But it’s Wine Night!

Flipping through the channels on TV, I stumbled upon the Real Housewives of Whatever. Within 5 minutes of watching, I saw about five housewives, all with a glass of wine in their hand. As I continued to watch, I noticed that a majority of the episode consisted of drinking. Go to lunch, get a glass of wine. Go to dinner, get a glass of wine. Get a manicure, get a glass of wine. You get the point. The casual manner in which these women drank made me wonder…has it always been like this? In a culture dominated by shows like Sex and the City, which revolves around fabulous activities like drinking cosmos at the hottest new clubs, and Real Housewives where drinking bottles of wine on a Tuesday lunch date is normal, how can the general population of women not be affected?

About six million women are dependent on alcohol in U.S. according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. Subsequently, the number of DUI arrests for women rose a shocking 30 percent between 1998 and 2007. This comes to no surprise seeing as how over 720,000 women follow “Moms Who Need Wine” on Facebook. Several Real Housewives cast mates have even introduced their own wine brands.

Perhaps since alcohol brands, like Skinnygirl Margaritas, Cupcake, and Girls’ Night Out, are now geared towards women, the issue is masked with the pretense of being fun and exciting instead of an actual problem in need of treatment. Between 1999 and 2008, the number of women admitted to the emergency room for being dangerously intoxicated rose by a whopping 52%. At risk of stating the obvious, substance abuse is clearly a growing problem among women.