I was nineteen and worked at a local steakhouse doling out Porterhouses that hung off the plate and tray after tray of Martinis and Gimlets and large sloshing glasses of wine. I had quite a few regulars that came to eat and I got to know most of the seatwarmers that parked themselves at our bar. While I picked large chunks of feta out of our cold trays and grabbed the first steak sent back to the kitchen to take home with me for dinner, I never drank. The regulars all offered to buy me a drink at the end of my shift as either a thank you for the night's welcome banter or to ply a young fresh woman out of her panties. I never accepted because my short drive home from the restaurant was riddled with cops and speed traps and Wisconsin's Not a Drop Law, made the penalties for driving with any alcohol in your system before you reached the legal drinking age, especially harsh.
So when the restaurant hosted a huge Halloween party that I attended but was not scheduled to work, where a number of my family members were in attendance, including my mom who promised to take me home, I felt comfortable having a drink with the people who I always politely declined as I sipped my diet cokes. Maybe because I normally eschewed their generosity or maybe because I was dressed like Marilyn Monroe, the free drinks came pouring in. It started with a margarita because they were on special that night. It tasted pretty good, like a high octane smoothie. The effects hit me immediately and the second margarita went down even easier. My senses were all numbed so this time, I couldn't even taste the alcohol. Two more of these and I found myself spinning in our bathroom. I miraculously managed to point my head right at the toilet as my body surprised me with a barf with no mouthwater or stomach turning foreshadowing. I was so drunk that my normal phobia about vomiting was absent. Emboldened by alcohol and apparently not deterred by getting sick, I attempted to hit on the restaurant owner's son until my gracious friend intercepted me, told me I had a little puke on my dress and ushered me home.
I was sick for three days. I didn't have even an ounce of alcohol for two years. I had a small glass of champagne on New Year's Eve with my boyfriend at age twenty-one, and one more overindulgence at twenty-four with business colleagues who were seasoned drinkers. After that last time, a night of three gin and tonics and another three day hangover, I rarely drank again. Save for the occasional glass of wine at a very good restaurant or splitting a beer with my husband over spicy Thai food, I never drink. I probably average one drink a month. My total annual alcohol consumption is what some drinkers put down in one night. My husband drinks the same way I do. We both have alcoholics in our family and our individual drinking habits, or lack thereof, are of comfort to each of us.
I am aware that in our culture, I am not the norm. I am the teetotaler, the prude, the one who leaves Happy Hour at 6:30pm just as everyone else is getting started. I am the one that will shoot you looks of irritation and exasperation that you won't even register because you are drunk. I am the one who will remind myself that there is nothing quite so annoying as a drunk person when you are sober. I am the one who will drive myself home safely, not putting families and individuals and light poles in jeopardy because I am too intoxicated to understand and consider the potentially horrific consequences of having too many Jack and cokes and getting behind the wheel. I am the one who will tuck myself in bed, watch Law and Order and wake up clear headed the next day regretting nothing.
I offer you this back story as a reference for what comes next.
I am absolutely worried and dismayed over the current female drinking culture. The whole Mommy Needs Her Medicine mentality, the young single girls drinking night after night, the women who come home to a glass or four of wine every night. I am sick of the television shows that not only condone excessive drinking but encourage it. I know emails like this are meant to be lighthearted but I don't like them.
Important Women's Health Issue:
* Do you have feelings of inadequacy?
* Do you suffer from shyness?
* Do you sometimes wish you were more assertive?
* Do you suffer exhaustion from the day to day grind?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, ask your doctor or
pharmacist about Margaritas.
Margaritas are the safe, natural way to feel better and more confident
about yourself and your actions. Margaritas can help ease you out of
your shyness and let you tell the world that you're ready and willing
to do just about anything. You will notice the benefits of Margaritas
almost immediately and with a regimen of regular doses you can
overcome any obstacles that prevent you from living the life you want
to live.
Shyness and awkwardness will be a thing of the past and you will
discover many talents you never knew you had. Stop hiding and start
living, with Margaritas.
Margaritas may not be right for everyone. Women who are pregnant or
nursing should not use Margaritas. However, women who wouldn't mind
nursing or becoming pregnant are encouraged to try it.
