Drinking Culture Undistilled

hey

i am michelle and i am a non-drinker

i know that probably just sounded like

the start to an aaa meeting didn’t it

well it’s probably because i’ve had a

lot of practice and i’m guessing

some of you have as well so i’m going to

make the hypothesis

that if i share my experiences with you

you will feel more inclined to share

your experiences with me

and maybe even feel a little bit more

empowered to do something about it

now i should probably back up and

introduce myself because believe it or

not

i haven’t always been this excited and

comfortable talking about addiction

in front of a bunch of strangers i was

raised in the pacific northwest and this

is my family

this was my first communion and as you

can tell i was definitely

rocking the 90s fashion trend

from the outside looking in a lot of

people would describe my childhood as a

fairy tale

my father was a well-known and respected

physician

we were well traveled and had a

beautiful home

my father ended up passing away from a

massive heart attack when i was 15 years

old

by the time i was 16 i met my high

school sweetheart

who is now my husband one thing that my

father

told me before he passed away was

michelle

you are going to make this world a

better place

and with most things he was right

right after college i landed my dream

job within the department of corrections

as you can only imagine walking through

a maximum security prison took some

getting used to

but i was so excited to start making

real change and having an impact on this

world

just like my dad had told me my husband

decided to enlist in the military and

was deployed

right after within a few months of

deployment he was

injured and returned home he finally

landed his

dream job and life was really good we

had a beautiful home and two healthy

beautiful

amazing children and as the years went

on

i started to notice a trend it was about

every two to three months

my husband would wait for me to wake up

in the morning and he would say

we need to talk he would have this

concerned

disappointed look on his face and say

michelle

do you remember what happened last night

and with this sense of

shame and confusion washed over my

face i would say babe

i have no clue

we started to notice that my drinking

habits

had increased i was finding it more

difficult

to control my alcohol consumption

we started to come up with a plan of

taking the alcohol out of the house only

drinking on weekends

switching the type of alcohol that i was

drinking

nothing worked i had a

really hard time giving up my love for

the bottle

i truly felt like it was a social

suicide i didn’t know how

or if i could ever give up my love

affair

for alcohol fast forward five years and

this was my life i was a full-time

working mom

feeling like a horrible mom because i

worked and a horrible employee because i

was a mom

everything that i dreamed of and worked

so hard to build i was

living and all i wanted to do was escape

all of it working in a penitentiary is

so traumatic

and it’s exhausting over time and my

to-do list at home was like a million

miles long

i didn’t know where i could possibly fit

in self-care

or any type of friendships i truly felt

like i was

failing at life and disappointing

everybody

what i had envisioned for my life was

nothing close to my current reality

so the next time my husband said

michelle

we need to talk it was different

he was sitting at the foot of my

hospital bed

as i had just been admitted for a fatal

alcohol poisoning

my mother had just passed away as i was

learning to become a mother myself

it was all too heavy and i utilized

alcohol

as a way to cope and escape it all

that was the moment where my two worlds

collided

the secret life and my real life that i

had worked

so hard to keep separate

i met with my doctor the day after i was

discharged from the hospital

it was time for me to start being honest

about my relationship with alcohol

i felt a sense of calmness washed over

me knowing

that it was over that

the secrecy and the pain

and the isolation had come to an end

and my doctor was so kind and patient

with me

and said michelle you are so far from

alone

and although that made me feel a sense

of

ease i asked her where are all

these people and why are we hiding and

doing this

all alone and i thought about it and i’m

like

our society shames the sick

we are not having these types of

conversations about

problematic drinking as water cooler

talk

so when i got home that evening i did

what any normal person would do that’s

confused about their relationship with

alcohol

you guessed it i asked google and oh boy

was that information

so confusing there were so many quizzes

tests and assessments around are you an

alcoholic

are you able to moderate do you need to

abstain

that i left the web more confused than

ever before

i decided to reach out to a friend who

put me in touch with an addictions

therapist

i was really excited to start doing the

work

around my bereavement from the grief and

loss with my parents

the postpartum depression i needed to

start doing the work

that was internal that was giving me

the permission to reach for an external

solution to an internal problem

i started to realize that alcohol was a

tool that i was using that i had picked

up in my daily

habits and routines and so that was

really exciting to see that there were

many different ways

to treatment and pathways to recovery

other than just

alcoholics anonymous so i leaned in and

got really curious about all the

different treatment modalities that were

possible

and through this process i was really

excited to start recovering

out loud to start using my voice for

those who weren’t ready yet

because i know what it’s like to be in

secret

and our silence keeps us sick

and i was going to be that voice until

people were ready to use theirs

and they need my voice more than my

protected silence

and at that point was when recovery is

the new black was founded

wine has practically become a must-have

for modern day motherhood

it is right up there with messy bun

coffee yoga pants and minivans

we’ve probably all laughed at the memes

that flood our social media feed

that talk about moms needing wine to

cope

