Raising the Bottom

Making Mindful Choices in a Drinking Culture

Lisa Boucher

• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN:
  9781631522154
• Subtopic: Literary Essays

Have you ever wondered if social drinking has unintended consequences to your health, family, relationships, or your profession? Have you ever thought that losing control of your drinking couldn’t happen to you or someone you love? All the women you know are too smart. Too rich. Too kind. Too together. Too much fun. Pick one. We live in a boozy culture, and the idea of women and wine has become entrenched. Is your book club really a “wine club”? Do you crave the release a drink can bring to cope with anxiety, parenthood, the pressures of being a mom, a wife/partner, a professional? In Raising the Bottom, mothers, daughters, health professionals, and young women share their stories of why they drank, how they stopped, and the joys and rewards of being present in their lives once they kicked alcohol to the curb.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1: Crazy Is Normal, Right?
• 2: Blessed Break
• 3: Early Last Call
• 4: Raising the Bottom
• 5: I’m Supposed to Be Happy
• 6: Women and Alcohol: It’s Complicated
• 7: Flag’s A-Flyin’ and I’m Still Lyin’
• 8: What Your Kids Say about You and Your Drinking
• 9: One Step at a Time
• 10: Heroin Heartbreak: One Mother’s Perspective
• 11: Don’t Be a Violet
• 12: Out of the Grave
• 13: Doctors, Nurses, Hospitals, and Health Care
• 14: Spirit in the Rocks and Wind
• Note to Readers
• 15: Model Surgeon, Kidnapped!
• 16: All-American
• 17: Hurry, Drunk Dial Now!
• 18: Who, Me? Self-Supporting?
• 19: Saucy Socialite
• 20: Naughty in Nebraska
• 21: Babies and Booze
• 22: I Said I Do (Until I Don’t Anymore)
• 23: Just Beer
• 24: The Gin Stole the Gems
• Twelve Steps
• Acknowledgments
• Notes