Side effects may include:
- Dizziness
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Incarceration
- Erotic lustfulness
- Loss of motor control
- Loss of clothing
- Loss of money
- Loss of virginity
- Table dancing
- Headache
- Dehydration
- Dry mouth
- And a desire to sing Karaoke
WARNINGS:
* The consumption of Margaritas may make you think you are whispering
when you are not.
* The consumption of Margaritas may cause you to tell your friends over
and over again that you love them.
* The consumption of Margaritas may cause you to think you can sing.
* The consumption of Margaritas may make you think you can logically
converse with members of the opposite sex without spitting.
I feel like as a culture, we are encouraging women to drink to handle their lives rather than changing their lives or dealing with difficult, uncomfortable and painful feelings. Drinking has never fixed anything, it only adds shame and anxiety to the current set of problems. As a child of an alcoholic it is painful for me to watch the faces of the children of my friends and neighbors who drink in excess, knowing firsthand some of the issues those children will grapple with as adults because of their parents emotional checking out. It is painful for me to watch a woman I work with walk through her day like the living dead, sneaking off to her car for a beer in between clients.
I think this is a very important feminist issue. For me, the consequences of drinking so immeasurably outweigh the fun that I just don't understand why so many women willingly risk so much. This isn't meant to be a tsk-tsk to you Z. and I hope Mongolian Girl, who has gone through recovery has some insight to offer. I just think that when so many people condone excessive drinking, or treat a DUI like a right of passage that I had to offer up the alternative viewpoint.
I'm actually not the best person when it comes to understanding the drinking culture. I've been away from it for over 21 years. Massively out of the loop.
ReplyDeleteEven then, I'm not sure a culture was what I was looking to figure out when, by the age of 15, I was carrying a 5th of Seagram's VO with me at all times.
However, I can say that I don't think anyone can go wrong by accepting that the consequences of drinking (and I don't mean only alcoholically) can be dire and even deadly. We're all aware of someone who has gone out for a night of drinking only to end up in the newspaper, in prison or dead.
I wonder what the world would be like if everyone always planned their drinking with these dire facts in mind? I wonder what the world would be like if anyone who even thought they might be an alcoholic or addict sought help. I mean, people who aren't alcoholics or addicts don't usually sit around wondering shit like that about themselves.
Another interesting tidbit - it is estimated that an alcoholic and/or addict takes an average of 6 people down with them. Children, parents, siblings, friends, lovers and even employers, employees and coworkers are always at risk when someone is "active".
I'm quite positive this is a feminist issue because there is still a much heavier stigma attached to women who are junkies or drunks. While a man can fall down, fist fight, yell, scream, walk around in public half naked and cuss like a sailor and get called 'wild', a woman has to face being called a 'loose', 'out of control', 'crazy', etc...for the exact same behavior.
Unfortunately, I can also say the same for being a woman in recovery. It has only been in the last few years that I've noticed women in this part of the world being fully accepted as viable and equally important members of the particular 12-step fellowship I belong to. Luckily I've now been clean long enough that I take loud mouthed little chauvenist pigs to task by pointing out that I've been clean since they were something like 3-years-old and they might shut their nasty little mouths long enough to learn a thing or two from a woman who knows what she's doing. It's not so nice, but the only way some of those little fuckers will listen.
Terrific post, Rubes. Clearly got me thinking. Thanks.
In the name of all that is holy in this world, I hope my post did not convey my DUI as a right of passage. I am not proud of it. It was my rock bottom, the very same "rock bottom" I watched all of my family members hit over and over again, only I have to tell myself this was REALLY my rock bottom, my wake up call.
ReplyDeleteYour mother was an outright alcoholic Ruby. You saw it, you smelled it, you lived that terror as a scared little girl. My mother smoked, that's it. To this day, I have never nor will ever smoke. My mom shunned alcohol, it was never in our home.
The addictions in our house were much more insidious. My dad was a drug addict. Here we were being raised to believe alcohol is a sin and my dad was stoned out of his mind, abusive. Had they just shown me what the fuck was actually happening, it might have registered.
