Diane Schuler: Secret Alcoholic?

Diane Schuler had a few tokes and who knows how much booze on the last day of her life. She then drove the wrong way on a state highway, crashed headfirst into an SUV, and killed the three men in that vehicle, along with her three young nieces, her 2-year-old daughter, and herself. Her blood alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit. A broken bottle of Absolut vodka was found under the passenger seat in the wreckage of her car.

Was she an alcoholic? Very likely. You have to have a history of drinking to walk around, let alone drive, with that kind of blood alcohol level. In any case, she is now part of a growing statistic: drunk driving is rising among women while falling among men. The FBI says that, nationally, the number of women arrested for DUI was 28.8% higher in 2007 than it was in 1998, while it was 7.5% lower for men.

And women are the ones most often driving with kids in the car. As a spokesperson for MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) said: "It's the ultimate form of child abuse." And that drunk driver could be anyone. In a Chicago suburb, the daughter of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was sentenced to 18 months of court supervision after being pulled over by police for driving drunk; she had three kids in the car.

Alcohol. The great social lubricant. The two-martini client lunch, pina coladas at the family barbeque, the celebratory champagne toast, the college kegger, the cocktail party.

Alcoholism. Choosing friends because they drink. Sneaking another glass of wine when no one's looking. Finding excuses to drink. Drinking alone. Spiking coffee with vodka. Hiding bottles under the laundry. Waking up hung over.

I know it all -- the secret stashes, the coffee cup that no one questions, the quick pick-me-up(s) during the work day, the clients who would join me in a "little something" during a meeting, the pride when men would say, "Wow, you can drink me under the table."

Why can some people enjoy a daily glass of wine and never crave more than that, while others drink a bottle of wine a day and swear they're not alcoholics?

My folks didn't drink because my father had been an alcoholic who stopped drinking when I was four years old.

I started drinking when I was 15, when my roommate from boarding school invited me to spend a week in Las Vegas with her. Her mother's boyfriend took us out to dinner in a casino and ordered spiked Shirley Temples for us. In the bathroom, I looked in the mirror and asked the girl I saw there, "Who are you?" I liked her personality so much better than mine! If only I knew then who I was to become. Research shows that how people respond to their first drink indicates if they will be light drinkers or tend to abuse alcohol.


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