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

When my youngest was about 1 I went to the GP one day after I'd realised I really wanted a drink at far too early o'clock the previous day, and it wasn't the first time I'd felt that way. I knew I wasn't an alcoholic, I was just suffering from delayed/ignored PND that I'd been in denial about for too long. My craving a drink was my way of coping. I didn't actually drink in the daytime, but I knew the fact that I was even thinking about it meant something wasn't right.

I told the GP the truth about what had prompted me to get an appointment. I came away with some anti-depressants and was right as rain within a week. I was like someone had flipped a switch. I came off them after six months and have never looked back. It won't be that simple a fix for everyone, but it's better than sliding into alchoholism just to get through your day.

Please go to your GP. It may be too late for you to simply come away with ADs that will fix everything, but it's not too late for you to be fixed one way or another.

I am thinking surely she must've drank more than that? Unless she had other comorbidities (hepatitis perhaps) not helpful perhaps but that's really not much at all compared to alcoholics I've known. I've known ones who made a full recovery who drank a bottle of vodka (and sometimes more) per day for years and years.

That sounds like fairly normal for this country (not saying I personally think It's the right thing to do of course)!

My sil died in her early 40s , she was also a secret alcoholic . She vomited in her sleep , went into a coma and died in hospital .
Her ( newish ) partner found her unconscious in bed and whilst in hospital he searched her home and found hidden bottles.
Once she died the council took back her council house .
Her young teenage son went to live with my in-laws ( his grandparent s ) but went off the rails and ended up in / out of prison .
Don't let that be you .

@SpikyCoconut I’d imagine that she lied about how much she drank.

I know someone well who considered/considers herself a functioning alcoholic.
Her children have been removed. She still considered herself functional at the point they were removed. She would tell you she met their needs, it didn't affect them, they were fine. They were not fine.

She is not a bad person. I think she's a fairly weak person - possibly an unfair judgement, but I'm pretty jaded with it at this point - who is unable or unwilling to
put anything before alcohol. Of course now that she has lost the children all attempts/pretence at restraint are out the window. I don't think she'll recover. For years I hoped she would. Now I think she'll either drink herself to death or die in an accident whilst intoxicated.

Its a very very sad, very mystifying, and very tiring thing to watch.

That’s awful so sorry to hear that.

If you attempted to get yourself together you could avoid the agonising consequences of alcoholism.

I didn’t intend for that to hit anyone in particular, I’m sorry that it came across that way. I don’t think you or anyone (well, almost anyone) here has said anything untruthful or necessarily wrong. My mum was (is) a fragile alcoholic who would get worse when she felt attacked and so easily set back, which in turn made things worse for me and that’s my only experience to draw on. I’ve spent my whole life holding her back from the edge. Old habits and all that.

Edit. Changed ‘….if it came across that way’ to ‘…that it came across that way’ because it obviously did and my apology was mealy-mouthed.

Get help for the sake of your kids.

Their nursery/school/health visitor will be able go smell the vodka and whatever else you drink.

@PeggyMitchellsCameo
Thank you but this happened many years ago , I only met him once or twice and he is now late 20s , and largely estranged from the family . Still terribly sad though .

Hi op. I had an alcoholic mother and it had a really terrible impact on me and my siblings. I hope you manage to get help and stop. My mum read a book ‘the biology of desire’ which she said really helped her. I can’t vouch for it as I haven’t read it myself, but she found it really useful.

Unfortunately my siblings and I do not have a close relationship with her now we are adults (all in 30s) as our childhood was soured by her drinking. From our point of view, not only did she have issues with alcohol, but she also forced us to deal with these issues by refusing to deal with the problem while we were children.

No matter how well you think you hide it - growing up with an alcoholic parent is harmful for children. I now work with children with MH difficulties and parental addiction shows up really often.

All the best and I hope my post doesn’t come across as unkind. You can absolutely get this under control once you have made a choice to never drink again.

Get a blood test now to check how your liver and pancreas are coping. Don't ignore the back pain

100% this +++1 million.

Get a blood test which will show your liver function.