All three of my brothers followed my dad into the drug culture. It wasn't until the end of their lives they turned to alcohol. Maya Angelou says, When we know better, we do better. None of us knew any better. We were just seeking a remedy to numb our pain.
I want to hear from every writer on this blog. I know where Mongo stands and now I know where you stand, but I think this is an important topic that we need to address. The head mistress and other contributors of AAYSF often write about how they are drunk when posting. As I embrace my nearly one month of sobriety, I am starting to feel disgusted by the language of inebriation as well.
I have friends who are asking me if I will ever drink again because we had so much fun, how can you let go of that. Well, it wasn't fun, when you are sober, you can see through it and realize how much stupid shit you did with your drunk goggles on.
Frankly, I'm surprised to hear you survived Wisconsin without a drinking problem Ruby. I'm not sure I buy into the fact that the drinking cues are aimed at women. It is so prolific in the industry I work in, I have had to hide the fact that I am sober, coming up with excuses to avoid the drunkfests. Some would think I could gave lost my high powered VP position for getting a DUI - no, I called my boss to bail me out, because he is the drunkest of us all.
If this hadn't happened to me, I would continue to ride the train down the tracks. I thank God he loves me enough to put me through hell to wake my ass up.
I am writing a series of posts on the topic. You must read to the end before you will be able to grasp the message I wish to send. I should have closed with a cliffhanger (to be continued). My DUI was not the end, most certainly not. It was and is, my beginning.
you have to change the culture for everyone.
ReplyDeletehere in London, there's a lot of handwringing over the "laddette" phenomenon - the idea that young women are "drinking like men", i.e. deliberately drinking to oblivion, drinking to outdrunk everyone else. and the double standard which says that something which is okay for the boys is somehow unattractive or dismaying when seen in girls. (oh, and the concomitant blame-the-victim mentality which says that this kind of behaviour leads to women getting raped.)
why is binge drinking acceptable for *anyone*? why is drinking to excess, boasting about how wasted you were, or drinking as a substitute for actual social skills, seen as the norm for women or men?
Ruby, you ain't seen nuthin' til you've seen the young adults' drinking culture here in England. (although strangely enough, drink-driving is seen as wholly unacceptable - where in the US having a couple of beers over the course of a long evening and then getting behind the wheel would not raise an eyebrow, here no one who is responsibly driving ever drinks more than 1 drink.)
women are merely an untapped market for what has heretofore been a men's consumerism niche. i don't like the fact that guys getting shit faced is seen as "manly", but when women do it, it's thought to be unseemly - but if it gets people to challenge our ideas of the norms around alcohol, then maybe at least it serves a purpose.
My husband and I enjoy a drink together every night after work. We're not drunks. We don't drink and drive. We're hard working and charitable. But I can still feel your disdain reaching across the country, Ruby, judging us as lesser people.
ReplyDeleteDisdain? Yes.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite sayings from my recovery experience:
"Acceptance is when you stop fighting; Surrender is when you lay your weapons down."
It's been my path. It's been one thing to stop fighting. But then, you know, I'm still walking around with all of my old weapons, at the ready, on alert. Getting to the point of dropping my weapons and believing I'll make it with out them is a whole other level of letting go.
MG--if I'm reading you right, your disdain is one of the weapons that helps you keep on your path, right? If that's the case, so be it.
ReplyDelete@ The Elder - i think it's difficult for people who are intimately familiar with alcoholism to view drinking through anything approximating a "normal" lens. and to be fair, i don't really expect them to - they are coming from a place of being hurt, where alcohol = danger, and that will always colour their view. i don't think it actually has anything to do with you or me.
ReplyDeleteeven as someone who's only been tangentially exposed to alcoholism (severe alcoholism runs deep and wide in the family of my first in-laws, and my current FIL is an alcoholic currently in recovery) it has still influenced my outlook. i mentally monitor the way my husband drinks for any signs of alarm. my first husband was constantly on guard - in fact he called himself an alcoholic as a preventative measure. i'll probably never be able to let go of that kind of vigilance even though neither of them drink in any sort of abnormal way. i imagine that when you come from an environment where alcohol isn't fun, but rather anxiety provoking, compulsive, painful, and destructive, it's hard to see it in any other way - even when for the majority of people, the worst consequence of drinking is a hangover.
i may be way off base, but that's how i interpret things.
