The Problem with “Wine Mom” Culture

What is “Wine Mom” Culture?

It is commonly stated that motherhood is the best but hardest job that is out there. As a mother, you have the responsibility, and honor, of raising your children to be the best people they can be. Motherhood can bring many moments of joy and pride as you watch your children grow up but there are times in any child’s life when they push your limits or create stress as you wonder if you are doing everything right as you bring them up in this world. For many mothers, the need for connection and support from other mothers is necessary as you work your way to navigate through the ups and downs of being a mother. 

There has been a shift in how moms connect with one another since the emergence of social media, especially throughout the pandemic. Mothers have begun to connect over social media mothers pages connecting through the “wine mom” culture. If you scroll through any Facebook page for mothers it is common to see quotes or memes that make statements about wine use within moms. Whether it is a glasses of wine that say “mommy’s sippy cup” or a shirt that proclaims the regular use of wine, this normalcy placed on drinking wine through social media has opened the doors for mothers across the nation to lose sight of the potential risks of developing alcohol addiction. 

Challenges of Motherhood

Motherhood provides many rewarding moments throughout your child’s life including watching them experience their “firsts” in life; first steps, first words, the first day of school. However, throughout your child’s life, you will experience some of the negative moments and challenges in their life that can feel difficult to manage. While you are striving to do the best job you can with your children, it is common for mothers to worry or feel like their efforts are not enough for their children. While being a mother has its difficult moments, there is solace in knowing that every mother experiences some kind of challenges within their life and there is support for mothers. 

Common challenges that mothers will face are:

Self Medicating With Wine

As a new mom, there is a wide range of emotions that one can feel. While most will expect new mothers to feel excited and joyous, there are many mothers who enter into this new role with anxiety, fear, and, in some cases, postpartum depression. Your love for your children is unconditional and like no love you have ever experienced before but, with that immense amount of love, there comes a newly added amount of pressure to do right by your children. Every mother is trying to do the best they can with the tools they have which, as a new mother, is often learned by trial and error. Wanting to do right by your children while taking in the advice of others, reading about parenting through books, and wanting to conform to society’s standards for raising children can bring on added pressure and anxieties about your parenting styles and techniques. 

As you experience the highs and lows of emotions associated with new motherhood, finding a way to escape any negative emotions with the use of alcohol abuse can feel like an easy coping strategy. Wine mom culture has created a sense of normalcy for moms to feel that the only way and appropriate way to handle the stressors of parenting children is to indulge in wine consumption. However, the more you turn to alcohol abuse as a method of self-medicating and increase your rate of alcohol use, the more your body develops a physical dependency on alcohol creating a cycle of alcohol addiction. 

The Issue With “Wine Mom” Culture

Mothers across America have been confronted with the concept of “wine mom” culture through mainstream media and social media platforms. Hollywood has released many movies in recent years that depict mothers needing to have their time to unwind with a bottle (or two) or multiple glasses of wine to manage the tantrums of young kids and the expectations to raise your children within a societal standard. As wine mom culture becomes more and more popular, it creates a sense of discord from healthy coping strategies along with skewing the foundation of relationships between moms together. Instead of focusing on developing friendships with other mothers that are based on genuine care for one another, trust, and healthy conversations and past times, wine moms will connect over escaping the challenges of motherhood with entering intoxication to numb the uncomfortable emotions and momentarily forget about the hardships of raising children. 

Dangers of Alcohol Dependency Among Mothers

The dangers of mommy wine culture have been shown to increase the chances of developing an alcohol addiction or alcohol dependency. While alcohol addiction has a negative health risk that impacts a person’s overall health and wellbeing, there is a multitude of factors that can impact your capacity to care for your family and care for yourself. As your alcohol abuse increases, your ability to follow through on work and family commitments will become hindered as your focus shifts to your “mommy wine”. The ability to follow through on your household expectations and child-rearing methods often becomes affected as your drive and ambition dull with the rising amount of glasses of wine consumed. 

Alcohol addiction increases when there is a family history of substance abuse. The more you continue to engage in wine culture, the more your friends and families will become accustomed to witnessing you and your wine consumption. Having your children witness the depths of your alcohol dependency can create emotional trauma and pain for them that can last throughout their life. Children are receptive to what is going on around them and witnessing their mom engage in substance abuse can create unnecessary worry and concern within your children as they watch you attempt to manage life through drinking wine. While it is not your intention to place hurt on your children, this can cause your children to learn behaviors of substance abuse as a method of coping for when they are older. 

Alcohol Addiction Treatment for Moms

There is hope for mom to exit wine culture and heal from the depths of her alcohol addiction within an alcohol rehab program. Your addiction to alcohol did not occur overnight for no reason. Addiction is a progression over time caused by deep-rooted emotions, behaviors, and thoughts that have impacted your ability to cope and manage stressors and triggers within day-to-day life. Entering into rehab means that you will have the opportunity to address what has been fuelling your addiction and develop a new foundation for a life in recovery. 

For many mothers, the thought of leaving their children at home while they attend addiction treatment can create doubts if alcohol rehab is the best option for them. Allowing yourself the time to focus on your addiction recovery with the support of evidence-based therapy methods will help you to improve your ability to manage life’s ups and downs while being present and healthy for your children. There are varying levels of care for alcohol addiction treatment that include inpatient rehab where you will reside within the residential treatment facility and outpatient alcohol rehab programs that will allow you to attend the addiction recovery center during the day while being able to return home at night. 

Overcoming Alcohol Dependency at Resurgence

Resurgence Behavioral Health offers an alcohol rehab program that takes into account your specific needs to create a personalized treatment plan that will address your underlying cause of addiction to help you formulate a new way of life in recovery where you can heal from the past to move towards a healthy future in sobriety alongside your children. Our team utilizes the best in addiction sciences and treatment to help you overcome your alcohol addiction with the support of behavioral therapy, alternative methods of therapy, and holistic treatments. Contact the team at Resurgence today to find out more about the alcohol addiction treatment program you can engage in that will help you become the best version of yourself and as a mother with the transforming experience of alcohol rehab. 

Learn more about the potential issues with “wine mom” culture. #winemom #wineaddiction #alcoholaddictionhttps://t.co/MPCAtUhatp

— Resurgence Behavioral Health (@RBHRecovery) March 15, 2022

David Rofofsky
After growing up in New York, David chose to get help with substance abuse in California because of the state's reputation for top-tier treatment. There, he found the treatment he needed to achieve more than nine years of recovery. He's been in the drug and alcohol addiction rehab industry for eight years and now serves as the Director of Admissions for Resurgence Behavioral Health. David remains passionate about the field because he understands how hard it is to pick up the phone and ask for help. However, once the call is made, someone's life can be saved.

Research | Editorial