Thanks everyone for this thread. It meant a lot to me to read this today.
I am musing a bit now before I get to work on the food...and the level of honesty here about what we feel inside is very meaningful to me.
For myself, my inner world when I was drinking was very much as others have described. I felt I was worthless, unworthy and so fundamentally flawed that the only way for me to live was to hide, and numb the pain of hiding with alcohol.
It is true that my childhood was partly responsible for my feeling the way I did. I won't go into a lengthy description about it but...there's no doubt.
And oh, I held onto that for a loooonnnnnnnggggg time after I quit drinking. I could not speak to my mother for years, actually, and it took major work to get past that.
So now my mother is living with me. She has alzheimers and is very ill and frail. I am so grateful that today all my angst over her is gone. If I had not done what I needed to do FOR MYSELF I would not be able to care for my mother in her time of need.