I did notice how Shiner and I had two drunk posts back to back. Mine was meant to be ironic, since I was reviewing a blog that reviews a show about drunken buffoons.
ReplyDeleteWhen I made reference to being "three drinks in", it was meant to imply that I'd had a lot more. In reality, those three drinks were the only three I had that night.
I can understand where people who've deal with addicts are coming from, when they're dealing with substances that can be addictive. But not everyone was raised in an environment like that or have dealt with an addict-spouse.
I was raised with what I deem, a healthy respect for alcohol. My parents never had more than one drink around us. There's a family history of alcoholism, so they were careful not set an example of binge drinking, just in case one of us inherited that trait.
Anyway, about drinking culture: I fucking hate it. About 95% of the time, I'm always the most sober one out of the group. This has garnered me the reputation of being a tightass.
There's an undercurrent in drinking culture that implies everyone should drink to excess. Just the other night, a bartender (my friend's ex) said he was "getting me drunk tonight", implying I need to get the stick out of my ass.
Meanwhile, he told me a story about a 40-year-old local high school football coach who got so drunk he whipped out his dick at the bar the night before.
As we were leaving, there was a 10-year-old kid outside looking for his dad who was inside drinking, two drunk 20-something girls screaming at their dad who'd come to pick them up, and some kid wandering around asking the ladies if they wanted AIDS, because he "could give it to them if they wanted".
You know those people's drunken antics were just laughed off the next day. Meanwhile, I'm the one who gets told I need to loosen up, like there's something wrong with me for not wanting to get wasted.
The gender drinking issue is very real as well. It seems like the only way it's okay for women to get wasted is if sex is involved. ie. "Get this girl drunk so she'll do crazy things! Maybe show her titties! Maybe make out with her girl friends! Maybe have sex with me!"
FYI: I've never had a female bartender tell me she's going to get me drunk.
I did notice how Shiner and I had two drunk posts back to back. Mine was meant to be ironic, since I was reviewing a blog that reviews a show about drunken buffoons.
ReplyDeleteWhen I made reference to being "three drinks in", it was meant to imply that I'd had a lot more. In reality, those three drinks were the only three I had that night.
I can understand where people who've deal with addicts are coming from, when they're dealing with substances that can be addictive. But not everyone was raised in an environment like that or have dealt with an addict-spouse.
I was raised with what I deem, a healthy respect for alcohol. My parents never had more than one drink around us. There's a family history of alcoholism, so they were careful not set an example of binge drinking, just in case one of us inherited that trait.
Anyway, about drinking culture: I fucking hate it. About 95% of the time, I'm always the most sober one out of the group. This has garnered me the reputation of being a tightass.
There's an undercurrent in drinking culture that implies everyone should drink to excess. Just the other night, a bartender (my friend's ex) said he was "getting me drunk tonight", implying I need to get the stick out of my ass.
Meanwhile, he told me a story about a 40-year-old local high school football coach who got so drunk he whipped out his dick at the bar the night before.
As we were leaving, there was a 10-year-old kid outside looking for his dad who was inside drinking, two drunk 20-something girls screaming at their dad who'd come to pick them up, and some kid wandering around asking the ladies if they wanted AIDS, because he "could give it to them if they wanted".
You know those people's drunken antics were just laughed off the next day. Meanwhile, I'm the one who gets told I need to loosen up, like there's something wrong with me for not wanting to get wasted.
The gender drinking issue is very real as well. It seems like the only way it's okay for women to get wasted is if sex is involved. ie. "Get this girl drunk so she'll do crazy things! Maybe show her titties! Maybe make out with her girl friends! Maybe have sex with me!"
FYI: I've never had a female bartender tell me she's going to get me drunk.
Drinking culture. Let's call it what it is. Drunks want everyone else around them to be drunk - plain and simple. Also, once you've associated yourself as a drinker - it's like your fucking Al Pacino in the Godfather, part whatever. You try to get out but they will suck you back in.
ReplyDeleteI swear, the look on people's faces when I say, no thank you, I'm not drinking anymore, well....it's priceless. Picture Scooby Do tilting his head and making that Yoda-like sound in the back of his throat when he is told he needs to go into the obviously haunted house. That's how they look at me. Male, female - doesn't really seam to matter - a drunk is a drunk.
