Nervous about today
I easily made it through Christmas with only a few moments of temptation but I am really nervous about today. I am headed to my father's house for our gift exchange/Christmas with him, my step-mom and her daughter and family. My step-mom and I have a tense relationship. It is always polite, but the tension is palpable. Several years ago during a visit to the US I was staying with them with my young children and their father and she kicked us out of the house. We had to get a hotel- we chose to move to another city altogether just to get away from it all I was so distressed. Anyway, today we are headed there. It is going to be an open house type event with a buffet and drinks EVERYWHERE. Lots of neighbours and friends that I will have to greet and make awkward conversation with. They are both big time drinkers. I wouldn't call them alcoholics, but they drink a lot. She likes bourbon, my dad has a huge (actually really cool, 40's style) liquor cabinet, filed with everything imaginable. He loves fine wine and surely will have open many great bottles. But these people stress me out. I do not feel relaxed there at all.
They do weird things like send out long, expensive, unrequested wish lists for gifts before the holidays. I can't afford a lot of the things they want so I always feel like an ass and like my gift is not good enough. When they ask me what I want it makes me feel uncomfortable and annoyed. I tell them I just want to see them and they can just get something small for the kids and that is enough. But they always buy gifts, sometimes many of them and sometimes expensive. So then when i give what I can I feel like they are disappointed. Which makes me angry in addition to feeling less-than and annoyed. I am their child, shouldn't they just be happy to SEE me instead of being worried about gifts/stuff/material items? Like, come onnnnnnnnn.
I am going to try to minimise my time there. I have a two hour drive to get there, so won't arrive until about lunchtime, then I hope to leave early evening. But this might be the only time I see them during our visit to the US so I feel obligated to at least stay for several hours.
I haven't been taking any alcoholism related medication recently as I feel good. But last night I took an antabuse and will take another today just to add some insurance for this stressful visit.