Women taking a radical political and moral stand to save their marriages and protect their children from the evils of Alcoholic drinking… 

I am anticipating and open

to learn from the many quotes of the wisdom of the ages,

which I believe came from their spiritual hearts,

which was their connection with God’s Spirit.

So in reality true divine wisdom originates in our spiritual hearts.

Many strong women prayed and prayed

for God to help their husbands to get sober.

Many are still praying and pleading to God today, right this minute.

Asking God if they

Are they to stay or to leave their marriage or what action

God wants them to take

with their alcoholic or addicted husband who is

Physically deteriorating in front of their eyes and

who is hurting and getting sicker

and who has now reverted to

constantly putting them down

which is slowly chipping away at their self esteem

and self worth.

I can empathize with their situation.

You may laugh at this next picture;

however, if you are living with an alcoholic or addict

or have lived with one,

you will deeply understand the depth of the message

behind this nibbled message.

It is real folks…

This applies to the alcoholic and also to those who love them and live with them.

The alcoholic and addict are getting sicker and sicker.

What is the wife and mother to do?

Do they take action?

What action might that be?

or Do they live or stay?

Many wives stay because of their children.

At least their child can see one sober parent and

know they are not alone.

This is where Alanon

(12 step spiritual program for people who need to take care of themselves while living with an alcoholic)

or deal with the damage that was done to them

as a direct result of

the disease of alcoholism.

I stopped drinking alcohol and

became that sober parent who could,

with the support of others

live with an active drinking alcoholic.

I kept learning how to not get pulled

into their crazy and insane thinking

and realized

“I could not control their alcoholic

out of control drinking

and could not control

the negative toxic behaviors

that started to emerge on a regular basis.

I didn’t cause it and I can’t cure them.

I could only take care of myself and

I came to

believe that the only

person I needed to change was me.

I needed to Stay on the Al-Alanon 12 step program and

Stay focused on my recovery

instead of their disease.

Allow the drinker to suffer the consequences

of their disease and

pray that they get help.

Some of you may judge these women

in history

who took a stand as crazy and insane and

just chalk them up as radicals;

however, maybe just maybe

God did speak to their spiritual heart

and tell them to rise up and make their voices known.

Some of these mothers felt God was not hearing,

so in desperation,

they also rose up and took drastic measures

to rally the troops which

in the long run,

brought public awareness of the severity

of “living with an alcoholic husband” and

the “dangers of alcoholic drinking”

to their children and to the family unit.

They were not killing anyone,

they were just destroying the booze and

the pointing a finger at the establishments

that were providing the booze

to corrupting their husbands and

thus providing an easy available entising avenue

to destroy their families and

thus destroy their children and

destroy their food supply and shelter.

Food and shelter are a basic human need.

When deprived of these needs

This taps into the “Flight or fight” mode.

Look at the other basic needs

How many of these are destroyed by

Someone’s alcoholic drinking?

Do you see where this is going?

Some of these courageous women of the past,

as crazy at it sounds,

felt God was telling them to rise up and

take the radical stands that they took?

I employ you to develop this mindset as we progress

down this spiritual path back in history.

As you read further, you decide?

Let’s be open to hear from the divine wisdom in our spiritual hearts.

I was clearly led by the Spirit

to go down this historical pathway first,

before sharing my Personal Holy War with alcohol

and the alcoholic in my life.

Maybe I will be led to share parts of my personal story along the way.

Here we go on a journey into to the past

to gain wisdom, strength and hope.

Look

at this lithograph again.

Very carefully

What do you see?

Womans Holy War – Grand Charge on the Enemy’s Works

Published 1874 by Currier & Ives

Subject: Political Cartoon – Women’s Movement –Temperance & Women’s Rights – 1870-1880

Titled: Woman’s Holy War, Grand Charge on the Enemy’s Works

Portraying virtuous armored women warriors (riding sidesaddle

and little girls riding horseback with armor (shields)

trying the only way they knew how to take a stand and

bring to the political forefront the reality and dangers of pubs, bars and excess drinking,

to protect themselves from the dangers and consequences they are experiences with their husband’s drinking of alcohol and

the dangers and consequences and how it affected and harmed their marriages and their children.