Sure, there are the slimeballs in this world who want to get a woman drunk in the hopes of a good blow job but that is a separate issue alltogether.
I believe drinking may be the only place in life where women ARE treated as equals. As long as you'll get drunk with them, you're a part of their crowd. The drunk crowd, where you meet after work and talk about everyone else in the office while laughing your ass off and bonding in a way that is almost cliqueish.
I've never had a female bartender tell me she's going to get me drunk but I've had plenty of female friends tell me we're going to go out and get our drunk on.
It's the hardest thing for me to process right now. I have to grieve the loss of a few friends and the loss of my best friend who was always there for me in my time of need. Her name is Vino.
But ZM, are you saying that everyone who drinks is a drunk?
ReplyDeleteElder - absolutely not, the drinking culture I have observed is one of excessiveness.
ReplyDeletePeople who drink like you and your hubby are far from drunks. You are what I wish I could be, what I thought I was and what I would still give my left arm to be. Someone who CAN drink, without getting caught in the cycle of addiction.
I'm still secretly hoping I can be that person but Mongo knows better.
The thing is, out of all the people who were in my drinking crowd, there are probably only two or three who clearly had issues. I am thus far the only of those who has had her come to Jesus meeting. The others are still on their own personal slide down the sharp end of a razor. That leaves the 6 or 7 who can go out after work, have drinks, even get drunk and never have to face an alcoholic in the mirror. What gives with that? Why me?
I love alcohol. It's only been a month and I feel it calling me every single day. The drinking culture I refer to is the one where only being drunk is acceptable.
I would give anything to be able to have a drink, feel a little buzz and stop. Fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Elder - Thank you for 'checking in' on what I meant. Disdain WAS a weapon I used early in my recovery. Being full of disdain for addiction, what active addiction had done to my life, and everything associated with the culture was something I TRIED to use as a way to stay clean. Disdain was for me, however, a flimsy weapon; ineffective and a giant emotional, mental and physical drain.
ReplyDeleteThe more deeply I accepted having an illness called addiction and the facts of the ways and means to which I had gone to stay high the less disdain and hatred I had, and the more compassion and peace I experienced toward myself and everyone else.
That was the first part - no longer fighting against the facts.
The second part has been about laying my weapons down - no longer holding disdain, hatred, disgust or anything akin to those things in reserve as a back up plan. I've found out even holding them in reserve is almost as draining as using them to fight.
I hope that makes sense???
Specifically, I was talking about people who have gone through being deeply affected by having someone they love experience addiction and/or alcoholism. As I said in my original comment, it is estimated that an addict and/or alcoholic takes 6 people down with them.
For those who are not addicts and/or alcolics but have been deeply affected by it I've noticed a disdain similar to that I described about myself early in recovery. It seems that the path is similar - that gradually accepting the facts, as they are without condition, leads to letting go of disdain leads to compassion and pease toward oneself and others.
It reminds me a great deal of people (myself included) who have been angry about the WAY someone they loved died; angry with things like cancer, car wrecks, murderers, house fires, etc...
As fucked up as a situation may have been, it seems that eventual acceptance that the situation DID happen and there was NOTHING to be done about it leads to lessening of anger and an increase of compassion and peace.
Again, I hope that makes sense???
ZM- Nothing about your candid admission made me think you were minimizing your recent DUI. I have compassion for people who struggle with addiction of any kind or are in a place where life is overwhelming. While alcohol has never made ME feel better, I fully get the impulse to mitigate the pressures of children, family and life with something that dulls feelings or makes things seem less overwhelming. What my big issue is is with our culture encouraging women to drink in excess. I have to be honest that while I believe you are a good person, I get very angry at people who risk drinking and driving. So many awful things can happen on the road just by accident that the idea of someone putting me and my family at risk because they either drink or don't make arrangements for a safe ride home makes me really angry. It is just so preventable. Plus, though no one I know has ever hurt someone drinking and driving, I know for any of us, the guilt and regret would be overwhelming, I don't want people I care about to be on either end of that event. I'm really glad you are addressing things while it's all so fixable. And by the way, my mother drank for a period of about only five years starting in my early teens, gradually tapering off and she doesn't drink anymore and it still left a HUGE impression.
