drinking too much

[totallymessedup]

I don't even know whether I should post this but it's 3am and I can't sleep. Please feel free to judge me terribly, believe me I am already doing it to myself. I didn't drink in the first trimester, mostly because I felt too terrible to go out. Over the past few weeks though I've had a few occasions where I've drunk way more than the guidelines. I have never felt drunk but have had on the worst night about 6 glasses of wine/champagne and a shandy over the course of a very long evening (starting at 4 and ending at after midnight). There have been probably 3 other nights where I have drunk I guess around 4-5 units.

Iknow this is way too much. I know I may have irreversibly harmed my baby. And I don't know why I've done it. The other night I drank beer while my husband was out and took the empties away in my work bag so he wouldn't know. On Sunday I went to a bbq with friends and had 2 tiny quarter glasses of wine and then came home and had 2 glasses of red. If I have any, I have too much.

I know I am an alcoholic. I find it so hard to face life without alcohol. I should not be bringing another child into the world. I have also not been able to stop drinking caffeine. My life is so stressful and I am very unhappy but that is no excuse. I am not in UK so no option to go to AA, which I would be happy to do, jsut to have meet peopole who understand and actually give a shit.

No point to this post. I am not looking for reassurance because there is none. Just to feel less alone maybe. Just had to get it out. I do not intend to drink again in this pregnancy,but the damage may already have been done and it is my fault.

Realised I didn't even explain that i'm 17 weeks pregnant. Now sitting here listening to dd1 snoring gently. She doesn't deserve an alkie mother either

Well, it does seem that you've drunk a fair bit on occasions, but what's done is done and you can only change the future. I sympathise how hard it is to give up completely in any circumstances, and if you're feeling unhappy and isolated and are a habitual drinker then it makes it that much harder. Are you drinking every day or just on social occasions?

It does seem the best thing for you to do is to stop completely for the duration of your pregnancy, rather than trying to moderate to 1/2 glasses as then it's so easy to think " well another small one won't hurt". Can you tell your husband that you want to not have alcohol in the house during your pregnancy?

A lot of people carry on drinking caffeine so I wouldn't worry about that too much unless you're personally keeping Starbucks in business. If keeping drinking coffee helps you drink less alcohol, then it's definitely the lesser of the 2 evils.

Don't give up yet, move forward and try your best in the future.

I agree with TheBride and think you need to get the alcohol out of the house - it really is very tempting having it there when its such an easy habit.

With myself, alcohol is a treat I award myself at the end of the day. I've found I need to replace that with something else like a nice box of chocolates or ice cream. Whenever I feel like wine I have a chocolate. Sure, its also not healthy but a lot less harmful!

Well done for writing this down. It can't have been easy.

IME, it's easier to not drink at all rather than try and moderate your drinking. In my late twenties I found it near impossible to stop at one glass of wine (or one beer, etc), but when I decided to stop drinking, I found it really easy. It was trying to control my drinking that was hard, not stopping IYSWIM.

I am very aware that isn't the case for everyone, but it is certainly worth a try. I also got my DH to stop drinking for a month with me which helped. Would your DH do the same?

Did you drink in your first pregnancy or is this a new thing for you? (NOT JUDGING! Just wondering if anything you did last time could help this time).

AA is global, where are you? I think there are online meetings even if there aren't any near you, though most countries do have physical meetings.

Good luck!

You poor soul, my heart goes out to you. You are clearly feeling dreadful and you sound really low. It sounds harsh, but you can use this feeling to help you stop drinking. You've now had the last drink you are going to have in this pregnancy - so you are not going to feel this guilty and bad again.

I agree with others that you need to remove alcohol from the house and you need your DH's help. Can you tell him that you feel out of control around alcohol and you need his help to make sure you don't drink? Could you find an alternative treat, like gigglet's chocolate?

I think there's an underlying issue here though, which is that you feel unhappy and stressed. It seems to me that you need to deal with this, to help you stop drinking but also to help you feel better generally. Would you be able to consider having some counselling to help you through this stressful time? Is there someone close to you whom you could confide in? I think you need to talk to someone about how you are feeling. Depression is not uncommon in pregnancy and after birth, and everyone needs help and support during this difficult time.

You also need to try and feel good about yourself. Given that you have issues around alcohol, you did brilliantly not to drink during your first trimester, when the baby is most vulnerable. If you gave up for those 12 weeks, you can get through the rest of the pregnancy.