The Enemy of the Woman’s Holy War was alcohol and

the only solution they saw was to destroy the supply, close the taverns who served alcohol and

make the sale of alcohol illegal.

The “Holy War” was the nineteenth-century crusade

for temperance and prohibition,

whose advocates were predominantly clergymen and women.

Here a young woman in armor on a black horse,

Foremost woman bears the shield of the

(Old Senate Chamber of US Capital Building, seal of US and US flag)

Signifying goal of patriotic and political motives to

Changing laws and the amendments to the United States constitution

leads a group of similarly garbed women on foot and on horseback.

With large battle-axes, Carrie-Nations-style

to destroy and shatter barrels of beer, whiskey, gin, rum, and “Wine & Liquors.”

The leg of a fleeing miscreant (one who behaves badly) fleeing man is just visible at lower right.

In the background are two banners:

“In the Name of God and Humanity” and

“Temperance League.”

Women were fighting multiple battles –

Temperance Movement – Social movement against consumption of alcoholic beverages

19th and 20th centuries – temperance movement in English speaking Scandinavian Protestant one, to Canada, Norway and the United States, as well as provincial prohibition in India.

• Alcohol education on alcohol’s negative effects on health, personalities and families

• Promotes passage of alcohol laws on use, abuse, sales, regulations

• Temperate (moderate) use or

• Abstinence from Alcohol (Teetotalism as a virture)

• Sufferage

The background to this is that much of the drinking went on in male-only gathering places in 1874,

and working-class men too often went straight from the factory gates to the saloon on pay-days,

and drank and gambled away much of the money that their families needed to survive.

Much wife-beating and abusive parenting was done when husbands were drunk. Even many well-off middle-class and upper-class wives (who were not victims of spousal abuse, and whose economic situation was not threatened by their husbands’ drinking) felt somewhat resentful and neglected when their husbands spent too many nights out at all-male convivial events (almost invariably involving drinking and sexual encounters).

Many women saw alcohol prohibition

as a highly-desirable social reform which would ameliorate many of these problems –

and women banding together to take collective action relieving the sense of personal helplessness

that women often felt about their individual situations.

Looking at this photo of the Womans Holy War speaks volumes to me.

Oh my God, I love the bravery and courage of these women.

I can empathize with their hatred of alcohol

because I walked and lived and experienced

the same abandonment

(physical, emotional and spiritual)

from a loved one, a husband,

who got caught up and held captive and

metamorphized by the disease of alcoholism

These mothers and children had

no control over their husband’s and father’s

choice to drink.

They were desperate to do whatever

it took to get them

to stop drinking alcohol.

They were suffering and

their children were suffering.

This is an horrific picture;

however, a child living in an alcoholic family,

can feel this crazy and

feel the insane emotional pain

of living with an alcoholic father.

The wives and mothers

needed to do something!!!

Their choices may not have been the best choice;

however,

they needed to do something…

They decided they could try to

• Destroy the supply chain and

rid society of all alcohol

• Destroy the barrels of booze

• Get rid of The Bars

(so their husbands had no place to go to after work)

• Get rid of the temptation

to drink in the saloons

• Close the saloons

• Stop the manufacturing of alcohol beverages

• Make alcohol illegal to sell

• They could change the laws by legislation

• They could push abstinence

We now know that abstinence is the only thing that works with the alcoholic because of the physical craving and the mental obsession that starts with the first drink.

Also if they never take that first drink of alcohol,

they will never get drunk

• They could push for temperance of drinking alcohol

(Women’s Christian Temperance Union) WCTU

The Women got organized and took action:

Any avenue that would eliminate

their husband’s access to the deadly alcohol,

thus making it more difficult for

their husbands to get the deadly poison

(out of sight, out of mind)

(Temptation was at least hidden from view, not front and center)

Why do you suppose we are going back in history?

Why wasn’t I taught this part of American history

in high school or college?

