Hello Dementedma and Everybody
This is the first time ever I have posted on a public forum, and I put this on a Mumsnet teetotal thread earlier today, but this thread is more recent.. Thank you so much for your support.
' I would not know where to start really. I have had one of those incredible lives, and at the age of 55, I am leaving the home that I share with my 22 year-old son whom I have raised since he was 6 as a solitary adult (as opposed to single parent - the father only calls twice a year) - with no family at all to help me (as both younger siblings were unmarried and hotshot yuppees); this I did after a 15 year international life with a cruel, abusive meglamaniac 16 years ago. I had made over 20 homes for him across US and Europe trailing after him as he climbed his corporate ladder, and I walked out with nothing except my passport, my car keys and my son's hand while we were in Germany, because we were not married and I had no 'rights'. He then reduced me to the bone down to a few hundred pounds a month for 7 years in rage and punishment, until finally, in 2003, after umpteen more moves with a small child - his secretary convinced him our son needed a safe home, and I got 10% as a down payment for a small house near to the latest school our boy had to attend in England. I was 46 with no credit history in the UK, and absolutely no money. I got a Self-Cert mortgage on my own (in the days you could before the 2007 crash), and my life has been devoted to raising our beautiful son who has become everything I could have ever hoped for. A son who told me at the age of about 11.."Mummy, I don't know why you try to figure him out - he's a psychopath.."
I have never in this time found another relationshiop because I felt I had to give our son the best I could, and show absolute strength. My crutch was wine...Because the father is European and much older than me, I was introduced to drinking it every night as the norm. Through the endless phenomenal stress of these last 30 years, I knew that having a bottle every other 1-2 days was all right. I did the school run 4 times a day every day for 13 years, and I never left my boy's side. I never drank socially to any great extent because it didn't really interest me. Anyway, drinking at home allowed me to 'analyse' everything, and prepare my defence if attacked by the father from abroad. As time went on, any blip in life would be the reason to have a bottle in the evening, thinking I was being sophisticated. And yes - I have been without it for 4 weeks at a time, but I when I drank it again, it was a whole bottle if not more, and with the speed of lightening.
Reading this wonderful and phenomenally honest thread, I am putting here on paper that I know I have a problem. I am on my first holiday alone in 30 years in Italy in a sc apartment. I have so much I want to do in my life now that this incredible chapter of my life is over, (what now? I'll have a glass and plan the rest of my life.. Oh! Have I really drunk the bottle so quickly??!! I'll just start another. I must check in my diary to see if I have anything important to do tomorrow - I'll cancel if necessary). Thank God nobody can see me." I drink around 1.5 bottles every 3 days average but it can be more if there is a drama. Everything that people have written here I have felt .. nauseauting shame, degrading embarrassment, vile, repulsive (particularly in front of the one person I love the most, my son - who does not touch the stuff!). I am at the age when I am really concerned for myself, although I healthy, I am exhausted aftger the 30 years, but why this self-destructive behaviour? Yes - dire loneliness, am I past it?, will I ever fulfil my dreams? .. etc.
I could not cut down.. I am an all or nothing person too. Interestingly, I am not addicted to tobacco. I can smoke a fag after 20 years, and never do it again. I feel a fraud because I meditate with yoga, and some of my greatest insights come when I have downed a bottle...and I look as if I don't touch the stuff. I also write, and every writer will say that the grape produces great prose. But with me, you just would 'never know'. I am frightened to be on my own, and have to find a way to give up when I move to Italy permanently this Spring.
I am sorry this has been so long, and I would so welcome encouragement from the other posters. Wine has been my weakness for 30 years (and, it has to be said - I could not have achieved what I did without it - I would have been in a psychiatric unit). But I am terrified and want to stop. I have never done anything like this in my life - asked on a public forum for your help. Thank you with all my heart.'