Drink_The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol

by Ann Dowsett Johnston

  What Christie was doing had Nancy Poole’s full support. “The main issue around the mothering part is the tremendous shame, stigma, and fear that their children will be taken from them if they say that they are drinking,” says Poole. “It’s almost overwhelming for most women to think about stopping drinking. There are lots of things we can do to be terribly supportive: buying vitamins, getting strollers, offering multi-level support that is really valuable. We need to offer multidimensional help, to get at the things that are behind their use. Mentoring programs are so important. There is so much potential for us to do better: helping service providers interact with women in a respectful way.”

  Today Christie trains volunteers to do just this, and she is trying to raise funds to relaunch the program. In addition, she uses her own website to raise awareness of the dangers of drinking while pregnant. “Recently, studies have appeared suggesting that women need not worry about consuming low levels of alcohol during pregnancy,” she writes. “I find this very disturbing and question why, as a society, we are spending money trying to prove it is all right to mess around with an unborn child’s human potential.”

  Most of all, Christie battles society’s notion that “addiction is a moral rather than a sociomedical issue.” Personally, she says, “I feel blessed to have made it out of that big black hole of addiction. I feel this is my calling, to do this work, and it gives me a great deal of pleasure to see how a little bit of effort can make a big difference in another mother’s life. I have a passion for the moms. In the end, shaming and blaming comes from a place of misunderstanding. It’s a useless waste of energy. It’s so much easier to point a finger than hold out a hand.”

  Holding out a hand is exactly what Margaret Leslie and her team do at Breaking the Cycle, primarily a children’s center in downtown Toronto: a one-stop-shopping service for pregnant and parenting mothers of children six and under, all with substance use issues. Every Thursday, Dr. Gideon Koren, a pediatric toxicologist at the Hospital for Sick Children, comes to the center to offer an FASD diagnosis clinic. “It’s a very unique setting because it’s an opportunity to see the birth mothers,” says director Leslie. “This is a population of women who aren’t normally seen. This is a safe place where they can ask all the questions they haven’t wanted to ask another physician. These mothers want their children to have success in school in a way they never did. Every single mom’s biggest worry is the effect of the prenatal exposure.”

  A woman cannot be intoxicated or high when using the center. Breaking the Cycle offers addiction counseling, and it also has a partnership with Toronto Western Hospital, which has trauma services, plus mental health and addiction services. “We are an attachment-based program,” says Leslie, waving to a vibrant young mother arriving with her newborn son. The woman is here for parenting class. “Our ultimate goal is to promote attachment. In the end, the stronger the attachment, the higher the protective factor in mothering.”

  12.

  The Daughters’ Stories

  GROWING UP WITH AN ALCOHOLIC MOTHER

  Man hands on misery to man.

  It deepens like a coastal shelf.

  —PHILIP LARKIN

  Serious drinkers are like serious eaters or serious noneaters. They are like serious drug-addicts. Their addiction holds a spell over them which acts as some powerful secret at the center of everything they do.

  —MARION WOODMAN

  It has been said that families are like mobiles: when one person shifts, the others will as well. When one person drinks, each member of the family is thrown off balance. If the drinker drinks, all suffer; if she gets sober, the entire family feels the impact. Both require enormous adjustment.

  When my mother returned from a stint in rehab, our whole family walked on eggshells. We were accustomed to a mother who slept much of the day, paced the halls at night, ice cubes tinkling. We were used to her 2 a.m. rants, her anger, her quixotic temper and cutting sarcasm. We were not used to this smaller, shaky person, who looked painfully vulnerable, remorseful, and soft. She was like a newly hatched chick, feminine and lovely—and utterly foreign to us. It was like having a houseguest: she moved around her own kitchen with tentative steps, articulating what was in her heart. With my whole being, I wanted to help her. I felt as if E.T. had just arrived: I liked this new foreign being, but I was not sure how long she would stay.

