Wow. I can't believe I finally found this old blog. So much has happened in the past 12 years. Where to begin? Well my issues with alcohol would be a good place to start. So I continued to drink. Wait. How about an update on my marriage situation. I left my husband in 2013. We co-parented our daughter and the boy together. My husband was very, very difficult to deal with. He refused to pay child support, made weekend exchanges of the children very hard for about 3 year. Eventually by the 4th year he began to come around and our relationship improved. He became very ill in 2017 and was diagnosed with Cancer. He was in alot of pain and having difficulty doing basic tasks around the house along with taking care of the children. I began going over to his house and helping when it was his weekend with our daughter. To make a long story short, we reconciled in late 2018.
During this time I continued to drink. I tried moderating, did Sober October, and Dry January to PROVE that I could stop if I wanted to. I made certain rules when I moved out and it was just my daughter and I; only drink after making her dinner, or giving her a bath, or putting her to bed, not before noon on weekends, or I can drink whenever I want when she spends the weekend with her dad because I deserve it! I'm a single mom! I can drink at the laundromat because my husband is a jerk and I had to move out and now I have to save quarters and go to the laundromat!
Anyway, you get the idea. The funny thing is with all the drinking I did I had no idea how truly awful it could get. None. I wanted to drink. I still enjoyed it. I hadn't gotten to the point where I HAD to drink. I still hadn't gotten to the point where I hated drinking but with the withdrawals, and the anxiety there was no choice. I had to drink to make those awful feelings go away. I wasn't drinking before and during work, yet. I wasn't waking up at 2, 3, 4 in the morning to drink, yet.
I was doing relatively ok with my drinking, teetering on the edge if I'm honest. With Dry January, Lent and Sober October I had a few periods of sobriety a year that seemed to help keep me in check. Then a series of events happened that threw me for a tailspin, I found out my husband hadn't paid our mortgage in 2 years and we owed about $100K. I found a note taped to our door indicating our home would be auctioned off in 2 weeks, a little later my husband had a heart attack, was hospitalized for pneumonia and we found out he has heart failure. Shortly after that my best friend died. I went on a bender that lasted about 1 year and landed me in the ER with Alcoholic Hepatitis.....and I still kept drinking. I really am 6 months sober though. I can't even believe it. I haven't been sober this long since I was pregnant with my daughter 15 years ago. Yes, she is 15 and my son is 24. When I started this blog she was 3 and my son was 12.
It's late here.I'll continue this tomorrow.
