Wake Up, Look Up

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hello everyone thanks for listening to

wake up lookup a podcast or we connect

events happening in real time to the

Gospel of Jesus Christ I'm Zack wrock

and in this episode we're asking the

question is Mommy drinking too much uh

this was prompted by an article in the

Wall Street Journal recently by a woman

named Erica Anderson who was talking

through her own struggle with what I

think she would describe as functional

alcoholism for mothers she talks about

how she was using alcohol to decompress

and to relieve her stress until she

realized that she was drinking a bottle

of wine a night up to three or four

times times a week now Erica is since

sober and is now commenting on the state

uh of middle-age women drinking because

the numbers are overwhelmingly tell us

telling us it's on the rise like for

example let me just hit you with some of

these stats uh the number of women who

have died due to alcohol related issues

in the last 5 years is up

34% uh if you look at women between the

ages of 40 and 64 and don't look at

death just look at alcohol rated

hospital visits the number is up

56% one in five women over drink based

on the US standards of what is an okay

AC an acceptable amount of alcohol to

drink which by the way the US is way

higher than Europe or Australia or other

Western countries so we're already at a

high standard one in five women are over

drinking that standard in fact the

number of women drinking five drinks in

a row Within a twow we period is growing

almost double the rate of men drinking

the same amount in the same time period

another way of saying this is that women

particularly middle-aged women

particularly mothers are drinking more

than they ever have and this is a

problem it's also a problem not a lot of

people are talking about it's also a

problem that you see advertised in a

number of places as we see aprons and

t-shirts calling wine Mommy juice and

say saying it's wine o00 book clubs uh

paintting sips there are a lot of

efforts to get women drinking and

they're working and it's a problem for a

couple of reasons the Bible tells us

that drunkenness is never okay that's

because drunkenness is putting yourself

under the control of something other

than God no matter who you are when

you've had too much to drink whether

you're angry or quiet depressive or

jubilant you're going to end up doing

something you regret hurting yourself or

hurting someone one else as Christians

we should never be putting ourselves

under the control of anyone other than

God but it's also a problem because

alcohol uh usage that is excessive tends

to mask what's really going on Erica

talks about in her article about her how

her drinking was to deal with stress but

of course alcohol isn't dealing with

stress it's just kicking the can down

the street instead of thinking about how

stressed you are or dealing with

practical real world Solutions you're

just taking your mind off of it into

such a state that you don't think about

it that night and then when you wake up

the next day the stress is still there

and you're hung over and you're not in a

better place it's also keeping us from

going other places with our stress like

for example as Christians turning to God

instead going to God in prayer and

acknowledging that what we can't control

he does it keeps us from opening up into

real friendships with people who can

give us real counsel and encouragement

and support it's probably keeping us

also from tangible action which will

actually change our circumstances and

lead us to a to actual change instead of

just delaying the anxiety to the next

day in other words drinking excessively

isn't good for anyone but it's

especially not good for women who are

doing it at a higher rate not to mention

the fact that Mom is often the pillar of

the family we're all leaning on her and

if she's not doing well none of us are

doing well so maybe this episode is a

wakeup call to you are you drinking too

much is it time for you to get help

listen in the church I hope that for

women who say hey I might have a problem

here uh we're not going to be a place of

shame or judgment or guilt but a place

of hope a place of healing and I hope a

place of increasing sobriety hey thanks

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