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When ‘live, laugh, love’ means 'pour me another'

1 day 5 hours ago


There is a particular aesthetic that holds sway in vast territories of modern motherhood: the throw pillow stitched with Live Laugh Love, the stemless wine glass reading Mommy’s Sippy Cup, the Instagram reel joking that bedtime is encroaching on wine time.

We’re meant to laugh and recognize ourselves in it. It’s harmless humor, we’re told. A coping mechanism. A wink at how hard motherhood can be and why we deserve a mental “break.”

Alcohol allows us to take the edge off without ever naming what’s wrong, smoothing the dissonance between what we feel and what we think we should feel.

But what if the joke isn’t harmless? What if this cultural script, especially the version adapted and shared among Christian women, teaches mothers that it’s better to cope than to heal? What if the cost isn’t just personal, but burdensome for their children in ways that may not appear for years to come?

Jokingly giving women permission to booze it up guilt-free has helped wine sales skyrocket. Along the way, we’ve seen the rates of women dying from alcohol-related illnesses increase by 35%.

These numbers aren’t a coincidence. Overdrinking has become an acceptable way of life, and it is destructive in ways women don’t realize when they first pick up a glass.

Trading hope for cope

Motherhood is exhausting, in both good and hard ways. We’re raising children in an era of constant stimulation, economic pressure, social isolation, and relentless comparison. Many are doing this with less community support than ever before. Their fatigue is real, and feeling overwhelmed is justified.

But reaching for wine doesn't fix the problem. It just makes it worse.

Instead of offering meaningful support or naming the loneliness created by distance from extended family and lives increasingly lived through screens, our culture handed women a temporary salve for wounds that require real presence and care.

Never mind that alcohol worsens anxiety, disrupts sleep, and wreaks havoc with emotional regulation.

This “wine-mom” culture didn’t emerge accidentally. It was marketed by alcohol companies that realized mothers were an untapped demographic. They rebranded drinking as self-care, reward, and relief.

Christians didn’t stand apart from this trend. We joined it because it felt respectable and far removed from the caricature of addiction we were taught to fear. We weren’t legalists, after all.

In my book "Freely Sober: Rethinking Alcohol Through the Lens of Faith," I argue that Christian women have been lured into the same trap — and need a pathway out.

Intervarsity Press

Women's work-around

Christian women are often taught, explicitly or implicitly, to be grateful, content, and joyful no matter their circumstances. Complaining feels sinful, and naming dissatisfaction feels unspiritual.

Alcohol becomes a work-around. It allows us to take the edge off without ever naming what’s wrong, smoothing the dissonance between what we feel and what we think we should feel. It offers temporary relief without asking hard questions.

And because wine is so normalized — at times celebrated — no one intervenes. In fact, friends often encourage it. Churches rarely question it, and the jokes keep coming, even from those who are well-meaning. Overconsumption becomes a socially acceptable sin, and then we feel ashamed when it is hard to quit or cut back.

Numbing out

Most mothers who participate in wine culture are not falling-down drunk. I was a Christian mom, and to the rest of the world, I appeared to be thriving. Like many women, I was functional — which made the problem easy to ignore.

But our families don’t just get the part of us that keeps it together at the office or always makes it to the gym. They get us in every hard and holy moment. And a mother who is emotionally dulled night after night is less present, even if she’s physically there.

A mother who relies on alcohol to cope is often quicker to irritability and slower to patience. She’s less attuned to her children’s needs, less engaged in conversations, and less available for the simple moments where connection is built. Alcohol dulls perception, and children often communicate distress in the quietest ways — ways that are easy to miss. I know I did.

Children notice more than we think. They learn how adults handle stress, observe what celebration looks like, and internalize the message that hard feelings are something to escape, not endure. The damage of wine-mom culture is rarely dramatic, and that’s where the danger is. It erodes slowly, normalizing emotional absence and teaching that numbing out is fine.

Live, laugh, lie

The slogan itself is revealing when you look at it this way:

Live — avoid suffering.
Laugh — drown discomfort in humor.
Love — indulge yourself first.

It is a shallow creed for a culture allergic to pain. Christianity offers a radically different vision. It does not promise escape from suffering, but promises meaning within it. It does not offer numbing, but transformation. Alcohol promises rest, but Christ actually gives it.

Wine is a counterfeit, temporary relief that ultimately does more harm than good when taken in excess. The gospel does not call women to white-knuckle their pain, but neither does it tell them to anesthetize it. True rest comes from truth-telling, community, repentance, and renewal, not a drug-based substitute.

The hardest easy

For years, I believed the joke, or pretended to. I wasn’t reckless or spiraling and told myself I was just doing what everyone else was doing. Drinking to unwind, to cope, to feel “normal” again.

But slowly, I realized that alcohol promised something it could never deliver. It made hard days easier (for a few hours), but meaningful growth harder (for years). I justified my drinking based on cultural encouragement, running from the idea that sobriety might be a better choice for me.

When I finally quit drinking five years ago, sobriety didn’t magically fix my life, but it forced me to face it honestly — and that is the beginning of freedom. I want other women to know they too can feel that freedom.

RELATED: 3 healthy habits to bring you closer to God in 2026

Bettman/Getty Images

Choosing clarity

In modern America, mothers are often told they are victims — of systems, expectations, and circumstances beyond their control.

