Not Just The Women Who Raised Us, But The Women Who Raised Us Well
My mother is like the Mānuka that grows fierce across the stretched landscape of the Motu, Aotearoa. Able to withstand long droughts and cold frosts, wet winters, and hot summers. Mānuka is the first seedling to pop up in an area of burnt off land. She, like the Mānuka rises from the ashes. Through wind, winter, rain, snow, drought, fire, she rises.
Rise. Rise. Rise.
This durability is by no means immunity. Strength is born through tough conditions, and she’s seen her fair share of weather.
We all have.
…
It is a funny thing, the stories we tell about ourselves and of others. The way we conceive them and conceal them. Our lives are crafted by the stories we tell and the stories the world tells us in return. What it is to a be a woman, a mother, a good mother. What as a woman, aging looks like, feels like. The way it turns the known skin into something foreign, a body morphed, changing, and burning from within. The world also tells us what it is to be a child, something no matter how old you are you will always be to the people that raised you – their child.
Alcoholism, then, is a thief of narratives; it preys on the stories we tell ourselves. It devours the roles we inhabit – the caregiver, the protector, the nurturer, the child, and replaces them with a relentless craving for a substance that promises solace but delivers chaos. Watching my mother’s descent into alcoholism felt like witnessing the gradual unravelling of our collective story. Each page once tightly woven into the binding of our lives now tearing at the spine.
I won’t forget the way it felt when I finally called it what it was, the way its vowels and consonants felt in my mouth. To find your mother passed out on the couch at 10am next to an empty glass is hard to describe. Not because I have no words, but because I can’t make them fit their subject, they seem clumsy next to the letters m u m. They don’t belong, yet somehow they do.
The topic of alcohol abuse is uncomfortable. While we have come a long way in the last few years in our understanding and treatment of mental illness, there is still stigma. Whether we like to admit it or not we still attach an image to what it means or looks like to be an alcoholic. We don’t, or at least I never did, think of it as an illness that could affect any functioning member of society, even our mothers. Not just the women who raised us, but the women who raised us well.
My mother was the best. She was the first car waiting at school pickup, the loudest on the side-lines at cross-country, she was always front row at speeches and plays and wrapped around my hand at doctors’ appointments and on scary first days. She made a beautiful home and filled it with a beautiful life. She is warm - like the sun, we always tell her. She’s the sort of woman who will end up talking to the postman for an hour and come away with his whole life story. She has this laugh that fills a room. As children my sisters and I would be embarrassed by its staccato, now we long for it.
All of that is to say, my mother didn’t always drink. I don’t know what it is to grow up with an alcoholic mother, but I do know what it is to return home to one.
Andrew Huberman, Professor and Neuroscientist at Stanford University, describes addiction as “the progressive narrowing of things that bring you pleasure”. While I can’t speak for my mother on that, I know that for those who live in close proximity to addiction, that ‘progressive narrowing’ feels like a pressure chamber, the crushing weight of gravity.
Being an alcoholic doesn’t happen all at once; it is gradual. It has a way of insinuating itself into the cracks of a life, much like the tendrils of ivy creeping up a neglected wall. It takes root quietly, almost imperceptibly, until one day, you’re staring at a façade that is no longer what it used to be.
My father was in denial, we all were, but him more so. He tried to pin the anger and slurred speech and forgetfulness to something more tangible, less autonomous. He booked in with a brain specialist in the hidden hopes of an early on-set Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Like somehow one disease starting with an A was more acceptable than the other, easier to look in the eye. The specialist of course found nothing, there was no Other forcing her hand, changing who she was. Seemingly there was no excuse. It is easier to tell people your wife has Alzheimer’s than to say she’s an Alcoholic. People can muster sympathy for that. Maybe, secretly, we could too.
Even though it often feels like it, my family are not alone in this experience. Around 70% of women will deal with some sort of mental health impact during menopause such as increased anxiety and depression– which can lead to heavier drinking.
Menopause, like many health challenges that afflict women, is still widely under researched and underfunded even though 51% of the population will go through it. Dr Claire Phipps, a Menopause specialist, says that she sees a lot of women in her clinic struggling with issues around alcohol abuse and other addictions. I sat down with her at her to understand more.
“Menopause can have a massive impact on women – it can make you feel anxious, overwhelmed and maybe lead to having that extra glass of wine because you need a bit of respite” she said. “That can escalate into drinking more heavily”
“While there is still not a lot of research on the effects of menopause specifically in relation to alcohol and substance abuse, it is known that during menopause, fluctuations in hormones alter the function of your brain. In particular it impacts the breakdown of stress neurotransmitters, the brains messaging system, which can put women at higher risk of looking for coping strategies such as heavier drinking,” she said.
Increased drinking is multifaceted, but the perimenopausal and menopausal stages can be the tipping point on top of other points of stress and predispositions. This was clear in my mother. Her drinking changed as she aged. To blame it entirely on menopause would be wrong. It’s more complex than that. Most things are. But it would also be wrong to ignore its weight as a contributing factor. Maybe if we collectively had a better understanding of menopause and its effects, and more importantly how to treat them, she wouldn’t have to be Mānuka, wouldn’t have to rise again.
Statistics show that women are most likely to experience heavy drinking between the ages of 45 and 64, with almost one in five exceeding the recommended alcohol limit each week. As Dr Phipps spoke, it became clear that what I was experiencing with my mother wasn’t happening in isolation. It was affecting far more women than it seemed society was willing to admit.
Researchers have shown that due to social stigma, women tend to struggle more with getting both access to treatment, and recovering from alcohol abuse than their male counterparts.
It makes me sad to think about all the women who have dealt with this in silence. The women who were left by their husbands or shunned by their communities or isolated themselves instead because society didn’t teach us what aging does to the female mind and body. Because we gave research grants to heart disease in men, erectile disfunction and male pattern baldness and didn’t equally give to research into menopause and addiction in women, or a plethora of other things that women alone face. Because god knows they do just that, face it alone.
When Mānuka flowers, it can leave a valley looking as though it is dusted with icing sugar. Tiny white flowers cover it. Its leaves however are sharp, when pressed they hurt. My mother is good at putting on a brave face, she is like those tiny white flowers, soft and perfect – but when pressed too hard she hurts, she is hurt.
Growing up is realising two stories can be true at the same time. You can be an alcoholic and a good mother. You can cause pain and you can ease it. You can feel love and disappointment, comfort and anxiety. You can feel heartbreak and hope.
Mānuka is the first seedling to pop up in an area of burnt off land. In doing so, it creates more favourable conditions in the soil to foster the regeneration of other trees. Through it all, I like to think that one day when the winds die down and the fire burns out, we too will rise again.
A family like a forest,
Rising, rising, risen.