To drink a whole bottle of wine...

[teenagejennyagutter]

...when I'm in sole charge of my 3.5yo?

I'm a single parent. The nights he is at his Dad's I work.

It started off as a glass, it has crept up to a bottle.

My mother was an alcoholic so I am wary of my relationship with alcohol in general.

After a bottle I would gauge myself as tipsy but still fairly in control.

I work as a barmaid so I'm used to judging people's contextual level of drunkenness.

Wolfie.

I have read thank you. Try to remember that this thread isn't about you.

Kel it's not healthy to binge drink. You may feel ok now but it has long term implications. Not feeling pissed isn't an indication of what the alcohol is doing inside your body over the longer term. To very occasionally get pissed as a newt probably isn't going to kill anyone. OP has an alcoholic in the family and admits to relying on alcohol to destress. That's unhealthy.

X post.
Mitzy. I'm aware of that thanks.
I was trying to help OP.
No need to be unpleasant and snarky. I'm out.

I don't see 1 single glass of anything as really having a drink tbh. If I'm sat relaxing in the evening for a couple of hours, then I'll have a few drinks. Or during the afternoon if I fancy one or two then I will. Regardless if I have lo at home or not.
I know my personal limits, and I'd never have more than that with my baby at home. Yes my limits are quite high, but that's beside the point

I sometimes drink a bottle to myself. If it's only once every three weeks and you're spreading the drinking out over the evening then I don't think it's bad. Everyone deserves a relaxing night now and then. If you work through the bottle slowly and you've eaten etc then the effects wouldn't be so bad. It's different if you're drinking quickly purely to get drunk. Considering how often some people drink, I'd say you're fine.

I do use it to unwind, but I also have a diagnosed stress disorder so I am guilty of erring on the side of relaxed mummy is better than sober mummy!

No. Tipsy mummy is not better than sober mummy. I really don't want to drown you in my angst, but I know. When I was a little bit older than yours, I used to worry about how "grown-ups" went silly and stupid and different in the evenings; I thought losing one's mind after 7pm was something that just happened to grown-ups and dreaded it happening to me one day It sounds hilarious written down, but I remember that I didn't feel I could rely on my mother in the evening and that it did scare me.

You guessed it, she is an alcoholic, and it progressed sloooooooooowly over the course of my childhood, to the point that I cottoned on.

Us children of alcoholic parents are a high-risk group for developing alcohol dependency. The reasons for that are various, from genetic factors, upbringing and simple "I don't drink anywhere near as much as my mum/dad so I don't have a problem". Be very careful, OP. Please.

1 bottle is approx 3 large glasses - I think that's fine if you don't do it frequently & are still in control.

I wouldn't, I'm sorry. But mainly because I have real anxiety about something going wrong and being helpless or unable to drive my daughters to A&E, and alcohol heightens my anxiety. Soooo, not a great combo.

I don't see real issue with it though.

Tipsy mummy here, as long as your not full on off your face I really don't see the problem? Unless your dc is very small and your are by...

OP I really don't want to preach, but drinking because you're stressed absolutely isn't the answer. I know this, because I no longer let myself pick up a bottle when I'm stressed. It's taken 10 years and some particularly hard times to stop, but drinking when stressed only leads to dependency which trust me is hard to get out of. Think about it, any aspect of our lives could be stressful especially when parenting a toddler, and if you were to drink whenever you were stressed you would never be sober.

I'm not going to vilify you for drinking a bottle and looking after a child, especially when the child is sleeping. It depends on the strength of the bottle, I could drink 2 bottles of low (10%) wine and be soberish, and if something happened you'd sober up pretty quickly. The situation isn't about whether your child is safe because chances are, he is. It's more that you're using drink for the wrong thing (I know, trust me) and ultimately it won't help in the slightest