Suzanne Warye, a sober mom of three from Wisconsin, worries about how the alcohol industry advertises to mothers.
Pink wine bottles and seltzer cans line store shelves with messages Warye says try to tell women they can be carefree again, like they used to be before having children.
“We are targeted now more than ever,” she said recently on WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” “Women are in the crosshairs of big alcohol.”
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Warye is a sobriety influencer who lives in Chicago and hosts The Sober Mom Life podcast. She also created a support group for moms who want to quit alcohol.
Before she stopped drinking in January 2020, she said she could moderate her alcohol consumption. She never called herself an alcoholic. Still, she despised her relationship with alcohol.
“I hated how exhausting moderation was,” she said. “I hated the mental games that I had to play.”
Warye said she drank a lot of alcohol while growing up in Wisconsin. It felt normal. Everyone around her was drinking, so she joined.
“It is a way of life in Wisconsin,” she said.
Wisconsin’s reputation for binge drinking is backed up by data. Wisconsin has higher rates of binge drinking than the rest of the country, according to a 2019 report by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. In 2020, Wisconsin had its sharpest rise in alcohol-related deaths in more than two decades.
Warye’s mission is to catch women before their alcohol consumption becomes an all-encompassing problem or becomes “that bad.”
“Moms drinking is just a sign that we need help,” she said. “Moms are drinking to cope, to escape, to numb. What we know is that it doesn’t work.”
In running a weekly support group for women and moms, Warye1 is trying to create that community she said mothers in particular so desperately need.
“Moms need a place where we can talk honestly about our relationship with alcohol,” she said. “We need a place where we can come together as moms and say, ‘You’re not alone. I have felt that, too. Keep talking. Keep sharing, and we can do this together.’”
If you or a loved one are struggling with addiction, call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration hotline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). You can also check out this list of free and low-cost addiction treatment centers in Wisconsin.
