Raising The Bottom

Raising The Bottom

Adult nonfiction
With today being turkey day, we're at the beginning of the
holiday season. You know what that means. Shopping, decorating, more
shopping, family get togethers, parties, and drinking. A lot of
festivities involve drinking. Maybe there will be a little hard cider
or eggnog at family festivities. Football watching often involves
large quantities of beer. Parties tend to serve up adult beverages.
Even the frustrations of shopping in crowds and maybe not finding what
a child or spouse covets may motivate a before dinner cocktail or two
or more. And don't get me started on New Years Eve.
In a lot of these contexts it can be difficult to not partake.
Talk about peer pressure! Oh, come on! Don't be a party pooper/wet
blanket or whatever. Just one won't hurt...
...except that even one can. This is why Lisa Boucher's Raising
The Bottom: Making Mindful Choices in a Drinking Culture is a very
relevant read this time of year. Written for women who suspect they
may have drinking problems, it can also be a good choice for people
who suspect that a loved one has a drinking problem or that our
culture at large has a drinking problem.
My parents began seriously drinking in my teen years. My
father's alcoholism would have been easy to spot. When he drank he
binged. And that led to a lot of dumb, dangerous behavior. I am
truly blessed that on visitation days (the divorce thing) I didn't die
in a car crash. My mother's was a lot more subtle. Every night to
get to sleep she relied on three monks wine. And the amount it took
grew. I'm pretty sure after she retired and moved she ditched the
monks. But during my teen/young adult years they were a subtle
presence.
Boucher's mother was an alcoholic. The first chapter of Raising
The Bottom starts with this description of one of the many drunk
driving incidents her mother involved her in:
"Her foot never touched the brake. Even seconds before the
imminent impact, my mother looked serene: one hand draped over the
steering wheel, her glazed stare fixed on the road, rubbery lips
puffing on a Salem menthol like she had all the time in the world to
consider the options. She never flinched--not once--in spite of our
howls. The brown Chrysler barreled toward the crowded intersection at
forty miles per hour. The outcome was inevitable."
Can you imagine being in a situation like that? (I don't have
to imagine. I was in one in my much younger years. I was riding
shotgun in my emminently sober pastor's car on the way back from a
mountain climbing trip. I looked out my side window to see a car
barreling at us. I realized I very well could die. In fact the first
police officer to arrive at the scene said it was a miracle he wasn't
carting me away in a body bag. And you probably can guess what was on
the floor of the other car. Empty booze bottles. The driver was so
drunk he didn't realize he'd embedded his car in the side of another.)
That wasn't the only way that Boucher's mother's drinking impacted her
childhood. She and her siblings were frequently neglected. Her
father was angry, trying in vain to control his wife's problem
drinking. The predominant emotion of her childhood was fear.
But drinking was so routine that Boucher herself started on
booze and grass at the age of twelve. Not surprisingly she followed
in her mother's footsteps. In fact, her mother, who had sobered up
and devoted her life to helping other alcoholic women, was the one to
see that she had a problem and succesfully convince her that she
needed to do something about it.
Boucher had worked as a registered nurse in emergency rooms and
psych wards for twenty-three years before she decided to create the
book that her mother had urged her to write. She'd seen how clueless
doctors were in regard to women's dysfunctional drinking, how often
they blamed anything else for the crisis that brought them to the
hospital and left their damaged thought patterns intact.
"I've worked with hundreds of women over the years, and the
common thread is that most all women dubbed themselves social
drinkers, myself included, until we learned that there was nothing
social about the way we drank. In addition, most alcoholics are
functional and hold jobs--people don't realize that either."
In addition to the candid sharing of her own life story, Boucher
interviewed many other women who had dysfunctional drinking
experience. You can read about the dangerous and damaging judgement
errors they made while drunk (this should very much concern you where
some were drunk doctors) and the regrets they live with once sober.
There is plenty of good advice on how to recognize alcoholism and turn
things around if it's a problem in your life.
I strongly recommend the book because, even if alcoholism isn't
an issue for you and your loved ones we live in a society in denial
where people can laugh at social media portrayels of staggering drunk
women. As I read the book I saw a posted collection of funny bar
signs that were anything but funny. All of us need to be part of the
solution. So before we get far into this holiday season I want you to
make proactive plans.
1) If you probably will go to a social event where there will be
pressure to drink or to drink more than you can handle, what will you
do or say to stick with sensible intentions?
2) If you host an event at which alcohol will be an option, how will
you make sure that one of your guests will not crash a car on the way
home? How can you create an ambiance where over indulging is not
encouraged? Who will keep a relatively sober eye on the
interactions? If someone becomes drunk what will you do to keep them
off the road?
Wherever you are, if you hear someone being coaxed or bullied into
drinking too much or drinking at all what can you say or do? If you
hear someone making remarks that perpetuate the notion of problem
drinking being funny or harmless how can you avoid being a silent
bystander?
No, I'm not trying to be a wet blanket or party pooper. I just
want you and your loved ones to have a safe and really joyous holiday
season this year and every year. OK?
On a purrrsonal note, I'm being reminded that Mother Nature can veto
even the most carefully laid plans. We're in the middle of a snow
storm. I thought I'd leave the house at some ungodly hour to go to
the in-laws'. My husband got a call from work. He left at an ungodly
hour to go plow. My Katie is trying to decide whether it will be safe
for her to drive up from Portland. So I'm in my new Christmas pajamas
about to go back to studying for my theories class exam. When Joey
was alive being snowed in felt cozy. Now it feels cold and lonely,
like being on the other side of the moon.
Great big shout outs go out to you, my readers, with hopes that you
are having a safe and happy turkey day and to the best little cat in
the world who loved me.
jules hathaway



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