dontburntheday

I grew up with two alcoholic parents, my father was "functional" and my mother was not. She spent time in jail for DUI, and got sober over and over again, culminating in time in a halfway house a few hours away from where I lived with my also alcoholic and abusive step-father. My father lived several hours in a different direction and I only saw him infrequently. My mother got sober for the final time when she was 42 and I was 16. She stayed sober until she died 11 years later. She was very involved in the AA and NA community and I know that it works. My father is still actively using. I didn't drink at all in high school and through much of college but picked up a daily pot habit then. I spent the next decade smoking a lot. Once my children were old enough to wonder about the odor, I started drinking more frequently. My ex-husband is also a smoker and drinker so my children have been raised in a pretty dysfunctional mess - and I HATE that I have repeated some of the things I grew up with, and hate that I have modeled the same crap for them - I don't want them to know this misery. They are teenagers now and live with me full time. I've been through the typical ups and downs of alcoholism, attempting to manage my drinking, bargain with myself and it never ever works. At this point I have been drinking only on weekends but my consumption on those days has nearly doubled what it was when I was drinking every day. I've exhausted every attempt to "manage" my drinking and I'm making the choice to stop.

My day to day life is difficult taking care of my babies and my household by myself with not enough money or time. I'm often emotionally wrecked trying to be both parents to these kids because there just isn't enough of me to go around. Drinking has become my outlet and method of dealing with everything and it scares me to know that I will have to develop new methods - however I have finally come to accept and believe that THIS outlet is not helping me deal or cope at all, it's just helping me hide and making everything worse. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I purchased some B-12, thiamin, and valerian root. I have a meeting I can get to every day at lunch without raising suspicions at work, I already have all of the AA literature in my house - it belonged to my mother. I've attended Al-Anon off and on and lots of open meetings where my mom was speaking so I'm familiar and comfortable with the community. I just had to get sick and tired enough to put the plan together and take the steps to executing it. I had one serving of alcohol for today to ease the withdrawal - I cannot take time off work right now so I hope that's enough of a wean down to not suffer too badly physically.

I'm very scared. But I know life can be better than this.