  Turns out, not too long. My mother had trouble with the sharing in her follow-up groups. “I am not going to talk about my family with strangers—I wasn’t raised that way,” she’d say when the group coordinator called to remind her of an upcoming meeting. Before long, she stopped attending the after-care portion of her program. In a very short time, our other mother reappeared: nasty and sad and brokenhearted with how life had shortchanged her. Sleep was disrupted, dinners were difficult. This was the old normal.

  Still, I never looked at her the same way again. Once I had been reintroduced to my softer mother, the mother of my early childhood, I never gave up hope that she might reappear.

  It took a long time: decades, to be honest.

  My mother used to drink and dial: it was her favorite pastime. Once, in the early days of my magazine career at Maclean’s, she phoned the editor of the magazine—Peter C. Newman—in the middle of the afternoon. I don’t quite remember how he shared this news with me: the fact that she had reached our editor in chief was mortifying. On another occasion, she got through to the art department, and invited one of the designers to our summer cottage on Georgian Bay. He thought it was sweet, but random. She is very charming.

  As a teenager, I never grew accustomed to her calling the parents of friends or a new boyfriend, often past midnight. But by the time she started calling the police, I was in my twenties, and I found it both irritating and vaguely amusing. More than once, I had a date interrupted by an officer explaining to me that I hadn’t called home in several weeks. They always looked skeptical when I said not to worry: my mother was exceptionally persuasive.

  The worst, by far, was a wedding shower that I gave, fresh out of university, in our home. An hour before guests were to arrive, my mother disappeared. My sister and brother and I knew she had been drinking, heavily, for days. No one could find her. Halfway through the event, she appeared in a long hostess gown, poured herself a drink, and held court for the rest of the afternoon—until the alcohol hit her and she told “all the little bitches” to leave the house immediately. When it came time for my own wedding, her behavior was no different—except she had a black eye from falling: she applied plenty of makeup and posed for pictures. That day, I was more focused on her presence than that of my new husband, which was a shame: I was twenty-three and still enmeshed in my family drama. It would be years before I unhooked myself from regular upset, through therapy and distance.

  All through my twenties, there were trips to the hospital, violent episodes, cuts and stitches: alcohol-fueled fights or accidents that broke your heart. My brother, John, took the brunt of it. As the youngest, he was at home alone for several years, once my sister, Cate, and I headed off to university. But we all suffered emotionally. How could you not? We spent years trying to hide the truth from our friends. Once we began to marry, others were exposed to the unvarnished reality. “My mother has something seriously wrong with her,” I said to my future husband. “Probably an African throat disease.”

  “You know that’s not true, don’t you?” he said gently, firmly. “She’s an alcoholic.”

  I still remember the shock of his saying it out loud, of articulating what we were forbidden to reference: in our household the proverbial elephant was alive and well in the living room, in the bedrooms, and just about everywhere else. Only my brother was subversive enough to make fun of my mother’s behavior, often mimicking her struggling to get through doorways, like a conductor on a runaway train.

  His antics helped relieve the tension for my new husband. This helped at the dinner table. But there was no preparing a newcomer for an overnight visit
at our cottage. I said very little to Will, but I knew it would be difficult. At night, my mother had two modes: the ranting mode and the musical mode. Ranting was angry; musical was maudlin. If it was musical, we would be treated to an endless evening of Chariots of Fire—or, as my brother called it, Chariots of Firewater. If it was a ranting episode, she would deliver a soliloquy on our faults.

  On Will’s first night at the cottage, it was a ranting evening. When my mother’s performance began in the upstairs hall, he whispered: “She does this every night?” I nodded. “You’re kidding.” “Just roll over. Whatever you do, don’t go out there.”

  He tossed a towel around his waist and headed into the hall, saying in his best no-nonsense voice: “Maxie, others are trying to sleep. Go to bed.” And she did, just like that. In four cottage bedrooms, each of us silently cheered. Of course, it only worked once. The next night, she let him have it.

