I can’t start a book until I have a title, and the idea for this book materialized out of the ethers. One day, it was just there. I said a prayer: God if you want me to write that book you will have to give me a title. Two days later, I had a visual of the title, Raising the Bottom. It was as if a banner slipped inside my head, and I knew that was the title. I know it sounds woo-woo, but that’s the truth. I like the title because it’s also a concept. There’s always some area in all of our lives that we can improve upon. We can all find some room for improvement, somewhere in our life. Right? “Raising the Bottom” … the concept of becoming a better person. It’s timeless.

My hope is that women, especially, will understand that drinking 3-5 nights a week—or more—is not social drinking. People who are alcohol dependent, and many young women who are already alcoholics, continue to call themselves “social drinkers.” Society has lowered the bar so much. Daily, and constant, drinking has become acceptable.

Early alcoholism often manifests as anxiety and depression. I would like to encourage women and men to face the truth. If they struggle with anxiety and depression, but they refuse to cut out the alcohol, they are probably already in trouble with alcohol. Most people would rather take antidepressants than quit drinking. (That right there should tell them something.)

There is still a stigma about alcoholics, that they look like the homeless guy under the bridge, but people need to understand that alcoholics look like everyone. I’ve seen alcoholics as young as 14 years old. I would like for people to be mindful of what they model to kids. Kids hear our jokes about needing wine or the flippant comments about pharmaceuticals like Vicodin and Ativan. We need to start being mindful of our actions and start asking the hard questions: Is this who I want to be? Do I want to be the drunk, fun, party mom, or the sane, sober, confident mom? Why do we glamorize the fun mom, and berate the sober mom for not being “fun” enough? We, as a society, need to flip the script.

I also hope that readers will reevaluate their drinking patterns. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says the best way to diagnose whether you’re an alcoholic is by this: can you have 2 drinks—and no more? If you even once lose control and drink more than two drinks, then you have already lost control of your drinking. People don’t want to hear that, but if you have to drink more and more, and you lose control over the amount you drink, that’s alcoholism.

The hardest part was to write about my childhood. Believe me, I toned it down. The insanity in our house as a result of my mother’s alcoholism was tragic in many ways. Although we can look back and laugh at much of it now, my siblings and I were all very affected at the time. I wanted to paint a picture of what “family disease” means. No matter how you couch it, it’s not pleasant to look at the mess that an active alcoholic or drug addict in a home can create. The alcoholic inflames everyone around them.

It was time. For over twenty years, my mom wanted me to write a book about alcoholism. It just wasn’t there. She died in 2011, and two or three years later, Raising the Bottom (the book and my cute logo) just hit me. I knew it was time to do a book for women about alcoholism. I know the subject intimately, from every angle. I knew what I had to write, and I knew that I was no longer embarrassed to talk about my alcoholism, or my mother’s and my sister’s, and I also found the courage to call it like I see it in the healthcare setting.