Feeling positive, but challenges ahead (my story thrown in).
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Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 744
Feeling positive, but challenges ahead (my story thrown in).
Tomorrow I'm sober 3 weeks I've been actively reading and posting on SR for couple of weeks now (mostly on the April class thread) and it's definitely made a difference this time around. I've also been to a couple of AA meetings and sincerely plan to start making more meetings, getting into a schedule and getting a sponsor.
See I've been trying this now off and on for at least 3 years, and I'm just to the point where I'm done. My head is in a different place, and I have to stop the insanity. Because the thing is, each relapse was a little bit harder to come back from and I was just falling deeper and deeper down.
I'm 46 years old, and I never expected to be here. I have a family--3 beautiful kids who are smart, athletic, and reasonably well behaved. All 3 of them happen to be people I would choose to be friends with even if they weren't my kids, and I know enough to know that's not true for everyone, so I'm blessed. I have a marriage that is faltering and has been for a while, but it's reasonably stable and not harmful or unbearable. I have a nice home, pets, a demanding and sometimes rewarding job with a team I love (and plenty of non-team co workers who I don't love
. I'm smart (or used to be before the killing of brain cells), considered nice, and people looking at me from the outside (or what I Carefully chose to share on FB) would call me someone who had it together. At least until I didn't have it together.
I don't know how I Could have so many positive things going for me, and let it all fall apart. How even before I moved into alcoholic territory I felt like a fraud and drank to fit in and feel normal. How I've always been high strung and anxious and started using alcohol inappropriately to self medicate and deal with stress. How anyone who is a working mom with 3 kids, and a stressful busy job can't help but feel stressed out and not enough to go around every single day. Raising twins with health problems who never slept on the same schedule for the first 2 years of their life while working full time and a husband who thought he was living in the 1950s with a stay at home wife apparently and didn't feel the need to help out because he wasn't into little kids (I will admit he's much better now). Add 3rd kid in for good measure, and finally learned how to be super woman on the surface--I can handle this on my own--the jobs, the kids, the house, I can do it all. As long as I'm drinking when I'm anxious or stressed or bored, but still following the 'rules' of drinking that in my mind didn't venture into alcoholic drinking.
And then the bottom falls out---right when my marriage is imploding (in large part to my own reaction to not letting go of years of resentment, and deciding to throw in the towel)---one of my twins, just 8 years old, diagnosed with leukemia. Wow--- if you drink when you're anxious, well your kid getting cancer will certainly make you anxious. And that will push you over the edge in your already unhealthy drinking patterns. Let's start doing the really alcoholic stuff--- closet drinking (literally), drinking during the day, etc, etc. All the while dealing with the marriage stuff emotionally because getting divorced is not something you want to throw at your kids in the midst of 2 years of treatment. Again, I'm so blessed, so damn lucky--after 2 years of treatment hell and a couple of years now post treatment, my daughter is fine. Just fine. Her hair is long, she's getting medals for her running, she has straight As. And so does her twin.
So I try to come out of the fog, but it's not easy. And life keeps throwing curveballs. My sweet mom has Parkinson's and rapidly deteriorates. She and my dad were there for me when my daughter was sick--staying with us and helping me survive. And now she's completely disabled, trapped in a body that's broken. And my Dad, who is the most wonderful example of a selfish younger man who evolved into the most loving and selfless caretaker has a heart problem he ignores and almost dies. And then, most tragic of all my beautiful 20 year old niece, on the college soccer team and making straight As as an engineering major (who also happens to be one of the most down to earth and good kids around) is injured In a tragic accident, and now is paralyzed except for one arm. And my brother, her Dad, caused the accident, one careless moment of not paying attention, totally random and unintentional. What that does to him, to my sister in law, to his other 2 kids......it doesn't break any of them but it sure comes close.
Each time I was trying to get sober, but life kept coming. And I didn't have the tools,to deal. Or the energy to deal.
I think the 40s already are a hard time. For many of us, still torn between young kids and aging parents. Too busy and pulled in too many directions. Really starting to question the meaning of things. Realizing we are not invincible and that reasonably speaking are lives are are halfway over, and what do we have to show for it. All that even when things are relatively stable. When they aren't stable--when near tragic or tragic things happen as they inevitably do, I think even the most emotionally stable person has a hard time. I was not close to emotionally stable and I just tried to disappear.
This getting sober, so many things to learn. How to push through the stress and anxiety in healthy ways. How to deal with my problems instead of hiding from them. How to look back over the craziness of the last 5 years and deal with it emotionally now since I didn't then. How to put myself first sometimes. How to build new relationships and repair old ones. How to find things that are meaningful to me, that matter and give me a sense of purpose.
So next weekend, when I'll be right at 1 month sober I'll go home for the weekend to spend Mothers day with my mom and Dad. My brother and niece and their family live there, so I'll see them. My dear sister (the only one in my family that knows I'm an alcoholic and not drinking) will be there too from out of town. I used to treasure this time, and I still do in the way you do when you know that you don't have a lot of these opportunities left. But seeing what has happened to my family over the last years is a huge trigger and emotionally draining. It makes me so damn sad, although in another light it's more precious than ever. But I know one thing--this is the first time in a long time, that I'll be there sober. It will take everything I have in me, but I know I can do it. Life is too short, too fragile, too real to waste it in a drunken haze. Life is just as beautiful as it is hard. And you can't take one without the other.