Don't forget that the problem with the liver is that it can function very very well even if it's only partly working. That is why it's so dangerous. Basically you can be fine or nearly fine until suddenly its not and is end stage and you either die or need a liver transplant. BUT it has a big capacity to self repair so if your liver is damaged you need to know as it will motivate you (or should) to stop drinking:

The problem is that chronic liver disease is challenging to diagnose early. It often has no symptoms until a late stage, when treatments are limited and when care places a larger burden on the health system.
https://predictivehealthintelligence.co.uk/news/case-finding-tool-for-liver-disease-hepatosight-receives-mhra-clearance/

https://sunhouston.com/signs-of-liver-damage-from-alcohol/

This almost happened to my grandmother when my dad was growing up but she was saved. It scared her into stopping.

My dad has never drank alcohol after witnessing her drinking as a child/teen.

In secret, by lunchtime, while looking after two small children? In a thread where the OP acknowledges they are am alcoholic? Really?
What about the half a bottle plus 4 canned cocktails that the OP also says they secretly regularly drink in a day?

I’ll post about this one more time in case it was missed in all the messages.

Look up the Sinclair Method and Rethink Drink. It is a science based approach to alcohol issues with a 80% success rate. It works if you want it to work and is not a struggle. AA has an appalling success rate and is based on the idea that treatment must only involve abstinence and should be a struggle. It doesn’t need to be either of those things.

Sinclair Method has been life changing for me.

Oh and my mums old drinking friend from when I was in primary school died a few years after they started drinking together. She drank a similar amount to what you have stated on a daily basis - it was enough to destroy her liver and it was a really awful death. She was terrified at the end when she was at hospital and vowed to never drink again, but it was sadly too late for the healthcare professionals to do anything

My mother was a functioning alcoholic, I knew. She died when she was 47 and I've lived my entire adult life without parents and it's all taken its toll on my mental health. Stop for your kids

I'm sorry to hear that, it's awful.

I still have one parent and it's taking a toll on my mental health, too.
😐

How do you buy so much alcohol unnoticed? I assume from shared accounts as you said you're SAHM. I’m not convinced DH has no clue.

I once knew a ‘functioning alcoholic’ who held down a responsible job and had two children. She picked her children up every day smelling of alcohol and if you bumped into her on her day off she smelled of alcohol. She probably didn’t drink at work otherwise she’d have been dismissed.
Then I suddenly heard she’d died and spent her last days in hospital with blood coming out of either her eyes or mouth. It was very sad, her youngest child wasn’t even a teenager.
Half a bottle of vodka is a significant amount of alcohol. You might not think it’s affecting you but it definitely is. I met someone once who drank a bottle of vodka a day and didn’t seem drunk but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t doing him extreme damage. Please get some help for yourself and your children.

It's great that you have found a method of controlling your drinking. The researchers acknowledge that it does not work for everyone. It has an 80% success rate, for a certain type of alcoholic, in clinical trials, the results at 12 months are about 50%, still very good, and after that the evidence is anecdotal.

There is no one size fits all for alcoholism and AA does indeed work for some. It's possible to recommend what has worked for you without disparaging an alternative that might work for someone else. The stakes are too high to rule out any option which might work.

I'm sorry to hear that, it's tough! But I do feel like I've finally come to terms with it all and I'm determined my kids will have a stable upbringing where they feel loved, so they will have what I didn't

You can get help from your GP, Alcoholics Anonymous or a local Drugs and Alcohol support charity.
My ex husband was an alcoholic. He’s dead. Died when he was 48. He had many accidents when not “ wildly drunk” so tripping carrying your toddler is a risk for example.
Your alcohol tolerance won’t be the same.
Your liver won’t always be able to clear alcohol from your body at an optimum rate. You might feel sober but you will have alcohol in your bloodstream.

You started a thread the other day didn't you OP?

You were drinking at 11am and had a row with your husband?

Hi OP, I'm not here to judge you for what you're going through. You're getting through life the only way you know how and doing your best to try and address it. I don't think there's a magic wand to make yourself fully of healthier habits overnight, but I'm sure you can get there if you follow other people's positive transformation stories.

I'm just curious as to whether you manage all the cleaning, cooking, playing with kids etc on days you don't drink? I only ask this because I can't function as well as you describe yourself doing so and am wondering if that's why you use the alcohol, to fuel yourself somehow? Anyway, if you still manage all this on those days where you are sober, I'd love some tips from you, for staying focused and motivated.