This knowledge would have helped me cope,

knowing that other women

in the past dealt with the same dilemma,

“a hatred of the collateral damage of alcohol consumption”.

Why was this part of history omitted in our history classes?

I have a feeling I will be showing you

more photos and lithographs from the past

depicting the sentiments and issues of that time period

as it relates to alcohol use, abuse and addiction

I employ you to study the photos and observe

what messages

the spirit is sending to you through those photos.

Creator: Currier and Ives

Title: “The Fruits of Temperance”

Publication:

Publication Date: 1848

Description: The Temperance Movement called for moderation and abstaining from alcohol.

The argument was that alcohol consumption encouraged vice, violence, crime, destitution, and drinkers were more susceptible to poor health.

Supporters of temperance tried at first to use moral persuasion to convince the American public to come around to their position.

The printers at Currier and Ives encouraged pious living and attempted to show the positive influence of temperance, as they see them. Source: JB Allen in New York. Folder: Temperance Plan Putinski

This photo showed the rewards of temperance

(moderation and or totally obtaining from drinking any alcoholic beverage, whatsoever)

Now I understand why many religious groups preached and

developed a “no drinking any alcohol” policy.

I never understood this before.

This research is answering one of the questions I had about why my childhood church,

the church of the Brethren,

They also witnessed the collateral damage alcohol was doing to their families in their churches.

Church of the Brethren

Members of the Church of the Brethren have repeatedly spoken the words “moderation in all things; abstinence from harmful things.” The church’s task has been, throughout its history, to determine what things are then harmful. Several verses of scripture have guided Brethren in their convictions concerning alcoholic beverages. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, We are God’s temple and have the obligation to keep ourselves in top shape. Romans 6:12 calls for an individual to respond through clean, moral living. Romans 2:12, Do not be squeezed into the mold of the world.

An early formal statement on alcohol was given in an Annual Conference statement of 1781 taking a position of being against the distilling of alcoholic beverages. Little formal action was taken until the 1948 Conference, which especially spoke out against the advertising of alcoholic beverages and asked that other denominations join in that effort. Four years later, in 1952, a formal statement on alcohol was adopted which called alcohol one of America’s greatest problems. Not only was it America’s problem but it a problem within the church members.

Biblical reasons for abstinence

There are also Biblical writings which point to the dangers of the abuse of alcohol. “Wine,” says the book of Proverbs, “is a mocker” (20:1) and can be a source of woe, sorrows, and strange visions (23:29-35). The New Testament warns against drunkenness and drunken orgies (Rom. 13:13; 1 Cor. 5:11: 6:10; Gal. 5:21; 1 Peter 4:3; 1 Tim. 3:3,8; Titus 1:7). “Do not get drunk with wine” is the mandate of Ephesians 5:18. We are urged to live responsible lives (Eph. 5:15-16), to live worthy of the Gospel of Christ (Phil. 1:27), and to present our “bodies as living sacrifices holy and acceptable to God” (Rom. 12:1).

While the Bible does not make a specific plea for abstinence, it is recognized as an appropriate religious response. Provisions are made for anyone who wants to “separate himself to the Lord” (Num. 6:2) with the Nazarite vows which include a vow of abstinence from wine and strong drink (Num. 6:1-8). Note, also, the situation of the Rechabites in Jeremiah 35. John the Baptist represents the abstinence position in the New Testament (Luke 1:15) and his position is given equal approval with the more liberal stance of Jesus (Luke 7:33-35).

This was not just a religious or holy war,

it was a cultural and holy war to save our families from this disease

and the moral decay behavior that happened directly due to alcoholic drinking.

was also a problem in member of the Church of the Brethren.

Temperance Movement

Alcoholic drinking was not just causing

negative consequences in the families, 

it was also causing unemployment,

absenteeism in the workplace and 

physical violence to woman and children.  

Businesses needed sober workers. 

Churches were counseling church members

who suffered moral consequences from ALCOHOLIC DRINKING

Doctors were treated people who could not stop drinking

Women’s movement –

for prohibition and

to save themselves

and their children

Women who were victims

of drunken husband’s violence.

