I Saw My Nightly Glass of Wine as ‘Self-Care.’ In Reality, I Had a Drinking Problem
Rodger Milbourne/Amanda K Bailey
Lauren Milbourne, 42, from Thousand Oaks, California, loved to indulge in a glass of wine every night to de-stress after work and considered it her favorite form of “self-care.” But one glass quickly turned into three. Then wine morphed into vodka. She began sneaking around and lying to her family to hide from the shame that consumed her. Now three years sober, Milbourne wants you to know that anyone can have an alcohol use disorder. Here’s her story, as told to senior health writer Katie Camero.
Not every “wine mom” has or will develop a problem with drinking, but it happened to me.
I grew up in a middle-class family in Southern California with two loving parents. Alcohol wasn’t a big deal in my home by any means, but I knew from the very first time I drank at about 17 years old that I liked how it made me feel. I didn’t party often, but when I did, I always drank to excess. That habit continued into college, where the binge drinking lifestyle was pretty normalized, so nothing I was doing seemed wrong or out of the ordinary.
When I met my husband in 2006 and found out I was pregnant about a year and a half later, I immediately stopped drinking. But I didn’t think twice about starting back up again once the baby came. I saw other moms getting together for wine nights and drinking at birthday parties where their little kids were running around, so that’s exactly how I bonded with them after I had my son. But what I really loved was drinking alone. On my way home from work, I’d even get butterflies of anticipation in my stomach thinking about my glass of wine. It felt like it was self-care. It felt like a reward—and I deserved it. Looking back now, I realize that I was pretty lonely. My husband and I had moved away from everything we knew, so I was trying to make new friends and raise my baby all while handling a new job.
Alcohol became my solace. But unfortunately, I was like that frog in a pot of boiling water; I didn't know it was happening as it was happening. I started drinking regularly on weeknights after work and would become resentful of anything that got in the way of that. One glass turned into three. I would look at a bottle of wine and convince myself that as long as I didn't finish it, I was fine. But as time progressed, I’d down entire bottles.
That’s when I started to hide my drinking. My anxiety ramped up, and the one thing that would help was alcohol, even though the alcohol was causing it in the first place. It was this vicious cycle that just kept going and going. I kept that up for many years without any negative consequences. I was doing well at work. My husband and I were still together. No DUIs, no arrests, nothing like that. My friends eventually nicknamed me “googly eyes” because of how I looked when I got drunk. And it was funny because it all seemed harmless. I didn't start fights or do anything outrageous. Again, life wasn't forcing me to question my drinking, so I didn't.
After about four years, I switched to vodka. My brain kept moving the goalpost to accommodate how and what I wanted to drink. The more I did that, the more secretive I became of my behavior, especially with my son. I tried to keep him from seeing me as a sloppy drunk, but I wasn’t always successful. I was physically present at his school and sports functions, but not mentally. I was desperate for him to see me as a “normal mom.” But of course, that got harder to do as time went on.
My husband eventually started questioning things. He would notice how drunk I was despite only seeing me with one glass of wine. I started to lie; I’m not a liar by nature, but that’s what alcohol does to you. Then the pandemic happened. I was working from home and didn’t have any real accountability. Suddenly 5 p.m. would come a little earlier. It got bad, but I couldn't bring myself to say anything to anyone.
My husband ended up spearheading an intervention for me that included the rest of my family, none of whom had any idea I had a problem. They wrote me beautiful letters of care and love asking me to get sober. For the first time, a switch flipped. I realized I had a real problem and was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I agreed to go to a local detox center in April 2021.
On my first night there, I called my husband crying, begging him to pick me up. I told him I was nothing like these people. But thank God he said no because I soon realized that I was exactly like everyone else there. We had different drugs of choice, but we all shared the same struggle. I moved on to rehab about two days later.
I’ve now been sober for three years.
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Photo credit: Rodger MilbourneMany people assume someone like me doesn’t have an alcohol use disorder. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. That’s why I started sharing my sobriety journey on TikTok nearly two years ago. It took me a while to work up the courage to start posting, but once I did, I realized how much it helped me feel seen, heard, and validated. Now I get so many messages from people saying they had no idea anyone else was going through the same thing.
My sobriety has been truly life-changing. I am in better physical shape at nearly 43 years old than I was in my 20s: My immune system is incredibly strong; my anxiety, which I used to take medication for, is gone; my skin is no longer dry, flaky, and red; all of my relationships have improved; and I’m currently pursuing a graduate degree, which I never thought was possible. I’m still in therapy, which has evolved from talking about my alcohol use to just life overall. It gives me coping mechanisms to help process old traumas that I can now tie back to the reasons why I drank the way I did. I also meet with a women’s Alcoholics Anonymous group for community and connection. And now that my son is a teenager, we talk about alcohol, why people struggle with it, and what can happen. My goal really is to help him have the emotional intelligence to talk about it because I couldn’t. I want him to have enough self-awareness to say, “I need help.”
My advice? Don’t wait until you have a DUI. Don't wait until your spouse leaves you or you lose your job. Start questioning your drinking today, particularly if alcohol use disorder runs in your family. Instead of asking yourself, Is my drinking a problem? think, Is alcohol serving my life in a positive way? And stop comparing yourself to others because you never know what’s happening behind closed doors. The reality is that no one out there is saying, “Gee, I wish I would’ve gotten in a few more great drinking years.” Everyone wishes they would’ve quit sooner, and there's a reason for that. It’s hard, but it’s worth questioning. That, to me, is real self-care.
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Originally Appeared on SELF
