, booze-fueled arguments with your spouse (or children) that you can’t remember the next morning.

Unless you find yourself ashamed and lying about the amount you actually drink. To everyone. Including the doctor. Including, even, yourself.

Unless you start day drinking on the weekends, sometimes as early as 10 am (because it’s noon a few provinces over, right??) every day of the weekend. Every weekend. You lie about this, too.

Unless you drink so much that if your child wakes up with a terrible illness, you’d have to sober up with coffee and crackers in order to take her to the hospital, after having doused yourself in perfume to mask the smell. (Everyone can still smell you, by the way.)

Unless you are seriously, genuinely, helplessly addicted and can’t see a way out.

The very word “addiction” is scary all by itself, too. Addiction, in this case alcoholism, is a weird word that confuses people, because it encompasses so many different levels of severity. When you Google the word “alcoholic” (because obviously you’re going to, especially if any of the above sounds familiar) it’s seemingly very precise:

al·co·hol·ic

/ˌalkəˈhôlik/

adjective

1. containing or relating to alcoholic liquor.

noun

1. a person suffering from alcoholism

Well gosh. With that definition, any old soul could be an alcoholic. Right?

…Yeah. That’s kind of the whole problem. There are probably way more secretly high-functioning alcoholic soccer moms at your Mommy and Me playgroup than you really realize.

That’s because addiction does not equate to being a drunk smelly homeless person on the street. Yes, addiction can absolutely take you there. But for most functional addicts, they get up in the morning like everyone else. They go to work. They get their families to their daycare, schools, etc. They wear makeup and hit the gym and have seemingly solid relationships and on the surface, they seem like they’ve got their shit together.

They’re just like you.

But addicts are impressively secretive. They are sly. They know how to hide the extent of their problems. They surround themselves not only with people who can feed their addictions, but — and this might be the most important piece here — they surround themselves with people who continuously confirm their hope that they are normal.

Truthfully, addicts are easily convinced that their addictions are normal. Why? Because if Sally Soccer Mom drank two mojitos at little Timmy’s birthday party without judgement, the wine you drink when you get home is also okay. That is how the brain of an addict works.

An addict will likely never admit or even realize they’re an addict. At least, not until they’re ready to stop. If you are an addict, admitting you have a problem is like climbing Everest while hungover.

That’s why “wine mom culture” really is more dangerous than your average, scary, social media expert, meme lover and generator, believes it to be. And those Toxic Mommies will shoot you down in cold blood if you try to tell them this, because they are deeply rooted in their own addictions.

Drinking is fine if you are a casual, social drinker, and you don’t struggle with addiction — many people fall into this group, and it’s perfectly fine to enjoy a wobbly pop or two if this is you. But if you do struggle with addiction, or you suspect that you might be abusing alcohol, Wine Moms can actually be your undoing, as they will cement the notion inside your head that if they drink too much, it’s okay if you drink too much, too. And that possibility is even more dangerous now that wine mom memes are literally all over social media — the idea that it’s okay to drink in excess around (or because of) your kids is impossible to avoid.

Glorifying abusive drinking and making light of potential addiction issues is just not funny. Addiction strips away every facet of a human being and turns them into a pitiful, lonely, dejected ball of shame and disgust.

Still think it’s funny?

It’s no secret that alcohol consumption is fine for some people and impossible for others, and that line doesn’t end with moms. You never know who in your mom circle is struggling; your funny meme could be fueling the fire for someone you love. As parents, the best thing for everyone is to lean a bit more into kindness, and to chuck the “drunk moms are funny” culture down the proverbial drain, because there is nothing funny about an embarrassingly and consistently drunk mother.

Don’t believe me? Ask her children.

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