See I've been trying this now off and on for at least 3 years, and I'm just to the point where I'm done. My head is in a different place, and I have to stop the insanity. Because the thing is, each relapse was a little bit harder to come back from and I was just falling deeper and deeper down.
I'm 46 years old, and I never expected to be here. I have a family--3 beautiful kids who are smart, athletic, and reasonably well behaved. All 3 of them happen to be people I would choose to be friends with even if they weren't my kids, and I know enough to know that's not true for everyone, so I'm blessed. I have a marriage that is faltering and has been for a while, but it's reasonably stable and not harmful or unbearable. I have a nice home, pets, a demanding and sometimes rewarding job with a team I love (and plenty of non-team co workers who I don't love
. I'm smart (or used to be before the killing of brain cells), considered nice, and people looking at me from the outside (or what I Carefully chose to share on FB) would call me someone who had it together. At least until I didn't have it together. I don't know how I Could have so many positive things going for me, and let it all fall apart. How even before I moved into alcoholic territory I felt like a fraud and drank to fit in and feel normal. How I've always been high strung and anxious and started using alcohol inappropriately to self medicate and deal with stress. How anyone who is a working mom with 3 kids, and a stressful busy job can't help but feel stressed out and not enough to go around every single day. Raising twins with health problems who never slept on the same schedule for the first 2 years of their life while working full time and a husband who thought he was living in the 1950s with a stay at home wife apparently and didn't feel the need to help out because he wasn't into little kids (I will admit he's much better now). Add 3rd kid in for good measure, and finally learned how to be super woman on the surface--I can handle this on my own--the jobs, the kids, the house, I can do it all. As long as I'm drinking when I'm anxious or stressed or bored, but still following the 'rules' of drinking that in my mind didn't venture into alcoholic drinking.
And then the bottom falls out---right when my marriage is imploding (in large part to my own reaction to not letting go of years of resentment, and deciding to throw in the towel)---one of my twins, just 8 years old, diagnosed with leukemia. Wow--- if you drink when you're anxious, well your kid getting cancer will certainly make you anxious. And that will push you over the edge in your already unhealthy drinking patterns. Let's start doing the really alcoholic stuff--- closet drinking (literally), drinking during the day, etc, etc. All the while dealing with the marriage stuff emotionally because getting divorced is not something you want to throw at your kids in the midst of 2 years of treatment. Again, I'm so blessed, so damn lucky--after 2 years of treatment hell and a couple of years now post treatment, my daughter is fine. Just fine. Her hair is long, she's getting medals for her running, she has straight As. And so does her twin.
So I try to come out of the fog, but it's not easy. And life keeps throwing curveballs. My sweet mom has Parkinson's and rapidly deteriorates. She and my dad were there for me when my daughter was sick--staying with us and helping me survive. And now she's completely disabled, trapped in a body that's broken. And my Dad, who is the most wonderful example of a selfish younger man who evolved into the most loving and selfless caretaker has a heart problem he ignores and almost dies. And then, most tragic of all my beautiful 20 year old niece, on the college soccer team and making straight As as an engineering major (who also happens to be one of the most down to earth and good kids around) is injured In a tragic accident, and now is paralyzed except for one arm. And my brother, her Dad, caused the accident, one careless moment of not paying attention, totally random and unintentional. What that does to him, to my sister in law, to his other 2 kids......it doesn't break any of them but it sure comes close.
Each time I was trying to get sober, but life kept coming. And I didn't have the tools,to deal. Or the energy to deal.
I think the 40s already are a hard time. For many of us, still torn between young kids and aging parents. Too busy and pulled in too many directions. Really starting to question the meaning of things. Realizing we are not invincible and that reasonably speaking are lives are are halfway over, and what do we have to show for it. All that even when things are relatively stable. When they aren't stable--when near tragic or tragic things happen as they inevitably do, I think even the most emotionally stable person has a hard time. I was not close to emotionally stable and I just tried to disappear.
This getting sober, so many things to learn. How to push through the stress and anxiety in healthy ways. How to deal with my problems instead of hiding from them. How to look back over the craziness of the last 5 years and deal with it emotionally now since I didn't then. How to put myself first sometimes. How to build new relationships and repair old ones. How to find things that are meaningful to me, that matter and give me a sense of purpose.
So next weekend, when I'll be right at 1 month sober I'll go home for the weekend to spend Mothers day with my mom and Dad. My brother and niece and their family live there, so I'll see them. My dear sister (the only one in my family that knows I'm an alcoholic and not drinking) will be there too from out of town. I used to treasure this time, and I still do in the way you do when you know that you don't have a lot of these opportunities left. But seeing what has happened to my family over the last years is a huge trigger and emotionally draining. It makes me so damn sad, although in another light it's more precious than ever. But I know one thing--this is the first time in a long time, that I'll be there sober. It will take everything I have in me, but I know I can do it. Life is too short, too fragile, too real to waste it in a drunken haze. Life is just as beautiful as it is hard. And you can't take one without the other.
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Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: California
Posts: 13,040
Hi Suzie,
I'm sorry you have had to deal with so many tragedies. I am glad your daughter is in remission.
You are giving yourself one month of sobriety for Mother's Day, I think that is a pretty amazing gift.
Glad you are here.
❤️ Delilah
I'm sorry you have had to deal with so many tragedies. I am glad your daughter is in remission.
You are giving yourself one month of sobriety for Mother's Day, I think that is a pretty amazing gift.
Glad you are here.
❤️ Delilah
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