Motherhood and alcohol are like oil and water.

They DO NOT mix well and only cause separation.

I don't know when alcohol and motherhood became synonymous, but I do know who the culprit is. Big Alcohol and their marketing made you believe that alcohol and motherhood go hand in hand when, in reality, it only causes more problems, heartache, and separation.

It's amazing what happens when you step back from the mommy wine culture and see how heavily marketed it is. It's not a coincidence either. They use persuasive messaging, and a lot of us fell into the trap. Thinking that "they whine I wine" is the way to get through the hard days. The days when the kids won't listen to you, so you lose your temper. The days when you're so tired from waking up at 4 am because your kids don't understand what sleeping in is. The days when you're juggling it all. Work, cooking, cleaning, and making sure that you're raising a good human.

Alcohol isn't the answer.

Alcohol isn't the solution to parenting. There are hard days, but what I do know is alcohol never made those days better. They only caused more separation between my son and me. Separation in that I wasn't entirely there. I wasn't fully experiencing all that motherhood had to offer.

At the time, that's the only way I knew how to get through the hard days because that's what I was conditioned to do by friends, coworkers, and society. Alcohol was the thing that was supposed to make all the worries go away, but it didn't. It caused me almost to lose my life and my son. I do not doubt that if I continued on the path I was on, I wouldn't be here today to write about it. And that's why I share my story because, like many of you, I didn't start drinking in motherhood to become reliant on a substance to ease the hard days. I drank because I thought that was the solution to motherhood being difficult some days. It's not the solution, and it never will be.