Sorry for the long post. What I want to say is, you need help and support to stop drinking and to help you feel better. Good luck to you and well done on being brave enough to admit how you are feeling.

totally, which country are you in? AA and its equivalents are present in a lot of countries, have you tried googling?

TBH, it sounds like just telling yourself 'Never again' might not be enough, if you're hiding your drinking and feeling this sort of cycle of binge/remorse going on. I think this is probably fairly ingrained behaviour, and you need more support. Do you have a sympathetic GP you can talk to? They won't judge you, but will be able to give you some help.

Good luck.

Well done for posting this and well done for stating that you're an alcoholic. There are normally deep underlying reasons for why you feel and behave the way you do and you do need help to tackle that.

Have you told your DH that you are an alcoholic? If not, it sounds like a horrendously hard thing to do, but you need to do it to get the first step in support.

Right, let get practical- take a day at a time and promise not to drink today and come back on here and report how you've got on and how you felt. Then take the next day and the next. Everytime you fancy something to drink- have a long glass of water- not the same, but its a distraction technique thats dead healthy at the same time.

I agree that you should see your doctor. Also, seriously reconsider which friends you hang out with and consider limiting the time you spend with the ones who are unwittingly feeding your habit.

Good luck x x x

Thank you all for being so sweet, I am really touched.

I am not drinking every day, it has been I think 4 times over the past 2 weeks. We do not ever have alcohol in the house anyway as we both have a tendency to just drink it if it is there. I agree totally, that it would be easier to drink nothing than to try and stop at one, I don't seem to be capable of that.

During my first pregnancy I had probably a total of 3 glasses of champagne on special occasions. I just wasn't a fraction as stressed then. I had pnd which has left me with awful anxiety and I drink to control it. The only other thing that works for me is really hard exercise, which I can also not do while pregnant.

There are 1 or 2 English-speaking meetings here a week, but they are far from my house and I would need to confess to dh that is where I am going. I have looked before at on-line groups and will look into that again.

My work have given me permission to cut down to 80% but my dh is a full time student and doesn't want us to have to survive on 80% of my salary. I am really not coping with full time work at all, especially as dd is now on holiday and dh is taking her to the pool everyday while I sweat it out in an office. He told me yesterday that I am the "pillar" that the family is built on but I don't want to be a pillar, I just want to be a mum. And if I crumble that means the whole thing falls down.

Love, I think you need to talk to your husband about this. You don't have to say about the alcohol specifically, but you have to get it through to him that you are not a pillar, you cannot support everyone, and it's the baby who will come to harm if you are expected to do what you're doing.

Can your husband not do some paid work as well? Mine's a fulltime PhD student but he has some consulting and research work which helps a lot.

Have talked to him about it until blue in the face. He always manages to persuade me to just keep going another few months. the problem is I totally see his point of view. If I can just do another 4 months full time, then the doctor will sign me off sick (they do this routinely here as mat leave is only allowed from 2 weeks before due date) and I will receive 100% salary throughout my mat leave (which is only 16 weeks anyway). Whereas if I go part time now I give up that huge chunk of money which I otherwise get "for doing nothing" (my dh's words).

Frankly right now I don't care but do want to continue to be able to give dd a good life. Dh has a part time job but it is very sporadic and hard to fit around childcare.

What I mean is, I would only get 80% salary during Mat leave if I'm only working 80% through choice before I stop working.

It seems to me that you need to tell your DH how you are feeling and to be as honest with him as possible. Being told that you are the 'pillar' is not helpful when you need support yourself. You may be the main earner, but he needs to think of other ways in which he can support you and take his share of the responsibility.

Whether or not you choose to continue full time at work, he needs to understand how stressed you are feeling and to help you think of ways to reduce that stress - this is his responsibility as much as yours. A two-parent family needs two pillars! To be honest I think you should consider telling him you want to go to equivalent of AA meetings - maybe he would then realise how seriously he needs to take the situation?

He knows exactly how stressed I am feeling. I am pretty much done with trying to talk about it to him. Every decision I've ever made gets thrown back in my face.

You have made a very big step by admitting to yourself that you have a problem. The next big step you must take is talking to your Doctor about your problem, they will help you and they are not there to judge you.
There will also be groups around you that you can attend with people in a similar situation who are in different stages of their recovery.
If you are not ready to talk to your DH then put it off, as if it doesn't go how you hope it will, it will only set you back and possibly push you to drink more.
The most important thing now, is you appear to be in a frame of mind that you want to sort this problem, so you need to take the next step and get going on your recovery.
It won't be easy and you will need the support of your DH, so the sooner you feel ready to tell him the better it will be for your recovery.