I was one of them.

I no longer knew who I was,

I had lost my self identity

I now know with today’s label,

I was a victim of abuse

(mental, physical and social)

I suffered both the physical and emotional abuse

from my alcoholic husband.

I remember vividly the time he hit me and

gave me a black eye.

I was in denial about how severe the verbal abuse

and occasional physical abuse had progressed,

until I could look in the mirror and

see this visible sign of physical abuse.

How can a substance called alcohol

turn a husband

into a raging lunatic?

I was not close to my mother and my father and my brothers and my sisters.

(The story of my family of origin will maybe be told at another time, another day).

I could not go to any of them for support.

I had a small child.

From 1970-2000 there were some shelters for women, who were physically abused, however, the courts were still lacking stiff penalties for such actions by men

so I thought I might try to ask my husband’s father for help.

Maybe he would understand and would help me

And talk some sense into his son, my husband.

I will never forget his response

My husband’s father’s response:

“What did you do to cause him to do that?”

These words burned a scar on my heart.

I knew I was all alone on this journey.

How to survive in a marriage of

Dr. Jenkyll and Mr. Hyde behaviors of the alcoholic

Those of you who have walked this same path

with a loved one who got drunk a lot,

understand and have experienced

this dual like personality.

Living with a loved one like this

is enough to make

a saint

go insane.

When a person drinks too much alcohol,

it numbs the brain and the reasoning part of their brain,

so they tend to make irrational decisions and

do immoral things that they normally

would not do when they are sober,

thus the extreme remorse the next day.

“The alcohol made me do it” excuse

Even if the alcohol and the lack of reasoning perpetrated the drinker

to make bad decisions and

take bad actions

while under the influence,

the reality is that the drinker

is still held accountable

for the negative consequences.

Being drunk does not excuse wrong behaviors

youtube link on drinking too much alcohol

After a blackout due to excessive drinking and

they don’t even remember what they did,

their spirit still suffers the aftermaths

of those negative actions.

I definitely can empathize with these women

who hated what alcohol was doing to their husbands

and to their children.

The decent human being you thought you knew,

is no longer there all the time.

At all costs,

I needed to make sure

to protect my son

from his dad’s alcoholic binges and

rages and violence,

even if it meant enduring the verbal and

occasional physical abuse to me.

It is like living on pins and needles,

never knowing when the household

would be turned upside down

with bouts of insane rage and

verbal abusive words and behaviors.

If you have been a victim,

the good news is that today,

there are many avenues

to use to heal those negative voices

in your head.

It is not easy,

but healing is possible,

if you have the courage

see a counselor and

work through the pain and

reprogram your mind and spirit.

No longer a victim,

instead a survivor and

a thriver.

God also provides a way to heal,

If we ask

Now you hopefully can understand what possessed these woman

in that time in history

to take such a radical political stance

against the use, the abuse and the addiction

to alcohol and take such extreme measures to be heard?

Women who were not even by law

given the right to vote yet.

They were desperate

Their loved ones,

mostly their husbands and

the fathers of their children were

Held captive by the drinker’s

obsession to alcohol and

Held in bondage to alcoholic’s blaming and shaming

to them and their children

Alcohol was taking away the bread and butter (food)

that was necessary to feed their family

Physical violence and verbal abuse was rising

as a direct result of their excess drinking

The mothers and children rose up

to battle the disease of alcoholism

in the only way they knew how.

Do we really have a right to judge them?

We can learn from the drastic stand

women and children took in the past

to save their marriage and

to protect and save their children

because of a husband who drank too much booze

which caused catastrophic damage

to the family unit.

There is a saying in the 12 step programs

“ I will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it”.

“No matter how far down the scale we have gone,

we will see how our

experience, strength and hope

can benefit others.”

Today I can empathize and support others

who are in the midst of the chaos of

living with an alcoholic.

They need validation

that what they are experiencing is real

and that someone else understands

what they are going through and

that it is not their fault.