What we really need is permission to tell the truth — to admit hardship, even when it forces us to confront the ways we have chosen to cope with it. We need communities and opportunities that acknowledge this season of life without offering numbing as the solution. We need churches willing to name alcohol honestly, not as a forbidden fruit, but as a false savior. We need friendships built on presence, not punch lines or escape rooms.

Most of all, we need to hear that our motherhood struggles aren’t a failure. The desire to overcome the hard moments is totally normal, and it is understandable that we would look for an easy way to do so. But there are better, healthier ways to walk through these times. One of the most countercultural things a mother can do today is stay awake to her own life.

Choosing clarity, and the courage to seek better ways to live, changes a woman, her relationship with God, her family, and the mark she leaves on the world.

Ericka Andersen

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Minneapolis ICE protesters are BEGGING for civil war — and we need to take them seriously

1 day 6 hours ago


Liberal protesters have descended upon Minneapolis following the ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good — and after viewing footage from the protests, BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales can’t help but get “civil war vibes.”

“I do take them seriously that they want violence,” Gonzales says. “OK, I want to be clear. I do take them seriously that they are trying to take down America from within and that they do very much want a civil war.”

“Over the weekend, you’ve got more civil unrest, once again, you have all of these people putting their lives on the line to protest and obstruct ICE agents who are there to round up criminals. Like that’s all there is to it. They are there to cause a problem for the law enforcement officials who went out there to round up actual criminals,” she continues.

One clip from the weekend protests even shows a man screaming that he plans to buy a gun and learn how to use it because it’s “time for armed resistance against the United States of America.”


“First of all, I need the administration to take this very seriously. They need to take this extremely seriously. Any of these protesters who are out there threatening these ICE agents who are out there threatening, saying, ‘I’m going to get a gun and then I’m going to kill you,’ should be arrested,” Gonzales says.

“You’ve gone far over freedom of speech. You do not get to threaten someone with murder. You’re not allowed to do that. You know how I know? I’ve had people prosecuted for doing the same thing. You are not allowed to do that,” she continues.

And Gonzales can’t help but notice that the reason for their protest is about as ridiculous as it was the last time Minneapolis saw riots.

“And this is the state of leftism. They are rioting over a chick who tried to protect Somali criminals from being deported. And that is why I’m saying this is actually worse. People protesting this are actually like, this is actually dumber than the George Floyd protests,” she says.

“It’s actually dumber ... if you obstruct ICE, if you make the wrong decision, if you put their life on the line and they are forced to defend themselves or their partners or any other innocent people, they will do that,” she adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

BlazeTV Staff

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Biden-voting Secret Service agent stripped of security clearance after spilling beans to undercover reporter

1 day 6 hours ago


The U.S. Secret Service has placed an agent assigned to Vice President JD Vance's protective detail on administrative leave after he allegedly divulged sensitive security secrets to an undercover female reporter.

In footage published on Tuesday by investigative journalist James O'Keefe, USSS agent Tomas Escotto appears to share various specifics regarding Vance's security detail with the reporter as well as photos revealing the methods used to transport the vice president.

'When one person falls short, it places an added burden on colleagues who are left to rebuild trust.'

"What we uncovered is troubling," said O'Keefe, who indicated that the engagements took place in the wake of the attempted break-in at Vance's Cincinnati home. "We hope that bringing this to light strengthens security and helps prevent future vulnerabilities in our government."

The video and text messages published by O'Keefe appear to show that Escotto, a self-identified Biden voter, provided the reporter with:

  • real-time locations of the vice president;
  • insights into Vance's future travel plans;
  • the particulars of how far ahead and behind agents walk in relation to Vance;
  • the security detail's shift schedule;
  • photographs taken on duty containing location metadata; and
  • photographs providing insights into how the vice president's vehicle is secured and stored for international travel.

After indicating in the footage that he only received his citizenship in 2018, Escotto criticizes the Trump administration's immigration policies, stating, "They're deploying tactics that shouldn't be deployed."

RELATED: Georgetown prof starts running after realizing he's talking to James O'Keefe — and his racial 'slurs' are on camera

Al Drago-Pool/Getty Image

O'Keefe noted that ahead of publishing the video, his team coordinated with the USSS, redacting sensitive operational details at their request.

Blaze News has reached out to Vance's office for comment.

Deputy Secret Service Director Matthew Quinn confirmed in a statement to O'Keefe that the incident is under investigation and "the employee involved has been placed on administrative leave with his clearance suspended and access to agency facilities and systems revoked."

The USSS is now also requiring all personnel to retake the agency's anti-espionage training "in order to ensure employees are aware of the threats posed by individuals aiming to exploit agency employees for information about our protective operations."

Quinn said in a memo to USSS employees that was obtained by O'Keefe, "Over the past several months, an agency employee was deliberately targeted and manipulated by a citizen-journalism media organization that misrepresented itself in an effort to get close to the employee and expose sensitive information. This is the second time in less than a year that our personnel have been subjected to this same deceptive tactic."

"When one person falls short, it places an added burden on colleagues who are left to rebuild trust that each of us works hard every day to earn and protect," added Quinn.

Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet was among those who emphasized the gravity of O'Keefe's damning exposé, stating, "This is one of the most disturbing videos I've seen in some time. Those tasked with protecting the president, VP, and their families should be a top national priority."

"That a Secret Service agent could be leaking sensitive information and endangering their lives is a national security threat of the highest importance," added Kolvet.

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, noted, "The Secret Service is a dangerous mess."

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Joseph MacKinnon