Dee_Sober4today

I'm gonna try it again.
What am i gonna do different? Don't know.
Did the AA thing.. could NOT relate to anyone
Did the medication thing.. just put me in a fog
Did the vitamin overload thing. I might go back since I got my longest sobriety (45 days) in the last perhaps 10 years?

I've been unemployed for almost a year and a half so BOY did I have a party! In the interim, I did get my Masters but at a 12 PK-18PK per day, I also gained about 45 pounds. Boy, do I feel great about myself! NOT.

My boy has watched me drink every day, but I know if I didn't I would NOT have been as good of a mom since i suffer from depression and anxiety and bouts of rage when I don't drink.

When I drink, I can be silly and playful and talk to him openly (he's 12)

He hasn't had June Cleaver, but I have always been a good mom and I'm MORE with him when I drink. When i don't I am distant and agitate easily (very easily) He can always tell the difference in me and tries to avoid me when I DON'T drink!

I need to stop to get healthy but God knows mental health is a long ways away...

Feeling very tired and full of aches and pains right now. I know i'm rambling. Bear with me. I hope something will change. My mind is in a fog right now since its only been 48 hours sober and I slept most of that time.

I don't know how to release the stress naturally or constructively. Never learned... wish i could.

SSIL75

There was a thread in newcomers not long ago about the whole "but I'm a better parent when I drink!" thing.

Logically you must know that's ****** reasoning. What a life for a child to avoid a sober parent and only enjoy them drunk? I have 3 kids and I swear knocking the "But I'm a good mother even though I'm an alcoholic" thing out was one of the most important points in getting me sober. `

You will learn how to destress naturally. Thinking follows actions. Join a gym , google 'couch to 5k', take a little drive (you can drive now in the evenings. bonus!), get a cup of coffee, go kick a ball around with your son (bet he'll like that better than watching you drink), buy a trashy magazine.

I swear subconsciously I never really tried to destress because then what excuse would I have to drink

Congrats on your 2 days and do stick with it, no matter what! A chat with your doctor would be good too. A lot of people here are being treated for depression/anxiety.

Dee_Sober4today

No job, no health insurance, no doctor.

If it's a choice between me in a rage at my son or me having fun with my son while I drink, I'll always take the drinking.

See, this is why I don't do the AA thing either. They all want you to HATE yourself because you drink.

I don't hate who i am when I drink. I hate who i am when I'm sober!

SSIL75

I am not in AA and I don't want you to hate yourself

All I was sharing was that I couldn't stay quit until I realized that all the 'positives' of me drinking were nonsense. All lies my alcoholic self was telling me to further enable my drinking.

Sure, normal people can relax and lighten up after a few drinks. But the cost for an alcoholic is so high, IMO that it negates it.

artsoul

I thought drinking made me a nicer person, too. I could cope with anything. The truth was that the anxiety/depression/irritability I had when I wasn't drinking was actually due to alcohol withdrawal.

The more we drink, the more time it takes to recover. For me, it took a lot longer than 45 days, but I can tell you that I'm a much calmer and happier today than I ever was while drinking.

I hope you give sobriety another chance......

willdequit

Wow, your life is similar to mine. I am a student too and drink too much and gained weight while I did the work. And I also have a son and I also get the feeling that after a beer or two I'm way better and interactive and happier with him. I've been drinking for over ten years also and have been sober for over twenty four hours, I had only two beers two days ago and non yesterday. parallel universe. I know that I could learn to quit being so short and crouchy with my son when I'm sober, and I believe it is due to withdrawls. I think also you have to figure out what alcohol does to you that helps you destress and find another way to get that same feeling, like run, walk, knit or something.

CarolD

Dee_Sober4today.....welcome back ....

willdequit .....Welcome to our SR Alcoholism Forum....

I've yet to meet an adult who told me how proud and pleased they were about their parents drinking....

There are many here on SR who are now winning over alcohol ..some use a structured program such as AA or SMART others do not.

For me. regardless of anything external .....
I had to want to quit drinking more than I wanted to drink.

I sure hope both of you soon reach that turning point...sobriety is awesome...

MemphisBlues

I have never found anyone in AA who wants me to hate myself. I have found members who will go to any extent to help someone quit drinking and find solutions to what is inside us that makes us feel we are a better parent drinking than sober.

Being a single female parent is very hard. Drinking is easy. Not drinking is very hard, but can become easier than drinking. That's a paradox I could only understand by fighting the very hard fight of staying sober for months before seriously working the AA program.