ReplyDeleteMG-Thanks as always for your input, I really appreciate your perspective and with my mom in town, I have thought about what you said in an earlier post I wrote and even put some of it in practice so thank you.
Elder- Why so defensive? I acknowledged that my husband and I have an occasional drink. My beef isn't with people who drink responsibly, it is with a culture and media that encourages women to drink in excess or makes light of abusive drinking like it's funny and everyone does it. When we make light of women abusing alcohol(and I am only referencing women not because I am letting men off the hook but because I think women have a different experience)we also diminish the negative consequences of such abuse.
My disdain, as you call it, is for a culture that encourages reckless behavior, not for casual drinkers and not even for people who have an inability to handle alcohol responsibly.
The fact that you took my post personally is perplexing to me.
Jen-
ReplyDelete"why is binge drinking acceptable for *anyone*? why is drinking to excess, boasting about how wasted you were, or drinking as a substitute for actual social skills, seen as the norm for women or men?"
Exactly.
Chamuca- I look at the drinking as a feminist issue and in the same light I am calling for us to question the mores and norms that are presented to us. I know that you and Rassles probably used the drinky drunky posting as a clever device to start the review the same way I threaten to put someone over my knee. I guess the goal isn't to make everything we do wrong but to think about where it comes from with some critical thinking, which I know you do.
Ruby - I completely agree with you about the drinking and driving. I knew I shouldn't have been driving. I tried to get a room at the resort but in my impaired state of mind, $250 to sleep off a drunk was too much. Now, this event will cost me close to $6,000 and it could have cost me so much more had I used my vehicle to take someone's life. That's why I thank the universe for slapping me down before I got to an even darker place.
ReplyDeleteI still don't see this as a feminist issue though. We'll have to agree to disagree on that one.
MG--You always make sense. I guess part of is the way I view smoking. I look at people and wonder how they can do that to themselves, and I admit to a certain amount of disdain for those who do it. I think you're in that category, so please just know that I wish you didn't smoke because you'd be healthier.
ReplyDeleteRuby--Just seemed like you were tarring anyone who drank more than you with the same feather, regardless of the amount. And sorry, but you did come off holier than thou--at least to me.
I don't see this as a feminist issue either. Nor do I remember reading/watching/listening to anything that encourages me to behave recklessly. But maybe you're listening for it, I'm not.
A little late for the discussion, but here I go.
ReplyDeleteMy experience with alcohol has been the following: my parents did not drink at all while I was growing up; when I went away to college I drank like a maniac; once I started working a regular job where I had to wake up without feeling like I'd been hit by a truck, my drinking tapered off and as the days and weeks and years went by I had a diminished urge to get drunk at all. Now since my body is no longer used to alcohol, I have a couple of beers like old times and instantly develop a headache or have to barf in the nasty toilet at the bar before the other people I'm with even have a buzz.
Here in Spain alcohol is much more entwined in the day to day than in the U.S. where there is a certain 'rebel' imagery attached to it. When I first moved here at 21 I was shocked at how controlled and collected Spanish youth were when they drank. Sure, they got drunk, they just didn't end up dancing on the bar or trying to put their dick in their friend's gin and tonic while they were in the bathroom, or starting fights or geting kicked out of places. That kind of stuff was so common among the college crowd back home. Here, there's nothing rebel about having beer or wine or a whiskey or two or eight. Youth are introduced to alcohol as a normal part of life from a very early age and while even excessive drinking is accepted, acting like an asshole while drinking is frowned upon no matter whose doing it (although for women it's especially frowned upon). Doing things like drinking and driving is very rarely an issue, at least among the people I've always been around because we live in the city center and nobody takes a car anywhere, we all walk or take a cab.
I didn't read Ruby's post as being judgmental at all towards those who drink. I read it as a criticism towards the culture of excessive female drinking as a form to fix something in their life, a criticism towards drinking in general and acting irresponsibly, not a criticism towards people who have a cocktail or two while relaxing with their partner at home after a day of soberly living a productive life.