I'm a secret SAHM alcoholic

[Theblondewino]

Married, two kids, stay at home mother and functioning alcoholic. Both my kids are happily playing with toys in front of me while I sip on my second vodka and sprite and wrap gifts for nieces birthday tomorrow

Health*

Horrible thing addiction. Leads you in tiny tiny steps into deceitfulness, you become a deceitful person and that makes it very hard to like yourself, which in turn leads you further down the hole. Not said with any judgement BTW, just is what it is, horrible thing, consumes you to feed itself.

Did you mean when your husband drinks he has 2-3 beers, or he drinks 2-3 beers every night? I assumed the first but I see a later poster has assumed the latter.

OP, is this why you are "wandering the garden like a lost hen"?

I have been listening to some podcasts today which lead me to start this thread, I'm fed up of this being my life. I have drank for over half of my life and I want to be normal and not have to worry about the recycling bin tipping over in the high winds and all my empties sprawling across the drive.

I work in a hospital. I stopped my daily drinking when I treated a lady in her 50s with liver disease, she drank two doubles every day and a bottle of wine on the weekend. She was classed as an alcoholic and she sadly passed. I drank more than that.

In terms of friends - hopefully when your oldest goes to school, you'll meet other mums / carers. That's what happened to me. I hardly knew anyone as we relocated. I bloody love my school parent friends.
Also met a few mums at a local toddler group - do you have to put yourself out there though - look happy and interested, engage in conversation etc

Please tell someone in real life. Your husband or your GP would be good places to start. then find a support program to quit. I’m not personally a fan of AA, but it works for many people.

alcoholic parents mess children up so badly. Even if the parent isn’t a violent drunk, the children still end up learning to manage the parents moods. We aren’t supposed to feel responsible for another person’s happiness to that degree. It leads to unhealthy relationships for children when they grow up.

Wow that's quite the wake up call, thank you for your post.

Please seek help. My (estranged) dad was a functioning alcoholic but I found out too late...not that I could've helped him necessarily, but it would've answered a lot of painful questions. It took him in the end, and it was horrible. Do something now, before you can't. For you, your kids, your family.

Take care xx

aw I’m not the OP. I agree with you word for word on everything you’ve said, I went through similar but jot tivthat extent with my mum and other family members, I am SO sorry you had to cope with that. You’re 100% it’s just so normalised as a fun time and it’s a highly addictive substance that people are ridiculed for become addicted to! I don’t know what the answer is but I wish it was at least not romanticised in movie and tv.

For any health care providers maybe reading this, I've noticed the more I drink my back gets very sore.

For instance when I didn't have any alcohol in the almost 3 weeks when I didn't have a drink my back didn't hurt as much as it usually does, today I've almost finished a half bottle of vodka and my back has just started hurting again

@Theblondewino I really think you would benefit from making contacting with some people about this. You might be getting too inside your head, you could start circling and that then might be a barrier to moving on. There have been some suggestions here on your thread (bit congrats on the thread - you’ve heard some pretty blunt responses and took it on the chin, you’re a trouper today) I think finding a consistent source of help, just chatting and being understood for now would be a really big help.

Can you channel those feelings towards something more positive? Facing the reality of your alcoholism doesn't feel good, so use that feeling to spur yourself on to change. Imagine how great it'll feel when this current feeling is behind you.
My best friends mum was an alcoholic, until it eventually killed her. I see how it's destroyed my friend's mental health and I'm pretty sure she would have given up all of the home cooked meals or ironed clothes in the world for her mum to have put her kids before alcohol.
You sound ready to change so let everyone here push you into actioning that change.

Back? Or kidneys or liver?

I think your back might be sore because of liver / kidney function.
Are you able to seek some kind of individual therapy, if not a support group to help you cut down / cut out the drinking and deal with the emotional causes behind it (it sounds like there are a few big things to tackle).

I'm so sorry that this are this difficult for you. Have you considered speaking to a therapist? Before she retired my mum was a therapist for people with alcohol dependence.

She always said that complete abstinence programmes were based on cliff edge failure and criticism for having a single sip of wine, rather than looking at the source of the issue and dealing with that. Clients who were told they'd failed often relapsed much worse because they said they may as well.

Her practice was to ask clients to keep a diary of how much they drank and compare it every week. So those who said they couldn't control it and so it was hopeless could be shown that they could control it, rather than have the drink control them.

So when you stopped while conceiving and being pregnant and not drinking since 2 January, you showed you have control rather than the drink controlling you.

