Pouring mommy wine culture down the drain: Online group offers support

If you've reached for a glass of wine — or three — as a coping mechanism in the last pandemic year, you are not alone, especially if you're a woman. Social media is filled with memes of wine moms, and getting alcohol delivered to your home became easier than ever during the pandemic. A study from The Rand Corporation found heavy drinking days among women increased by 41 percent during the shutdowns. Medical experts were already concerned about heavier patterns of drinking before the pandemic.

Some local women are looking for ways to break out of the pattern, and are finding each other online. Anika Blake is a fitness coach, a mother of two, and the founder of the Facebook group “Alcohol Free Mom Tribe.” The group’s mission is to “normalize the reality of alcohol abuse amongst women in a society that glamorizes the ‘wine mommy culture.’” She told KUOW’s Kim Malcolm why she started the group.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Kim Malcolm: Tell us how this started for you. What is your experience with alcohol use?

Anika Blake: Over my adult life, I've gone through seasons of abusing alcohol or binge drinking. Once I had kids, it seemed to definitely take an uptick and was also probably furthered just by the acceptance, and even encouragement, of consuming wine or alcohol as a mother, and the narrative that's out there that says this is part of being a mom, this is what we do, you need a glass of wine to make it through the night.

That glass of wine, over time, turned into needing more alcohol to receive the same desired effect. At the point that I realized I needed to make a change, I was probably drinking a bottle of wine just about every night of the week. My body started to push back. I ended up needing my gallbladder out. I realized I need to make a change and get back to what's really important.

I chose to participate in a Dry January challenge in 2020. I got through the 30 days. I felt so much better. My sleep improved, my complexion [improved], I had lost some weight, I had more energy, more joy. So, I decided I would roll it into February, and then into March, and then, boom came Covid and I just thought, "Wow, I am so thankful that I chose to make this decision pre-pandemic."

I'm wondering if you can put yourself back at that point when you realized that it was getting to be a problem, even though the messages say it's fine. When did you really know that something had to change for you?

I think the part that I struggled with the most was just feeling really duplicitous. I'm at church on Sunday morning, and I am on the welcome team, and I'm serving at Mommy & Me. Then I'm coming home, and I have all of this self-control in other areas, but I would make these promises to myself, “I'm going to cut back,” or “I'm not going to drink today.” Then I would find myself continuously breaking them. The guilt and shame that went along with that was just such a dark place to be.

I want to be able to shine light on that for other women who are struggling, because so many, especially throughout Covid, were suffering in silence and isolation at home. And a lot of people maybe weren't suffering, this was just how they chose to get through it, but now that we're coming out the other side, they're realizing, 'Wow, I developed some really poor habits and coping mechanisms during that time.' They're looking to make a change, and for that community support of knowing that they're not alone in their struggle.

Now you're leading this group on Facebook. Why did you need to start that group?

In part, just for my own accountability. I am real quick to break promises to myself, but I'm not as likely to break those promises to my girls, to my friends, to my team. I never, ever thought I would share my struggles or my journey. I did feel a lot of guilt and shame about it. Once I started to see how being vulnerable and sharing the progress that I had made, and the feedback that I was getting from other women saying 'Oh my goodness, me too. I thought it was just me. I've been struggling over here in silence.' I realized that there was just such a need for ongoing support to be able to give some more tangible tools in addition to the community support, and really get this narrative out there.

I don't know how many parties or get-togethers I've been to over the years where it feels like the norm is to drink alcohol. If you choose not to, you're going to stick out. We have these Wine Mom skits now on Saturday Night Live. What are women up against if they want to slow down or stop their drinking?

It's really interesting because alcohol is the only drug that you have to justify not taking. If I say to somebody I don't smoke anymore, nobody says 'What do you mean you don't smoke anymore? Why not?'

Is this about going absolutely sober for everybody who joins, or is it more about cutting down, or both?

My heart behind it is truly just to serve women wherever they are in their journey. For myself, if I could moderate I probably would. I know that that doesn't work for me. But women are coming in, they want to take a break, they want to reevaluate the relationship with alcohol, see what their triggers are, find a better coping mechanism.

I think if you can cut your alcohol consumption back by 80%, or just be more mindful about the reason why you're drinking, as opposed to just, 'It's a habit. It's my witching hour. It's five o'clock and I'm cooking dinner. It's seven o'clock and I'm doing bath times and bedtimes. It's nine o'clock and everybody's finally asleep for the night,' and the reaction is, I reach for a drink, but realizing, why do I want that drink? What's the reasoning underneath it? And just being more mindful.

We have people who are completely alcohol-free, but it really is to help any woman who's looking at just being more mindful about either going alcohol-free or cutting back their consumption and finding better strategies and other ways to get through the evening.

If someone is wondering, 'I don't know, I kind of like my glass of wine, and I don't know if I've got a problem or not,' what would you say to them?

I would say that, if you are trying to control the alcohol, the alcohol is already controlling you. If you're putting parameters around it-- I'm not going to drink on weeknights, or I'm not going to drink at home, or I'm only going to drink on special occasions-- then it probably has more of a grip on you than you realize.

But on the flip side of that, there shouldn't be any shame in that. There shouldn't be any guilt. I don't think saying everybody should go alcohol-free is the answer. That's definitely not my heart behind it. I think it's just realizing that you don't have to say, "Hi, my name is Anika and I'm an alcoholic," to have a problem. You don't have to put a label on it. There is this gray area in between where maybe you are abusing alcohol and just choosing to say, "I'm going to pay more attention to the why behind it," and just seeing where that thought takes you.

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.