I'm married with 3 young kids but I can't really remember them being babies......???
 

My drink problem has robbed me of this,

A friend of mine has recently just given birth to a baby girl and I've seen some lovely pictures on facebook,

My kids are 9, 6 and 4 and I'm happily married, or as happy as we both can be with the current situation. After seeing my friends pics on facebook about his new daughter, I've searched my soul and I feel that I'm honestly missing from my memory the parts of my life that he's experiencing now.

I don't feel too down about it as it inspires me even more to put things correct. We are away at our caravan at the seaside at the moment and even though the weather isn't great I'm hoping for a top notch day with my wife and the children.

Has anybody else been through this?

I'm 32 so I guess I maybe still learning.

Thanks very much in advance.

Bruno.

Alcohell steals time, don't let it take any more.

Have a good weekend.
Make it one to remember.
John

Bruno,

I'm 26 and I don't remember my 6 year old being a baby. I was too busy getting drunk because I had post pardum depression. My husband always took care of her because I would work until 4 in the morning (bartender). I would sleep and just put her in a bouncer. I was a terrible mom when she was a baby. Not attentive, always putting it off on my husband because I was too hungover. It definitely isn't something I like to think about. It brings back so many regretful, guilty, horrible feelings. Thank you for the post. I really wanted to drink today. Your post brought me back to exactly where I need to be. Gratitude. Have a great weekend with your family! Make some good memories to remember.

Dom.

I never had children but I sure as hell was not as good of a person as I thought for a long time.

Welcome aboard the SR train. :)

some things have come back with time, but yeah - I'm still missing whole years from my life Bruno.

Like you say, it's good motivation not to lose any more.

D

yep- i am missing chunks [years] from my memory banks. Today , i pay real close attention to ...well- today!

I got into recovery when my son was 8- been clean n sober for 16 yrs now and , just as important, i have been there for him all that time....

My group leader in the Recovery Home talked about lost/missing memories. He blamed it on the extreme selfishness that we were in at the time. The "present moment" didn't mean much to us as we were constantly in the past or the future.
I find as time goes along in sobriety that a lot of lost memories come to the surface. I always say "Thank you, God" when one appears.

Bruno, are you going to AA?

All the best.

Bob R

Good thread. Just a few days ago I went through some old documents from my past and came across a whole pile of records of employment when I was in my 20's and bouncing around from job to job. I wrote out a time-line using the dates from those to figure out how old I was, where I had been working and living through those years. What an eye opener, there were complete years missing from my memory..and jobs too! For years I thought and actually told people I moved from one town to another when I was 21, the records showed 24. Ouch....

My daughter's 7, soon to be 8. I don't know if I'm missing many memories, probably some. And some of the ones I have are not exactly the stuff of Hallmark cards. Nothing too horrible, just little things, like cutting short playground trips so I could get home to the refrigerator. Those little things add up though.

But like you said, they're also a powerful inspiration to change. And now, some 15 months after my last drink, they remind me how good I have it. How good we both have it. Because now there's a whole different set of little things. Like tonight, we were sitting on my bed playing Scrabble, with Tom Waits playing this soft bluesy tune on the stereo, and I thought to myself, It doesn't get better than this. I have my share of regrets, but in a way my past mistakes are also a blessing, because I learned a lot from them.

Seems to me that's true for you, too, Bruno. Enjoy your weekend at the shore, whatever the weather. :)

I have 5 children with an 18 year spread. I wish I didn't remember some things . I have been blessed with a second chance and an enjoying every moment. Your children are so very young make new memories and because of aa I am going to be the best person I was meant to be. Put the past behind you and focus on the now. O try to keep the parts of my past as motivation for the future.

I've been a terrible mom for the past 5 years. Good thing my daughter has a loving, normal, sober father. I have to push the feelings of guilt away every day. I can't pretend the past never happened but I can spend the rest of my life making up for it. Tomorrow is a new day. Make new memories.

I quit drinking in 1998 when my kids were 5 and 7 years old. Even after all these years, my memories of them being little are dim or nonexistent, which is sad indeed--as is the fact the during their early years I was (to say the least) a horrific mother.

But my kids also learned something. They saw their mother make a permanent and powerful decision to quit drinking. They saw her change her behavior and become, for the most part, a calm, supportive and loving mother. Now that they are young adults, they have a fuller perspective and can appreciate what happened and put their early years in context of what followed.

But it all started with the decision to quit, no matter what. Best decision I ever made.

I cant remember many of the key moments of my 20s, and what I do remember I can't recall what specific year/order the events were in.

It happens to most of us who are in our situation, but remember to focus on the present and the future. Look forward to all the of the years and moments you WILL be able to make and remember with fondness in your later years.

Hey Staffs, good to hear a Midland accent, they all talk funny down here :)

Not really a memory thing, but I didn't see my best friend's son until he was nearly two because she was chronically ill during and following her pregnancy and it was easier for me to get drunk and talk about going to visit her than to actually go.

Her little boy is six now and nuts about me, and although I'm a great 'auntie' to him now, I always feel guilty that he doesn't know how much I let him and his mum down when he was a baby...

xx