There is an aspect that hitting rock bottom might have to happen before you can make a meaningful change. I hope that's not true for you, because rock bottom is really awful, particularly if you lose your marriage or kids as a result.

Do see if you can get some support to look into your reasons for drinking - help about your mum dying before you had the kids - I think you're probably processing a lot of grief over that. No doubt there are other issues too.

You are worth helping. It sounds as though you are conscientious and concerned about the effect you might have on your family. You are asking for help, so please see if you can get some. Take care xx

I think you’re brave posting this OP, and I really wish you luck with seeking help, I hope things will start to get better.
i have serious MH problems and i always thought i protected my son from them and he seemed happy and fine. It’s only now he’s a teenager that it’s become clear that he wasn’t ok, and the damage has sadly been done. Not trying to kick you while you’re down, and I know it’s not identical, but you don’t get a second chance with your kid’s childhood.

DH's mum was an alcoholic. I say was because she's dead now, the alcohol killed her in her 50s. It destroyed DH's childhood and that of his siblings and when she finally died his overwhelming feeling was relief. She thought she was a good mum too and also thought she could hide it but she utterly failed her children.

Please don't let that be you. Reach out and get some help and support to stop before it ruins your children's futures.

Could be liver/kidneys complaining.

Also could be when you're not drinking you're more careful about your posture etc. and not slumping in a chair.

What triggered me to drink today is my dh is off work and has taken my car away to get some things done on it, I knew days in advance this was coming so I bought vodka last night and knew I wouldn't be expected to drive. It's so embarrassing when I say it out loud but I feel I need to. We live in a large city where everything is close by so I rarely drive anyway unless I'm going to do the big shop or have a hair appointment or something far away. So far today I've cleaned the house top to bottom, made a big pot of chicken noodles soup, wrapped some gifts and I'm setting out what I need to make a red velvet cake. One of my dc in playing in his ball pit and the other is napping.

I think that you are brilliant by coming on and saying all this. I've had friends who have been killed by alcohol and friends that have turned their lives around in a different direction. The ones who did this say that the only thing that really makes it possible is to hit a barrier that says 'I have to change'. Maybe today is that day.

It sounds daunting, thinking that 'I will never drink again'. So, don't think that. Just think 'I'm not drinking today'. That's all. Tomorrow, that's another day.

You'll know that there's all sorts of resources out there, GP or AA or message boards, including this one.

As for why you drink and the lack of friends, well, you've had friends in the past so you can have more in the future. There'll be something local that you can do that has other people involved. Give something a try, just once, it might be fun.

The stories on here are all warnings, but there's nothing at all to say that you'll become another of them. You can do this.

If you managed to give up during your pregnancies and for several months after giving birth while (I assume) breastfeeding then you've already got the knowledge that you can quit. And you know you need to. It's not a big unknown, you know how to do it, look at your past success.

Why not add up what you spend on alcohol and see what you can treat yourself or the DC to in a years time? I assume from your posts you're wealthy but maybe it would still motivate you.

I wish to cockadooo00oo your trollage.

My drinking got out of hand and was affecting my relationships with those I love. Why did I do it? A whole raft of conflicting reasons - stress/boredom, as a social prop/to lose inhibitions/have fun, to blot things out that I didn't want to face/to feel alive.
The menopause, taking early retirement, being an empty nester, losing close relatives - all of these added to my desire to drink but ultimately the drink made me feel much much worse - the crippling hangovers, the guilt, the anxiety, the black outs...
I did sober October and dry January and found it easy - a bit of a relief actually. But always the drinking crept back up.

I knew a few people who had gone down the AA route and spoke to them about their experiences - all were incredibly positive and were so grateful that they were finally sober.
I went to my first AA meeting last April. It was pretty scary to walk through the door. Everyone was so kind and understanding. People openly share their stories - and you are encouraged to look for the similarities and not the differences. There is absolutely no judgement.
I would recommend watching this programme on the BBC iPlayer. "I'm an Alcoholic - Inside Recovery". https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001fyzd It goes inside an AA meeting - it's fascinating and inspiring but doesn't pull any punches.
You may want to read this book - The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober by Catherine Gray. Perhaps buy a digital version so you can read it privately.
I am now 9 months sober - I feel so much happier, healthier and positive.
I think you have made the first step by posting about your drinking in this forum. Ring the AA and, ideally, attend a meeting. I am sure you won't regret it.