Ann Dowsett Johnston - Wine as the Modern Women’s Steroid

Ann Dowsett Johnston, the best-selling author of Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol, has described the positioning of wine in popular culture as “The modern woman's steroid, enabling her to do everything she needs to do or tries to do”.  

And there’s one problem with that description of alcohol. It’s not true and it doesn't work.

Instead of helping the modern woman do everything she needs to do - wine is a mal-adpative, and highly addictive coping mechanism that’s exacerbating stress, anxiety and depression for the modern woman. 

On the podcast today Ann and I unpack the complicated and intimate relationship between women and alcohol. 

We talk about: 

• How drinking after a long day of work has become a universal practice. It’s being repeated in house after house as women are standing at their kitchen counters in the evening and pouring themselves a glass (or a bottle) of wine. 
• How successful, professional women are increasingly struggling with drinking even as they rise high on the corporate ladder.
• How women are using alcohol to self-medicate anxiety, depression, loss and loneliness - including suffering through events like empty-nest syndrome and depression in menopause. 
• How the messaging that “Mom needs to drink to get through her day, life, kids and work” is being pushed on us - in surround sound - in popular culture and by our alcogenic society. 
• Why are you able to move forward in a healthy way only once you get out of the drinking cycle. You’re finally able to work through underlying issues of anxiety, codependency, trauma, depression, and other factors that are driving you to drink. 
• Why the growing movement of women telling their stories of drinking and quitting drinking, with pride and not shame, is helping other women recover in a way that the culture of anonymity in AA does not. 
• Why it’s so important for women who want to stop drinking to develop many layers of support to heal - which can include connecting with women on the alcohol-free path, reading books and memoirs of women who have stopped drinking, learning about the science of alcohol and what it does to your body and mind, joining support programs and creating new coping mechanisms through psychotherapy, counseling or with a sober or addiction coach. 
• How you can build layers of support to help you change your relationship with drinking - through psychotherapy, coaching, other women in private free Facebook groups online or in person, books, exercise, nutrition and more. 

About Ann Dowsett Johnston

Anne Dowsett Johnston is the best-selling author of the book Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol. It was named by the Washington Post as one of the top 10 books of 2013. Ann is a psychotherapist who provides trauma informed relational care to clients with a focus on women in recovery, and works from a holistic perspective using the principles of focusing oriented psychotherapy, to bring awareness and compassion to the mind-body connection. Ann also offers an online eight week course on Writing Your Recovery based on her decades of experience as a journalist and a best selling author on memoir and writing your recovery.

Links and Resources mentioned in this episode

Stephanie Wilder-Taylor article on A Heroine of Cocktail Moms Sobers Up

Connect with Ann Dowsett Johnston

Website: http://www.anndowsettjohnston.com

Book: Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol

TEDx talk on drinking and how it changed Ann’s life: