Children of Alcoholics

Last week was National Children of Alcoholics Week.

According to a parliamentary group there are 2.5 million children of alcoholics living in the UK and one in five children under eighteen are exposed to a family alcohol problem.

The National Association for the Children of Alcoholics (NACA) have a helpline which received 32,000 phone calls and e-mails last year, some from children as young as five.

One of the services they provide is reading bedtime stories for kids whose parents are too drunk to do it themselves. Some children call so regularly that the staff keep their favourite books by the phone.

To read more click here for a harrowing article sent to me (sobermummy@gmail.com) by Catherine. Thank you Catherine!

It's really easy to read articles like this one and to think that's not me. I never neglected my children. But I know that, even though I always read bedtime stories to my kids, there were many ways in which my drinking affected them and that, had I not quit, it would only have got worse.

What about all those times when you skipped a few pages so that you could get to 'me time'? All those little signals that let your kids know that you are not really enjoying this. You'd really rather be somewhere else.

I was constantly engineering family and social events in a way which would separate the kids from the adults, thinking that everyone would have more 'fun' that way.

Even when I was with my children, my head was often elsewhere.

Here's a post I wrote six months after I quit drinking about how quitting booze changed the sort of parent I am. Click here.

The ramifications of being a boozy parent are deep and long reaching. In 1983 Dr Janet Woititz published a bestseller titled Adult Children of Alcoholics in which she outlined thirteen characteristics that these children tend to share.

These include: fear of losing control, fear of emotions and feelings, conflict avoidance, harsh self-criticism and low self-esteem and difficulties with intimacy.

It's no wonder that the children of alcoholics are four times more likely than average to become addicts (and five times more likely to develop an eating disorder) themselves.

So quitting booze isn't just the best thing you could do for yourself, it's the best thing you could do for your kids too....

By the way, if you live near Birmingham and would like to meet up with some other fabulous sober people then lovely reader Tori has set up Club Sober.

The first meeting is on Thursday March 2nd at 6.30pm and is free (all funded by Tori).

To find out more, and to connect with Tori, go to her blog by clicking here. And please let me know how it goes so that I can post an update on my blog.

Love SM x

Children

I have a terrible confession. One of my major triggers, one of the things most likely to make me want to dive headfirst into a vat of fermented grapes, was..... my own children.

Don't get me wrong. I love the little blighters, obviously. And bringing them up is a constant delight and adventure. I would happily take a bullet or fight a tiger with my bare hands for them.

However, bringing up children is hard - at least I found it so.

There's the endless repetition (say please, wipe your nose, don't forget to flush the loo), the boredom (pushing swings for hours, pureeing vegetables, picking cereal off the floor), the frustration (what do you mean you can't remember where you left your book bag?)

It's no wonder that by the end of the day so many of us are gasping for a glass of vino (or, let's face it, a bottle).

But, slowly, slowly, all of these everyday stresses have got much easier since I quit. It is, I promise you, the case that the booze only increases the levels of anxiety, the lack of patience and the bad temper.

(See my post: Reasons to Quit Drinking #6: Because You're a Parent).

These days, the SM household is (relatively) calm. Zen. You hardly ever hear any shouting. A situation which seemed inconceivable this time last year.

There are, however, still child related things that push every one of my buttons, that have me longing for the Chablis, even after all this time.

(I generally end up eating a slice of cake bigger than my head and drinking twice as much Becks Blue as usual).

What I find most tricky is watching my children navigate major hurdles in life and not being able to help them. This inevitably comes with an awful lot of self blame, as I decide that, for some reason, it's all my fault.

A few months ago, for example, one of my kids was being bullied in the playground. I wanted to tear the limbs off the culprit one by one, and he was only a nine year old boy.

I spent hours debating strategies to solve the problem, and days berating myself, thinking that I must have done something that made my child look like a victim.

And this week has been a horribly hard one to navigate sober because it's exam week.

#1 has no issue with exams. She sails through them in a calmly ordered flotilla of revision timetables, colour coded notes and sharpened pencils, usually coming top.

#2 is a different matter. Trying to get him to concentrate on revision for longer than thirty minutes is almost impossible. So, despite that fact that he does really well in IQ tests, he struggles to get even average marks in exams.

He's not worried. He's perfectly happy, so long as he doesn't come bottom. And even that wouldn't bother him too much. But I wind myself up into a little stress ball, and - again - blame myself for not helping or inspiring him enough.

There are two things that I've found helpful:

One is remembering to be grateful.

My children are healthy and happy, and that's really all that matters.

I know that sounds terribly obvious, but it's amazing how seeing the things to be thankful for in a situation can completely diffuse it.

(For more on the power of being grateful see my post: Gratitude).

The second is reminding myself that they are not me. All three are totally different from me and each other. The way they work, how they think, what motivates them is not the same as me.

My job is to advise, nurture, encourage, but not to do it for them. Their failures are not my fault, in the same was as their successes are entirely their own, and - what's more - they need a few failures to learn from.

At least there's one thing I know for sure: this week wouldn't have been any easier if I'd been drinking through it. It would have been a hell of a lot worse. There would have been yelling and tears (theirs and mine). And that really wouldn't have helped.

For more on sober parenting, and all the ups and downs of the sobercoaster, check out NoWayRose's fabulous new blog by clicking here.

Love to you all,

SM x

Reasons to Quit Drinking #6: Because You're a Parent

You might not actually be a parent. You might be a step-parent, a Godparent, or planning to be a parent someday. Maybe you're looking after your own aged parents. The principle is the same.

Drinking (a lot) makes us rubbish parents.

For a start, there's the physical stuff. Good parenting requires really high energy. Which is not at all compatible with several hours a day spent hungover. Or drunk.

Also, you really need to be present. And I don't mean just in the room (although that helps too, obviously), I mean paying attention.

Even sober I have to confess to frequently checking my mobile in mid conversation with my children, and answering uh huh to any question they ask (which doesn't fool them for a instant).

But when I was drinking I was a lot worse.

Far too much of my head space was taken up with thinking about booze.

In the morning I'd be thinking about how much I (shouldn't have) drunk the night before, and how to get through the day feeing under par.

In the afternoon I'd move onto when I could poor the next glass of wine, which shop I could duck into on the way to the school run, and so on.

(See my post: The Wine Witch for more on those infernal internal dialogues)

Plus, alcohol makes us miserable (if you don't believe me, read my post: Reasons to Quit #4). It leaches the colour out of life, and makes it difficult to appreciate the little things.

And being with children is all about the little things: discussing the smell of PlayDoh, playing Pooh Sticks, kicking leaves, drawing smiley faces in the fog on the car windows - you know what I mean.

Once you quit, you'll find yourself much more able to be in the moment, and to see things through the eyes of your children.

(See my post: 7 Months Sober, for more on this).

And, you know what? Our drinking doesn't just affect their childhoods - it affects their adulthood too.

I'm sure that part of the reason I was so comfortable with drinking every day, was that I grew up in a family where drinking gin and tonic before dinner and wine with dinner every night was normal. I never questioned it. It was just what (sophisticated) adults did.

Christmas 2014 I realised that all my Christmas presents from my children were wine related! A bottle stopper (as if there'd ever be anything left in the bottle!), a corkscrew, and a mug with the caption I wish it were wine o'clock.

Now my kids LOVE the fact that 'Mummy doesn't drink.' They boast about it. And, I hope, I'm showing them that you can be a normal, fun, sociable adult without the constant prop of booze.

BUT, for me, the biggie, the main reason why quitting drinking is a no brainer if you are a parent is this:

What happens when the s**t hits the fan?

We may not have been brilliant parents when we drank, but we kept it all together, didn't we? Our kids were happy, well adjusted, well turned out, achieving..... Because we put them first. Always.

Well, sure. And that's all fine when life is going okay. But, here's the bad news: it doesn't always go okay.

Sometimes kids get dangerously ill in the middle of the night. Someone (capable) has to take them to A&E.

Sometimes parents get divorced and someone needs to hold it all together, and be civil to the utter bastard (their father).

Or....as happened to me.... sometimes Mummy gets cancer and has to put her children first when her world is falling apart.

If those things happen when you're drinking, all the wheels come off.

(See my post: When Life Throws You Lemons).

Stop drinking now and, baby step by baby step, you'll find yourself being a better and better Mum (Dad). Without faking it!

And, if life does throw you lemons, you won't be running and ducking, you'll be running a lemonade stand, baby.

Love to you all,

SM x