saying no to wine culture – and yes to life.

As y’all know, seeing people recover from substance abuse is close to my heart and several things have come up in the past few days that I want to share.

First, the 28th was the ten month anniversary of my goodbye to wine :

I will always stop and give thanks to God for those anniversaries and the positive changes they have brought in my life – or, more truthfully, that they have given me my life back.

A couple of days before that, though, I came across this on Pinterest:

And it made me smile. But it also made me so so sad.

See, I am not a Star Wars person – don’t email me, I won’t read it =D – but I loved Carrie Fisher, from her crazy sense of humor, to her willingness to speak the truth no matter what, to her Frenchie Gary. In fact, the second post here on The Autoimmune Hippie was for Carrie and her mom Debbie when they passed away.

And, when I learned that her death was attributable to substance abuse, I was not shocked or standing in judgement of her in any way, but I was again saddened and sick to see another bright light lost to this awful disease.

And, with that heavy on my heart, I was considering another substance abuse related post.

Before I had a chance to make it though, Holly over at Hip Sobriety called my attention to this video that Kristen Bell (who I normally just love) made for Ellen Degeneres (who I also normally just love):

https://www.ellentube.com/studios/momsplaining/momsplaining-with-kristen-bell-kidsplaining-ep-3-1.html

With their moms behind a two-way mirror, laughing, these kids talk about how much wine they see them drink and the times they can’t wake them up the next day.

To which Kristen says, “sounds like you have some fun moms.”

And she tells the kids they deserve the wine for putting up with “you animals.”

And everyone thinks it funny.

But I don’t.

While the level of alcohol abuse has stayed about the same in men, it has doubled in women in recent years and this normalization of “wine culture” is playing into that in a big way.

And kids that can’t wake mom up due to her hangover? So not funny. It’s sad. Very sad.

And, while I do love Kristen, her husband is actively in recovery so I would expect her to be more aware of these issues.

I’m tired of this.

I’m tired of seeing unhealthy behavior treated as “socially acceptable.” As the current maximum standard is one drink per day for women and two for men, it’s safe to say we are well beyond that in this video. And the more it’s normalized, the less likely women who are struggling with their drinking are to seek help.

This is not okay.

So, again, if you know in your heart that drinking has become a problem for you or you feel that you are drinking more than you should, there are so many resources available to you:

Alcoholics Anonymous:

http://www.aa.org/

Hip Sobriety:

http://www.hipsobriety.com/

Celebrate Recovery:

http://www.celebraterecovery.com/

This is worth taking a listen on Celebrate Recovery:

In addition to these, there are numerous church groups and online groups.

Also, as I’ve said in previous posts, if you need medical help, whether or not you have medical insurance or anything else, if you present to an emergency room, they WILL help you.

The average time between when a person starts to think drinking might be a problem for them and when they seek help is seven years – if they make it to seek help. Please don’t wait. Don’t waste seven years of your life.

There is so much freedom and joy and peace on the other side.

It’s hard work – but it is so worth it.