With living with an alcoholic

There is hunger and

They cannot love other

family members

because they do not

love themselves

Maybe prayers from Saint Teresa

Birthed the 12 step program

in the Spirit Realm

I believe in the power of prayer.

Al-Alonan is the 1st 12-step path I took.

Al-Alanon uses the same 12 steps of AA.

I will go into more detail

how I got to my first Al-Alanon group at another time.

Just like our personal stories

can help others

in 12-step support groups,

so can the stories and actions

of the courageous women and men, in the past,

who took a radical historical stance

against the evils of the abuse of alcohol.

Let us look at some more historical pictures

to gain more insights…

How could a beverage cause

so much havoc in a family?

Take time to look at this historical lithograph.

Look at the 3 foundational blocks

Liquor dealers

Newspapers

Indifferent church members

These 3 foundational blocks support the solid foundation which is public sentiment

This foundation supports a bottle of liquor with the poison label?

• fluid extract of Hell

• guaranteed to kill boys

Read carefully and notice all of the many

fatal consequences of drinking alcohol

which are listed on the bottle

And then the title: One Year’s Work

Wow, a picture says a thousand words…

Alcohol seemed so harmless?

These are pictures of real life consequences

as they happened in the past in America.

Oh my God,

Look what I found in my research.

We can learn from history.

“The Drunkard’s Progress” a lithograph by Nathanial Currier

supporting the “temperance movement” in 1846. (only 176 years ago)

The Temperance movement in the United States was a movement

to curb the consumption of alcohol.

Why were wives and mothers so upset?

You will notice the victims of the abuse of alcohol?

The alcoholic wife and children

The Drunkards Progress from First glass to the grave

• Depicting that alcoholism was a progressive disease and

as the disease progress,

the consequences got more severe to the drinker

and to family members.

• Step 1 – A glass with a friend

o Look carefully into this picture labeled “counting the cost”

o First Drink

o Appetite for drink

o Saloon keeper has set the trap with fun and fellowship

• Step 2 – A glass to keep the cold out

• Step 3 – A glass too much

• Step 4 – Drunk and Riotous (blackouts, violence in the home)

• 1847 painting by Granger

• Step 5 – A summit attained, jolly companions, a confirmed drunkard (places that served alcohol – took precedence over the family’s needs)

o Saloons were viewed

as the avenue to recruit

and persuade men to drink

o Look carefully at this picture at the top:

This army of men being led to Prison,

Asylum,

and the poorhouse

• Step 6- Poverty and disease – (money spent on boos rather than feeding their family)

• Step 7 – Forsaken by friends

• Step 8 – Desperation and crime

• Step 9 – Death by slow suicide

Look at this historical chart of temperance vs intemperance

Historical treatments for chronic alcoholism were horrific

blood transfusions

mercury treatments

shock treatments

insane asylums

jails

The women and children took a stand against alcohol

to save their family structure,

the only way they knew to save their family and

feed their children.

Wives had Husbands sign a pledge of absinance

The Catholic “Our Mother of Sorrows” Total Abstinence Society”

had the Catholic women get their men to sign

this total abstinence from alcohol certificate

in hopes it would get their husband to stop drinking.

For some it worked,

for others it did not work.

Those others who would not sign,

were held captive by their mental obsession

and their addiction to alcohol.

Please look at the Fruits of the intemperance on the right side

• Anger of God

• Ruin of Families

• Contempt of man

• Poverty at its worst

• Forums

• Insanity

• Premature death

• Eternal Misery

Please look at the left side titled: Fruits of Temperance

• Favor of God

• Domestic comfort

• Respect of Man

• Peace and Plenty

• Length of Days

• Health of soul and body

(this is where they got that alcoholism is a soul sickness)

• Eternal happiness

Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)

Protestant wives

had their husbands

sign this Pledge

Promising not to drink

Total abstinence – picture of husband signing the

Pledge of Abstinence

Political movement

to destroy the alcohol supply and

shut down the taverns

who sold alcohol

They knew no other way

to get rid of the culprit – alcohol

Oh, yes, I can understand that extreme anger and rage and hatred towards alcohol.

