Visitation and Anxiety
 

I've been sober for a little over four months now, and I've been doing pretty well. I feel like my anxiety and depression had mostly leveled out, and I have generally been pretty happy. However, my anxiety is starting to peak again because of the holidays. My daughter is spending Christmas with her Dad this year, and it is the first Christmas that I will not have her. She will be at his house for 11 days. The last time that she was at visitation for an extended time, I drank heavily. It helped temporarily dull the anxiety. She's only five, and she gets homesick when she goes to his house for a long time. It makes me feel so sad.

Her relationship with her Dad is complicated. She's only been seeing him regularly for the last 9 months or so. She likes going over there because she is allowed to do whatever she wants, and he takes her to a lot of fun places. He's taking her to Disney World for Christmas, which is part of why I'm so anxious. He's never taken her on vacation before, and I know he's not prepared for taking care of her.

It's really taken me by surprise that the anxiety has started building this early. It started with a nightmare about my daughter being lost and not being able to help her two days ago. Now I'm trying to be upbeat about her staying with her Dad, but I just have this underlying feeling of dread all of the time. I hope this gets easier.

I've been sober for a long time, and my children are young adults now, they were 7 & 9 when their mother divorced me and I entered AA.

It does get easier, especially if we stay sober, but there will always be the challenges of co-parenting. I've found the greatest relief to be the relationships I've made in recovery, other parents who struggle with similar situations that I can talk to and consult with to make sure I'm making good decisions too.