As the kids get older, the trips get even better. We all agree that this one was our best so far.

And since moms aren’t just the memory-makers but also the memory-keepers, I’m sharing this because I don’t want to forget.

Forever grateful that sobriety has given me the gift of being present for all of these mundane magical motherhood moments. ♥️

1. We played. From sun up to sun down, we played. Pickleball, pool games, Mario Kart, chess, card games (Do You Really Know Your Family?). For hours and hours every day, we played together. It felt like I was a kid again. I wasn’t worried about work or adult stuff. I just enjoyed playing with my family.

2. My boy (silently) counted to 1000 for the first time. He was SO proud, beaming ear to ear.

3. The Amanda + West drama dropping as I was lying poolside, watching my kids play. It took everything in me not to escape in my phone and do a deep dive right there. And because I’m only human, I only did like a light dive (so like 30 minutes of mindless scrolling trying to get all the “facts”). But isn’t this one of those pop culture moments where we’ll remember where we were when it happened? Like Scandoval. I was going to the bathroom when that one happened. (TMI?)

4. Running on the beach, listening to my episode with Carl Radke on his new podcast, More Life. We talked about grief, and I was on the same beach where I spread my dad’s ashes 5 years ago. It felt like a gift, and I’m grateful.

5. Watching Castaway and all three of my kids crying when Chuck lost Wilson. The tears really started flowing when he yelled, “I’m sorry!” as his beloved volleyball floated away in the ocean.

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I’ve been in the same gray sweatpants for three days.

There’s a pile of used tissues on the coffee table, and a half-finished cup of Gatorade on the counter. I swear our couch has a permanent indent from where (at least) one child has rotated between sleeping, whining, and watching Big City Greens.

In the past three and a half weeks, I’ve cancelled more plans than I can count.

Dinner plans for my best friend’s birthday in the city. Yoga classes (including more than a few late cancels, resulting in a $15 charge). An eye doctor appointment, a coffee date, my highlights appointment (one look at my roots and you’ll know instantly just how badly that one hurt.)

And the true heartbreaker…I had to reschedule my daughter’s 9th birthday party.

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Somewhere along the way, motherhood and wine became inseparable.

“They whine; I wine.”

“Mommy’s juice.”

“This wine pairs well with motherhood.”

“Mom’s reasons to wine: 1. Jimmy 2. Janey.”

These are actual tea towels and wine glasses and napkins I’ve seen in the last few weeks. It’s supposed to be funny, said with a knowing nod and a little wink between exhausted mothers.

The Lie of Mommy Wine Culture

There’s a particular lie that modern motherhood absorbs without much resistance: Motherhood requires alcohol.

Moms are pressured more than ever to believe that the only way to survive this season is with a glass of wine in your hand.

So, where did it all start?

Mommy wine culture didn’t come out of nowhere.

These Etsy shops and cutesy little tea towels weren’t bourn from a group of moms getting together because they’d discovered that wine helped them cope with the very real stressors of motherhood.

The Market Big Alcohol Needed

For most of the last century, men drank more than women. That changed quickly.

Research published in JAMA Psychiatry found that alcohol use among women increased more than 80% between 2002 and 2013. Drinking among women rose faster than any other group.

Motherhood was the perfect entry point.

Because mothers are tired, overwhelmed, under-supported. Motherhood is demanding in ways we weren’t prepared for: the constant mental load, the relentless responsibility, and, especially since the pandemic and subsequent shutdown, the soul-crushing isolation.

Moms have real needs, and we are systemically under-supported.

Big Alcohol knows that.

And they pounced.

Because they have a product to push, and they need more drinkers, Big Alcohol created a culture and moms are handed alcohol packaged as self care.

Wine isn’t being marketed to moms because it helps. It’s being marketed because it sells, and because exhausted, vulnerable moms are easier to convince.

The Alcohol Lie.

Alcohol promises the exact things moms are desperately seeking: escape, connection, a way to take the edge off from the comfort of our homes.

The problem is that not only does it not deliver on its promise, but it quietly makes everything worse.

It numbs for a moment and then hands the load back heavier. It disrupts sleep, increases anxiety, and shrinks our capacity to respond calmly to the very situations we’re drinking to cope with. Over time, it can make motherhood feel harder than it already is.

Alcohol is an addictive substance that creates the very stress it promises to relieve, then offers itself as the cure.

It’s Not You. It’s the Alcohol.

What’s most insidious about mommy wine culture? It reframes a systemic problem as a personal coping issue. If you’re overwhelmed, the implication is that you just need a better routine, a better attitude, or a better pour. The possibility that alcohol itself might be part of the problem is rarely offered.

In The Sober Shift, I write about the moment I realized I wasn’t failing at motherhood. I was trying to manage an already heavy season with a substance that was quietly working against me. I didn’t quit drinking because I hit rock bottom. I quit because I didn’t want to lose anything more to alcohol.

Stepping away from alcohol didn’t make motherhood easy.

It made it honest, and it allowed me to actually feel what I needed instead of numbing it away. It gave me information instead of distraction. And it showed me that what I was craving wasn’t wine. It was relief that alcohol could never provide.

Mommy Wine Culture encourages moms to lower the bar and pour another glass. The Sober Shift asks a different question. What if the problem isn’t that motherhood is too much, but that we’ve been given the wrong solution?

If this resonates, Chapter 2 goes deeper into how alcohol became normalized as a coping tool for mothers and why opting out can change far more than your relationship with drinking.

It can change how you experience motherhood itself.

How have you noticed Mommy Wine Culture show up?

Let’s talk in the comments.

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I recorded at 16 minute episode on Mommy Wine Culture on The Sober Mom Life podcast. One AirPod in; Listen while you’re folding laundry or driving the kids to their after school activities.

The Weekend Reset: The Shift From Mommy Needs Wine to Mommy Learns What She Really Needs

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