Alcohol and also drugs that turn your loved one

into a person whom you do not recognize

They turned into Jeckyll and Hyde

You hate when they drank and turned into a crazy person and

then they are remorseful and

then the loving kind non-drinking person emerges from the ashes.

It drives those close to the drinker

batshit crazy.

Now I see why they call Einstein a genius!

Those of you who have lived with or associated with

a loved one in your family with an alcohol drinking problem

or with a family member with a drug problem

can look at this poster and see the anger and the pain

and the frustration and

also understand this intimate meaning for insanity.

Those of us who lived it,

can view the damage from inside the family dynamics and

can feel the pain and sting of alcohol.

Those of you who did not go down that path

can only view this poster from an outside and intellectual perspective.

Another historical picture in Harpers Weekly, March 21, 1874

Title: “The Bar of Destruction”

Publication: Harper’s Weekly. Source: Folder: Temperance Plan Putinski

Publication Date: March 21, 1874

Description: The United States Temperance Movement reached its zenith in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

• It was primarily spearheaded by women, who,

• although lacking the ability to vote,

• still managed to influence politics enough

to ensure the passing of temperance legislation

• on state levels and ultimately at the federal level

with the passage of the 18th Amendment in 1919.

• The Temperance Movement

called for moderation and abstaining from alcohol.

• The argument was that alcohol consumption encouraged vice, violence, crime, destitution,

• and drinkers were more susceptible to poor health.

• Supporters of temperance tried at first to use moral persuasion

• to convince the American public to come around to their position.

• Rid America of Alcohol with a hatchet – Carrie A. Nation

• 1st peaceful protests

• Then she set out to start smashing bottles of booze in bars

• First rocks and bricks smashing

• Went to jail

• 1901 released from jail

• Welded a hatchet in the name of Christ

• Led up to 18th Amendment

• Take the time to click on these videos of Her Cause.

• You will get a smile on your face.

•

• https://youtu.be/PVYDFfPmxrM Her husband drank himself to death

•

• https://youtu.be/1MN89uko700 You must listen to this lady who started the prohibition movement

• https://youtu.be/fGxPKehNWg8 Hatchetation

•

• https://youtu.be/r-N0XlqrOno Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)

•

• She wanted to get rid of all the saloons

•

• Prohibition

• Federal Government constitutional law took control over liquor

• https://youtu.be/G1T8NlbZ71s

• 1917- 1933 –

• https://youtu.be/_CE4u6jI_rc

Ladies would stage a knitting circle in the bars to protest

Another woman who had courage

to organize for a cause

to get women the right to vote.

Thank you Susan B. Anthony

and all the other woman warriors

Women arrested, jailed, beaten, chained,

body slammed, twisted, punched & tormented

to win us women the right to vote

And you’re NOT going to use it?!

Really?

God Did Make a Way

THE POWER OF PRAYER

AND OPENED THE DOOR

FOR WOMEN

WHO HEARD THE CALL

TO TAKING ACTION

TO INITIATE CHANGE

All these women below on the timeline

Took Action

Because of their actions

IT STARTED a chain reaction

Destroying alcohol and bars

Prohibition

Women’s Right to Vote

End of Prohibition

Awareness of Spousal Abuse

Legislation for Spousal Abuse

AA – Bill W. and Dr. Bob -heard the call

Alanon– Bill W’s wife, Lois – heard the call

Other 12 step support groups

to help people

supporting people – they heard the call

They all took action and followed through

to do God’s Will to provide a

way to heal from

Alcoholism and Addiction

Because of the women of America

Praying together

and taking a stand together

The government took drastic measures

to save the families and

then along came

AA and Alanon

All a result of a Nation praying for

Help from God

and taking the necessary

Action for

Social and Political

Change

To save the

families and the children

of alcoholics

I now see that all that praying for help

for the alcoholic called forth the birth of AA and Alanon

to help the sick

Alcoholic

and their wives

and their

children.

Who says God Does not answer Prayer

Wow, quite an interesting journey!!!

Love you all,

Esther Mae 2-8-2022