I though the level of my depression and anxiety and my childhood made me terminally unique, that if someone had lived the life I lived, they would drink too.

It took a solid six months of sobriety before I realized what the term "terminally unique" even meant.

I'm not. We are all unique, but our past, our depression and our anxiety are familiar to nearly everyone in the rooms of AA.

When someone walks into the rooms who is only able to muster a few hours or a few days of abstinence, others flock to them to offer help. You might find that yourself if you try other meetings. Or maybe the same meeting you now attend where you feel they want you to hate yourself for drinking if you are willing -- and willingness is the only requirement -- to be honest with them and yourself.

A 12 year old thinks a parent is more fun after a couple of beers? Maybe they are, well, just being 12? Perhaps, just a very big maybe here, there is another solution to anxiety and depression than beer?

soberlicious

Do you think learning this is beyond you? I think you don't give yourself enough credit.

Be open to the possibility that this may not be true in his mind. You may hear the truth from him later down the road if you have a heart to heart about it. That's what happened to me.

and...sure you may be more "fun" in a 12 year old's eyes when you are drinking, but the fact that I had to face was that I was kidding myself...I was not able to truly connect with my children as a drinking mom...one cannot be a true authentic person and have true authentic connections when they are drunk.

peace to you...

BackToSquareOne

What I learned the hard way is that if you have been using alcohol for many years it can take a long time to relearn how to deal with life and actually be at peace with yourself and happy without the alcohol. Anxiety and depression can and often do get much worse when you first quit, without the crutch of alcohol this often is the case and these issues must also be dealt with. The only thing alcohol really does for anxiety/depression is to provide a brief period of relief followed by a rebound worsening of symptoms when the sedation wears off. Those brief periods of relief are actually making the underlying problems a lot worse.

sugarbear1

AA doesn't want anyone to hate theirself. ( themselves ?)

AA is for people who are like you. We're here to help others stay stopped.

Try staying stopped, get to AA and learn how to love yourself.

Prayers for your son.

Beebizzy

I have no children and know nothing about raising them, but what soberlicious says here made me think: it's actually in your eyes that you are more fun when drunk.

Now, I know you said he avoids you when you are sober etc. But do you know for sure how he feels about you being drunk? How confusing this must be to him. If he is 12 he will be increasingly encountering alcohol in different contexts as the years go by - I wonder what message he has got about it thus far.

Look, I'm not trying to be harsh - like I said I have no clue anyway - but as soberlicious also said a) you are not giving yourself enough credit, and b) you are not being authentic with him, you cannot be when drunk (no judgement, just saying, it's not possible).

BackToSquareOne is right too - I am being treated now for a depression I masked with alcohol, which has emerged since I quit. But consider this also: alcohol can cause these feelings you get when you are not drinking. But when you quit, OK it might be tough at first (not even a given - it wasn't for me), but eventually it passes - with treatment if needed. Then you are in a situation where you are not drinking and you are not feeling naff when you stop.

Good luck to you,
BB

winterdreamer

I was a single mom raising twins. I was a binge drinker the entire time they were growing up. I too, was the "fun", engaging mother when I was drinking. I was also miserable, irritable and withdrawn when I wasn't.
They would take me any way they could get me...

The older they got, the more I heard somewhere in the back of my mind,
asking each other, "is she drunk again?"

The year of their 21st birthday, one got a DUI, the other a drunk and disorderly charge. This was the worst mirror I ever had to look at. Some role model I was!! I've been sober almost two years. The greatest gift I could give to myself and to my adult children is my continued sobriety.

willdequit

While one parent in one house is having a beer and blabbering on and on about nonsense jumping around acting drunk and "fun" there's another parent across the street playing chess, doing crafts, helping people, they have sober friends around, they are going camping or maybe playing a sport with the kids like baseball, etc. Now the kids are teenagers; one kid is out in the field playing sports and another is hanging with other kids who's parents drink and they are stealing beer out of the fridge and getting drunk, one kid is feeling healthy and good about himself and one is putting weight on and starting to feel depressed and bad about himself. Now they are set for life, ready to go to college! One young man stays physically and mentaly healthy and gets good grades while the other continues to drink too much and puts more weight on, gets bad grades, makes a lot of party friends and feels depressed, drops out and asks to borrow money. Which kid would you like to have raised?

GettingStronger2

Maybe those things didn't work because you were not truly ready to quit? MAybe you didn't relate to people at AA because you didn't really want to? MAybe the pain from your drinking had not become sufficient?

Who konws. Just because you did these things does not mean they will not work when you are ready.

Good luck to you, i hope you can do it for you and your son.