  Years later, when Jake arrived on the scene, she had put hard liquor behind her. Still, Jake summed up the scene perfectly. He called her a lion-tamer: “She cracks the whip, and you all jump.” He was right. She was a lion-tamer, and we were her four cubs, my dad included. We all played our roles: my father was silent, I fought back, my sister hid, and my kid brother joked. Codependent to the hilt. We had it nailed.

  Today, with my father gone, my softer mother only drinks in the evening. She limits her intake to two Diet Coke spritzers, pouring both at 6:45, depositing one in the fridge. At 7:00 she sits down to watch Wheel of Fortune. At 7:30 she watches Jeopardy! If we’re together for the night, we’ll start a game of Scrabble. By 9:00 she’ll serve dinner. By 10:00 she’s in bed. I could set my clock by it: it’s endlessly reassuring, this new regimen, and I never get tired of seeing her in the upstairs hall of her lovely home, in her pretty flannel nightie. “Good night, Mum, sleep well.” “Do you find the house a little cold?” “No, I think we’re fine, Mum.” “Well, sleep well, dearie. There’s an extra blanket if you need it. It’s so nice to know you’re here.” “I love you, Mum.” “I love you, too, darling.” Silence. Endless, comforting silence, until the sun comes up.

  Still, I can’t help but bristle when the wine comes out. We all do. Even though it has been several years since there was any serious trouble, I am still adjusting to this new reality. Whenever she puts that drink to her lips, I can’t help but wonder: will this be the one that snatches her back, this mother I have grown to trust? It never does.

  Most tragically, just as my mother adjusted her drinking regimen, my father slipped into alcoholism. In retirement, he was a secret drinker—or not-so-secret: every member of the family knew that his trips to the garage, to “fetch something from the boot,” meant opening the car trunk to take a long swig of scotch. The trunk was his bar: this never changed. “For God’s sake,” my mother would say, “just use a glass, John.” He rarely did. He was his own man, and he remained that way until he died: loving my mother, loving his mining research and his stocks. Eventually he switched to vodka, as most problem drinkers do, taking a bottle with him as he walked their dog on a summer afternoon, returning loaded to the gills. No one knew what to do: here was our so-called sober parent, following the same addictive path. It ended up killing him—which left all of us perplexed and inconsolably sad. He was a fine man with a brilliant brain, a wealth of stories stocked up from years of international adventures. He never lost his tender heart, and his absence is a presence we have adjusted to, with difficulty. My mother has borne this with grace and exquisite dignity.

  For me, my father’s absence and Jake’s are twinned: they disappeared within months of each other. That double loss has freed time for my mother and me to travel together. In summer, we play Scrabble for long hours by Georgian Bay, our dogs sleeping at our feet. Once in a while, she will mention her drinking days and say how sorry she feels about “what I put my family through.” I’ll pass her the bag of tiles and tell her how happy I am that we get to spend time together. “I think I might pour myself a drink. What time is it?” “Six thirty, Mum. Go ahead?” “What will you have, dear?” “Nothing, Mum, I’m happy with water.” “I’m so proud of you, darling. How many years has it been?”

  This is how it always goes. When she returns with her spritzer, we continue our game. “Don’t you hate to eat alone?” she will always say. “Yes, Mum, I do.” “I always knew you must be lonely, living alone, but I never really understood it until I had to go through it myself.” She’ll light another cigarette, and contemplate her letters. “I have a great word, but I’m not sure how long I should hang on to it.” “Hang on,” I’ll tell her. “I’d like to,” she’ll say, with her girlish smile. “You might as well, Mum. You just never know.”

  “How have you been able to forgive her, after all she put you through?” This is the voice of my friend Barbie. Barbie was around in high school, when things turned bad. On many weekends, I escaped to her family’s large home overlooking a park. “It can happen to the best of us,” I say. “But your drinking and hers were not the same.” “She knows that,” I say. “Besides, I love her.” “You’re a good daughter,” says Barbie. We leave it at that.

