I was overjoyed to see 20/20 this Friday April 30 as the media finally got it right. Instead of women with no teeth falling down in the Bowery, or women being drunken sluts at bars, they showed a soccer mom, a Harvard graduate, a housewife and lots of mothers with young children. This is truly what the face of female alcoholism looks like, just everyday people who are addicted and can’t shake it. These women drank in a way that was real, drinking wine, hiding it, denying it, and being sick of it and not being able to stop. That’s what alcoholism is, you just can’t stop no matter who loves you, no matter how much you want to, no matter how much you know you are hurting your family.
Several of the women went into treatment at Orchid Recovery Center in Lake Worth, FL where they specialize in gender specific treatment. For many women, going away for treatment is vital to their progress. They have usually discussed it with family members and on some level feel the have been given permission to get well. Women get so guilty about doing anything for themselves and mothers especially tend to put themselves last on the list. Women also do much better when there are no men to distract them and take the spotlight.
I like the way 20/20 respected anonymity and gave such a close up look at the denial and the reality of the disease. Even though one woman went to treatment, two weeks after she got out she was drunk again. This is the heartbreak of it, treatment is just the beginning. Then you have to learn how to live without the help of oblivion. They say treatment is for discovery, not recovery.
This TV show validated women, it honored the attention that needs to be paid to mothers, and showed that even respected people can be afflicted with this horrible progressive disease.
I hope it does for women what Betty Ford did for me when she finally got sober. When my mother heard that Betty Ford was an alcoholic, it was finally ok with her that I was an alcoholic too. Anonymity is critical, but not everyone yet understands the disease and a simplified perspective often just does the trick. I am hopeful many many women will benefit from the 20/20 presentation.