I'm sorry but this will be very long. I have had the week from hell and am now up at 3am drinking wine (pretty good stuff, bought as a gift for a friend..) alone.
It is really making it all come flooding back.
Before I 'settled down' I had a well paid pretty crazy job that involved lots of travel. I was a PR manager for an obscure strand of a well known high street fashion company. At that point in my life it was the job of my dreams, I was paid to wear clothes, to go to parties, travel abroad for meetings and generally hang out with the 'cool crowd'. I also wrote some columns.
Needless to say alcohol was a big part of this. There were even occasions when we'd be drinking in the office at noon. I also dabbled in some other things, but thankfully have found it very easy to avoid them now. I don't miss that at all.
I then got married and soon after had my first child. As soon as I knew I was pregnant I felt shunned at work, everyone soon guessed as I was the only one turning down the drinks/drugs/party until 5am etc. I was made to feel like a party pooper .
At 18 weeks I decided to take early maternity leave and quit, hoping I could do some work from home. DH fully supported this, but still continued his own hectic work/social life.
I spent many days in bed with little to motivate me to get up for.
I also seriously missed drinking. I really, worryingly , looked forward to fridays when I would treat myself to a glass of wine. I lost touch with lots of 'friends' and ended up barely leaving the house.
I threw myself into all sorts of 'projects' to occupy myself, such as the time I amazed my DH by single handedly striping and waxing our entire staircase and woodwork in one weekend.
After the birth I did the same, I booked into every class going and really overdid it. Then I had a near breakdown. I was packing the babybag one day and burst into tears. I felt oddly detached and as if I was not myself. I called my friend to cancel our meet up (the first of many many times, thanks to her for her patience with me..) and decided I really needed a glass of wine. This was 11am and I then finished the bottle. DS was asleep in his cot and I fell asleep on the sofa. I woke up an hour or so later and wandered out to the shops and bought 2 more bottles of wine. It never even occured to me that I had a child I was fully responsible for...
DH came home and found me asleep in bed, empty wine bottles in the living room and DS crying in his bed. It makes me feel sick to think of it now.
After that I somehow changed and I didn't take that as a wake up call, I just retreated into myself. I would make cocktails at midday and drink them alone, somehow thinking this was more 'acceptable'. I once even took neat vodka in an evian bottle to a toddler group (having drunk three glasses of wine beforehand) It is horrible to think that I compromised DS's safety and didn't even consider it at the time.
It got to the point where I couldn't even make a phonecall before having a couple of drinks, even to my closest friends.
All of this was hidden from DH and he still doesn't know the full extent of it.
There were three occasions that made me really realise I needed to change. Although of course it didn't quite sink in to begin with.
The first was in our local shop , early afternoon when I was buying a bottle of cognac. The old man in front of me was counting out coppers and haggling over a can of cheap cider. My snap judgment was 'pitiful tramp'. I then realised I was no different and that could be me down the line. I left the shop without the booze, though later I was sorely tempted to drink some of the beers DH brought home.
The second was a night we had friends over for dinner. At this point I had controlled things to the extent that I only drank when DH was home, but I also did most of it secretly. We were all fairly drunk and having a good evening, then my friends girlfriend came back from the bathroom. She was waving an empty wine bottle that she had found in the bathroom cupboard whilst looking for a fresh towel. 'How bizarre' she said. And lets not even get into how she could have more tactfully handled the sitation. I can barely remember the pitiful excuse I came up with, something along the lines of, must have fallen out of the bin into the laundry pile.
After this DH stepped in to try and 'help' me control it. Sadly his method meant giving me a stricly daily budget in cash, demanding receipts and witholding my cards. This just had a negative effect on my moods and self esteem and I always found ways around it.
The third, and most important was thanks to my health visitor. DS had a development check at 4pm and, feeling anxious, I opened some wine. I thought I'd 'covered my tracks' but just as she left, she gently said 'I see many mothers, and many mothers who I am surprised to find will have a gin and tonic or two in the afternoon, just remember these things are always picked up on by health professionals, so please be careful'.
It somehow really woke me up out of the fog I had been living in.
I then went totally teetotal for almost a year, then started drinking 'socially', and have generally been fairly 'good'.
I can just feel myself sliding again and want to stop before i end up back there.