Rose84

It's amazing what a day or 2 of sobriety feels like. Like you've conquered the world. So why not celebrate that...by having a drink? Never fails. I drink, to congratulate myself for not drinking. In a twisted way, this made sense to me for far too long. I'm a stay at home mother of five, trying to cope with severe anxiety and depression. When people ask "5 kids! Oh my gosh how do you do it?!" ...In my head all I can think of is...WELL, the giant bottle of wine waiting for me on the kitchen counter each night helps......kinda. I don't have to be wasted. And some nights I don't even have to open the damn thing. I just have to know it's there. I need a break. My BODY needs a break. I can't seem to go more than 3 days. I'm 31 years old, but most days I feel twice that. My family deserves better. Hell, I deserve better. I just can't seem to prove that to myself.

doggonecarl

Welcome to SR.

The voice telling you it's okay to drink is your addiction. And because a big part of you really wants to drink, you do. You would benefit from reading up on AVRT (addictive voice recognition technique). You will learn to cope with the AV.

Rose84

I'll definitely look into that Thank You

freshstart57

My alcoholism was causing my depression and anxiety, and I thought I had been drinking to cope! Yikes! In a few weeks after I quit drinking, my anxiety and depression lifted to a huge extent. I was amazed.

Stay the course and see if you find the same thing.

And ditto on the AVRT thing. Lots of info about it in our Secular Connections forum, and lots of support for you there too.

2ndhandrose

Welcome Rose84!!!

I don't have any kids so I can't even imagine what it takes to care for 5 of them! Kudos to you!

I hope you stick around here, there is so much support and great information to be had on these boards.

While I was actively drinking I experienced massive anxiety that I believed was caused by all the "tough" circumstances in my life. I made the decision to stop and slowly but surely the anxiety has lifted. The main cause of my anxiety was the exact thing I was using to try to treat it - alcohol

I hope you will give yourself a chance.

"My family deserves better. Hell, I deserve better. I just can't seem to prove that to myself."

I think you can prove that to yourself. We are all here for you

thomas11

My family deserves better. Hell, I deserve better.

I agree with you.

foryoumyson

I have one child 29 months old and he's more work then my actual job I cant imagine 5. And I drank the nights to when he went to bed. It's mostly mentally tiring then physically to me but we just need to find new ways to cope. Some rest some our time a little peace and quiet . Stay close to soberrecovery when you can. When you get an urge come on here and talk about it . Find something you like to do. Being alone and bored was when I wanted to drink the most .

NewDay79

Same here. Especially the anxiety. Got much much better once I stopped the wine consumption. You remind me of me. Bottle of wine. Sometimes you drink it, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you wait all day first. For me, that wine bottle became two bottles, than 2 big bottles and so and so forth until I was hiding the number of wine bottles from friends and family.

Rose84

Thanks for the words of encouragement everyone! I'm on day 3 without a sip! Doesn't sound like much but I KNOW it is. I can feel it. I'm able to accomplish so much more during the day when I'm not feeling foggy and weighed down by a hangover. I can't say I'm not thinking about it. The thought seems to pop into my head every five minutes. It's a battle to distract myself.

2ndhandrose

Day 3 is awesome Rose84! It will get better everyday. Just keep going!

Dee74

Way to go Rose

D