I wish you all the best, it won't be easy, but you have made a very good start admitting the problem.

One is not supposed to say this, but I know lots of women who drank far too much in their pregnancies, for different reasons. Some because they didn't know they were pregnant for months (one was out clubbing and drugging until five months with no idea she was pregnant. It happens)and others for other reasons. The babies were fine.

My mothers' generation drank AND smoked through pregnancy. Alcohol was often recommended to them to help them relax!

We now know that the above behaviour is undesirable and potentially harmful, as you acknowledge. I think you should stop beating yourself up about what you've done, and show your dh this thread, so that even if you can't stop working etc, he might at least understand quite how stressed you are feeling and agree to help you not drink. Could you see a counsellor or GP if not make it to any meetings?

Completely agree - stop beating yourself up. You may well be an alcoholic and you are right to say that that is not good for children but "alcoholic mother" and "loving mother" are not mutually exclusive. And you CAN stop if you want to.

As to the damage ... yes, maybe you have. But maybe you haven't. Lots of mothers, alcoholic and non-alcoholic, used to drink and smoke during pregnancy and produced happy, healthy babies nonetheless. Try not to beat yourself up about things you cannot change - let's focus instead on what you can do next.

Which country are you in, what's your nearest big city and do you speak the language fluently (at least fluently enough to understand the gist of an adult conversation at normal speed)? Let me know and I will find AA for you if you think it might help.

As for caffeine - big deal!

totallymessedup - I have no experience of what you are going through alcohol wise but wanted to offer my support. You are very brave to admit you have a problem.

xxx

Its a sign of recovery when you can speak openly about your addiction, so well done .

You also know its wrong and you need to seek emotioal help to make it easier to live without.

I grew up with an alcoholic father and it has affected the way in which I feel emotion and has also affected my adult life, I have suffered no abuse just complete neglect. I know my dad carries a burden with him every day.

you deserve better for yourself and also your family.

if you call AA and ask them for advice on other organisiations where you are im sure somone would love to help.

be strong its a struggle.
i wish you all the best.

Once again thank you all for your kind words and understanding. I am feeling very tired tonight and not sure what I will do next. However, I have not drunk since Sunday, and I will not drink for the rest of my pregnancy. I admit that this scares me, especially holiday and social occasions, but I've done it before.

I have found there are three English-speaking meetings per week in this city. I can't say where I am without outing myself.

Too tired for anything else right now, but thanks again for the support.

The fact you have put this on here, means you want to do something about it which is great. Wishing you and your baby luck. You can do it!!

Agree with Hullygully and MIFLAW. I am older and have two grown up 'children' and a teenager. I drank a moderate amount of wine throughout all pregnancies and they are all fine (v intelligent, top universities etc if you are concerned about that sort of stuff) I wasn't particularly proud of it but it made me feel better. It wasn't huge amounts but more than the amount one is 'allowed' to drink now. When I gave birth to my oldest we were actually given Guinness to drink in hospital to help with iron levels.

Obviously the stress you are under probably needs to be dealt with, but please do not torture yourself on top of everything else about the alcohol you have drunk. Try to stop if you can, then you can relax and have no worries/guilt, but I really do not think the amount you have drunk is going to make any difference.

As others have said, my parents generation drank and smoked their way through their pregnancies, many with no ill effects.

Totally

Are you by any chance in Nice?

A city I spent a lot of time getting shit-faced in without ever realising I needed AA.

English-speaking AA is very strong in the South of France - stronger than the French-speaking, actually!

Do give AA a try - especially until you get a better idea. It really can help, even just to know that you are not alone or the worst person on the planet.

Anyway, wherever you are, good luck and stay in touch - people on here can and will help you.

S

"I will not drink for the rest of my pregnancy. I admit that this scares me, especially holiday and social occasions, but I've done it before."

Can I give you some advice?

Avoid pledges like this as they are lose-lose. If you stick to it, you give yourself no credit because it's only what you know you "should" do. If you don't - which, if you are an alcoholic, is possible - then you will just carry on beating yourself up. This will then lead you to feel worse about yourself, and potentially to drink even more.

Why don't you instead start taking it one day at a time? Decide, just for today, I am going to try not to drink. If you fail, you fail - try again tomorrow. If you succeed, then you make the same decision again tomorrow - do I want a good day or a shit day?

Maybe sounds silly, but it's been working for me, without fail, for over seven years, and it can work for you too.

As I say, just advice - yours to take or leave.