Mary Karr, Alcoholic Mother, Recalls Shame of Addiction

April 27, 2010— -- Best-selling poet and author Mary Karr knows all too well the treacherous cycle that faces every alcoholic mother.

"There was a moment when I realized I was drinking every day and I couldn't quit, and it was shocking to me, in a way," Karr told "20/20" co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas. "I was depressive, it's a depressant drug, which is how it works. It's insidious, because initially alcohol works for an alcoholic."

In her new memoir, "Lit," Karr, now 20 years sober, chronicles her gut-wrenching descent into alcoholism. Karr's addiction worked so well for so long because like many other women, she hid it from her husband, her family and her friends.

"You don't go to the same liquor store, and you say you're giving a party every week, and yourself the only invitee," Karr said.

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The denial of her addiction was so powerful, she says, she lied to herself on a daily basis.

"I couldn't sleep through the night without a tumbler of watered-down whiskey by my bedside," Karr said. "Then I would get up in the morning, I would pick that up, get my kid on my hip, I would think, 'Oh, it's a shame to pour it out,' and I would drink probably two or three ounces, at least, of alcohol. But I told myself I wasn't a morning drinker because I never poured it in the morning."

Even a teaching job at Harvard and a beautiful baby boy weren't enough to keep Karr from alcohol. The highlight of her day was always drinking alone on the back porch of her Cambridge home after her baby and husband had gone to bed. Intoxicated, Karr would promise herself the next morning would be different, that she would get up and accomplish all of the things she had been putting off because of her drinking.

One particularly dark Christmas morning, Karr awoke before her family to do some holiday baking, but chose instead to take a drive and drink a six-pack of beer alone.

"The worst part is, the minute you start lying to your husband or your family or your children, whoever, your friends, you get a little more lonely, and you get a little more cut off," she said.