Growing up, everyone I knew drank alcohol. In my small midwestern town, drinking was What you did. When I was in high school, we cruised back roads and skipped school. When I was in college, drinking all the time was the norm. Now as a Mom, drinking and mommy wine culture is the norm.

Being a mom is hard and drinking makes it easier. Or at least that is what the world wants you to believe.

I saw my drinking as totally normal until my mid twenties. I was bartending at the time and drank most nights that I worked. I would always say I wouldn’t drink that night at the beginning but by the end I always had a beer in my hand.

When I got pregnant with my daughter I was a college graduate but was bartending full time. I lost 15 pounds the first couple months of pregnancy because I immediately quit drinking, which wasn’t a problem for me at all at the time. It was almost as though my body just didn’t want it anymore.

After my daughter was born, I remember feeling like I had something to prove. Like I wanted to prove that I was a good mom, and that I didn’t have a problem with alcohol.

Drinking is normalized for moms. Its how we get by. How we cope. And yet again I was just doing what everyone else was doing, right? Mommy needs her wine.