with life and with motherhood most

people who share this type of stuff

don’t have a problematic relationship

with alcohol

but there are so many people who do and

i am definitely guilty of being on board

with mommy wine culture

until i saw for what it was and

it’s so problematic for people who are

genuinely struggling

that they’re not getting the help that

they need due to the jokes and to the

peer pressure

media is making a ton of money and so is

the alcohol industry by offering moms

alcohol as a solution to motherhood

there is this unwritten rule that

motherhood

is really hard and the alcohol helps

many of us aren’t given permission to

admit that we’re struggling

and so we don’t ask for help we don’t

seek

support and we stay in isolation

and our secrets have been keeping people

sick

what starts out as social drinking can

quickly turn into a daily habit

that is used to unwind relax take the

stressful

rough edges off that really stressful

day

i’m guilty of doing it to quiet the

noise in my head

and to treat myself as a reward for a

job well done

alcohol is so accessible it’s convenient

it’s it’s inexpensive and no one’s going

to question you

but people are losing their jobs their

marriages their kids their homes

even their lives to suicide and overdose

i encourage them to really ditch labels

that can stigmatize that can leave us

feeling

small and call ourselves what we are

we’re non-drinkers here’s how

society views addiction now this is what

it really looks like yep this is a full

bottle of wine inside of a yeti cup

people are getting way more creative

about how they are hiding their alcohol

consumption

because our society is shaming the sick

therefore people are not wanting to ask

for help

what makes it even more difficult is

that we live in a really

really boozy culture one out of eight

adult americans

meet the diagnostic criteria for alcohol

abuse disorder

so this means 12.5

[Music]

of the people watching this right now

are drinking more

than is recommended now i am not here to

tell you that alcohol is bad or that you

should not

drink it but i will tell you that i am

absolutely pro sobriety and i will shout

that from the rooftops

but in all seriousness let me give you a

few examples

of what i’m talking about so let’s say

that my friend has just given up smoking

and has

30 days smoke free the conversation

would go something like this

congratulations i am so proud of you i

know how hard you’ve been working on

that

it’s a really nasty habit you’ve been

kicking i am

really really proud of you keep up the

good work

now how a conversation would go if

somebody was

alcohol free for 30 days

what you’re supposed to go out with me

this weekend what do you mean you’re not

drinking

are you pregnant is this a joke

are you an alcoholic don’t think i’m not

gonna drink because

you’re not drinking you know one won’t

kill you right

you are such a buzzkill

now this are these are real

life examples of what people deal with

every single day by society because

they choose not to pick up a mind

altering chemical

that is destroying them from the inside

out

what we need to remember is that some

people who say

no thank you to alcohol doesn’t mean

that they’re an alcoholic

have a problem or are under some court

mandate

some people have medical restrictions

allergies

medication interactions religious

beliefs

let’s not forget the smart individuals

who know that this is a known

carcinogenic

so there’s lots of reasons why people

say

thanks but no thanks now there is strong

evidence to support

that alcohol increases cancer all types

of cancer like

stomach colon bowel

breast just to name a few

now it has been 30 years

since 1988 that congress

passed the alcohol beverage labeling act

and what this is is the labels you guys

are used to seeing

on the alcohol it is it might

impair your judgment if you are

operating a machinery

or driving a vehicle it may increase

birth defects if you are pregnant and

the last one is

is it may cause health issues

now if we updated these labels and we

had more education about what we were

really consuming

do you think anything would change would

you reconsider

your evening night cap if you knew it

was the same ethanol

that you put in your gas tank was the

same ethmo that you were drinking

every evening would you reconsider that

drink

now here is the picture of me drinking

wait it’s not so cute is it

right it’s not that whole billboard

magazine sex in the city glitz and

glamour we’re used to seeing

absolutely not this picture would never

sell society encourages

drinking straight out of pictures like

sex in the city

but the problem is it is not so classy

when you can’t stop drinking

now we’re in a pandemic for the last

year americans have rushed to stock up

on alcohol

and there’s been so many new concerns

about excessive drinking during this

really hard season of life that we’re in

and we have alcohol sales that have gone

up

54 in the last year

our online cells for alcohol are up

500 percent

americans are reaching for comfort

solutions

during this time of uncertainty and this

really hard season of life

we are using one public health crisis to

worsen another

are you willing to be part of the

solution where do you fit in

if you can drink responsibly that is

fantastic but not

everybody can how can you help support

people who are trying to normalize

sobriety

and live a happy and fulfilled life

alcohol free

we deserve to have alcohol-free living

not be made fun of but supported like

other

medical conditions so a way that you can

support somebody

is don’t ask them why they’re not

drinking don’t

ask them if they are an alcoholic don’t

wait for them to be so self-destructive

that they need way more help than they

would have needed if they just started

so remember no is a complete

sentence it doesn’t matter why

and no thank you is all it should take

addiction does not discriminate and

nobody is immune to this i never

in a million years thought this would

have happened to me

and don’t think that it can’t happen to

you either

i will leave you with this friendly

reminder

please be kind to one another everybody

is fighting an

internal battle you know nothing about

thank you so much for letting me share

today

you