HOW THE MEDIA  INFLUENCES WOMEN ON DRINKING

WK 7  

The messages about women being so weak we have to drink are out there in your face like nobody’s business. The Media’s Role in women’s drinking is out of control and needs to stop. 

 Take a look at these movies and TV shows. 

Bridget Jones Diary: Single, lonely and the only way to cope with her life is to get SHIT face. 

Clickbait: New series on Netflix, the group of women are concerned and mourning the loss of a husband/brother. They can’t seem to have a conversation without pouring some wine. Whatever happened to putting on a pot of coffee/tea during times of mourning. 

WORKING MOMS: Being a mother is so fucking hard they have to wait for 5 pm to finally guzzle down the wine, being a stay-at-home mom is even more depressing so we have the pill popper mom who also has to have a drink at noon. 

Ginny and Georgia: Single mom, fashionista, sexy woman for sure, but she can’t seem to live without wine. After-work wine, teenage problems wine. She prompted drinking wine that I felt like going out and getting some to embody her badassness. Then came the teenage daughter role, where getting drunk was the way to be free. What are we telling our kids, that go ahead try it and it’s okay if you have a hangover, the only worst thing that can happen is you end up in rehab? 

Sex in the City: come on now do I even have to mention the drink they are so famously known for ?. Cosmopolitan, I remember seeing that drink on the famous HBO Sex in the City and telling myself, when I become successful that is what I’ll be drinking when I go out. Does girl’s night really have to be with booze always? 

BAD MOMS CHRISTMAS: “there no way I can do this sober”. Wow like really is shopping and being a mother that BAD. Being a mother is wonderful, but we as mothers have to learn how to say and stop going overboard with the Shit Show we try to perform every year. 

The list goes on and on. 

Don’t get me started on how some celebrities push and push big Alcohol Brands. 

What gets me mad is that some of these famous celebrities openly come out saying they have suffered mental illness and then they are coming out with their own wine/champagne/vodka, like how the F*CK does that make sense. 

We have been so conditioned to be sold on everything that we fail to see what’s really going on. 

No, drinking is not kool, yes it does damage your body, mind and soul. Let’s not forget besides trying to keep up with all the other products they sell us on, this one thing called Alcohol is the most damaging to our society. 

The media’s influence on women’s drinking is DAMAGING. 

It will take a long time before the media stops promoting Alcohol, it will take a long time before women decide that drinking is not doing them any good, it will take a long time for women being okay in their bodies and themselves. 

MEDIA IN TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

I am currently residing in Trinidad and Tobago and the Media’s Influential drinking culture is extremely overwhelming. I am guaranteed to see at least 5 billboards promoting alcohol and a bar about every mile. I have been told by many visitors to the island that they have never seen humans drink so much. It’s true I myself have never seen humans drink as much as Trinidadians do. 

The sad part about the media’s Influence on Women’s drinking in Trinidad is that there are still not enough rehabs centers for women, to be honest, I am not sure they even have any. Here on the island, I haven’t been able to find one rehab centre for women pertaining to addiction, not one online group, not one support centre, nothing, but for domestic violence, I was able to find help. 

I see something extremely wrong with that. For one it shows the main issue being  Dometic violence, but I am sure if I dig deeper I’ll find out that most of these domestic cases were a result of alcohol or an alcoholic.

 I also think if Alcohol is going to be so heavily promoted, then there should be more resources for addiction. Addiction has no gender or race, so why in an island full of Alcoholics is there not enough support ?. 

As the Trini’s would say “pick sense out of non-sense” 

What’s so wrong with being sober anyway ?. 

There is nothing wrong with choosing to live a sober lifestyle, I was just fooled into thinking I need to be drinking poison to have a high rank, be fun, be sexy, and be one of the guys. ( I have a vag, what the hell was I thinking, I could never be one of the guys”..silly me) 

We really need to stop putting so much pressure on each other, especially women. We need to listen more, pay attention more. If we don’t stop this addictive culture our whole universe is going to end up drunk. 

I AM DANGEROUSLY SOBER 

This week 8 for me was a rant because I am so fed up with trying to be a woman everyone else is telling me I should be. 

They sold us on the idea that if she drinks whisky she is a dangerous woman. I want to be dangerous. Do you know why ?. because I am living in fear. I am in fear that I’ll never be able to keep up with the men “I’m supposed to be”, fear that I am not good enough for the positions I hold at my job, fear that I am not mother enough, fear that I am not skinny enough, fear that I won’t fit in, fear that I am ageing too fast and when I was younger I was ageing too slow. So yeah, when I hear the word dangerous I want to be just that. I want all the fears to go away. 

I don’t think I need booze in my system to be dangerous anymore. I need to heal the parts of me that need healing and just be ME. 

I am taking my own kind of dangerous and I’ll just be me. Now how is that for living on the edge? Scary is what it is. 

But this is what healing is about, this is what breaks the cycle of generations to come. It’s for us to sit with ourselves and say enough is enough. From now on I am dangerously sober AF.