  We’re all good daughters: that’s the summation of Robert Ackerman, author of the first book on children of alcoholics in the United States, as well as Perfect Daughters: Adult Daughters of Alcoholics. We’re comparatively rare: it’s not that common to have an alcoholic mother. Of those raised by alcoholics, 60 percent have an alcoholic father; only 20 percent have an alcoholic mother, and another 20 percent have two alcoholic parents. According to Ackerman, daughters raised by alcoholic mothers have different issues than those with alcoholic fathers. Since they’re in the minority, daughters of female alcoholics rarely have a friend in the same situation. As a result, they tend to feel more isolated. Most grow up feeling anger, disgust, and disappointment. A smaller proportion take a protective role with their mothers, denying their parent is alcoholic. And most remarkably, they all tend to accept that their mother is alcoholic much later than those who have an alcoholic dad: close to nineteen years old versus thirteen.

  I was one of those daughters. I was in my early twenties before I could fully accept that my mother wasn’t suffering from an African throat disease or cancer. Peggy McGillicuddy, who grew up in California, was no different. She was thirteen when her mother went to treatment. There a counselor told her that her mother was an alcoholic, and she got really angry. “I was like: ‘We’re done here!’ I spent the next twelve years denying that my mother was an alcoholic.”

  Still, she had lived with the reality. “I didn’t realize it wasn’t normal for a mother to sleep a lot in the day,” says McGillicuddy. “I remember being incredibly careful as a kid about who came to my house because I wasn’t certain what it would be like. I knew there was something incredibly bad about my mother. The stigma of having a mom who was an alcoholic was profound, damaging to me.”

  Like me, McGillicuddy was a classic case: she had straight A’s in school. “I was the perfect kid,” she says. “But after college, I fell apart. I had depression and an eating disorder—and I was hospitalized. Not once did a therapist connect my depression with what I went through as a child.”

  Says Ackerman, “Of course, it’s not the drinking that drives people crazy. It’s the unwanted behavior, the dysfunction.” Is there an upside to all McGillicuddy went through? I know the answer before she opens her mouth. “Yes,” she says. “I can walk into a room and figure out immediately what someone needs from me emotionally.” I nod my head: our antennae are perfectly attuned for trouble. It’s a gift for life—if you want to look at it that way.

  Closing time, a British pub in Chelsea. Three people are standing at the bar, two tall men and an attractive dark-haired woman, all in their late twenties. The security guard approaches them. “Madam, sirs, it’s time to leave.” The young woman gives him a little “cheers” salute, and raises her wine—except she misses her mouth. “Oh no! I slopped on your socks!” she says, stumbling.

/>   “Madam, it’s time to leave,” says the guard.

  “Oh, come on, it’s only Thursday! Tomorrow’s Friday. Then it’s the weekend!”

  “Madam, it’s Sunday night, and we’re closing.”

  The young woman guzzles what’s left of her wine. “Can I take this home?” she asks, lifting the bottle. “No, madam, I need to lock the door.” “Let me just finish this. You know, I think I’m tipsy!” She stumbles, and one of the tall men catches her, escorting her out.

  My guest and I watch this scene, putting on our coats as we too leave Phene, a smart gastro pub with a welcoming neighborhood feel and a posh menu. Both daughters of alcoholic women, we look at each other, uncomfortably. Nothing we haven’t seen before, but it makes our skin crawl.

  Caroline, as she wants to be known, has chosen this restaurant in which to tell me her story. Like McGillicuddy, Caroline is a high achiever. Unlike her, she had no illusions about her mother’s alcoholism. Slim and poised, with a winning smile, she lost her mother to alcohol a little more than a year ago, and the pain is very fresh. Still, at thirty, she is able to find her equanimity as her story unfolds. “My mother didn’t want to be here. Even though she had all of the right things, she was desperate for an exit. Alcohol was an escape, and she got what she wanted. It’s terrible to say, but it was a relief for her to go. The closest people could not get through to her. I understand how all this came to be so catastrophic—but I will probably never fully understand it.”