One of my biggest regrets about my drinking is how it affected my children and how there is nothing I can do to take that back. At the time, I did not think I was doing them any harm. I thought I was a good mother – I loved them, I worked and had a good job meaning we could afford a nice home, good food, clothes, holidays and treats. Financially they did not suffer. They also always had clean clothes, packed lunches etc. And I did not ever get violent or vicious. I like to think I was an amenable drunk.
Emotionally Not Present
However, in hindsight I can see two consequences of my drinking that did affect them. Emotionally I was not present. I almost always had my next drink at the top of my mind and would manipulate situations so I could drink. I would like them to go out with their dad. If I had to take them out I would limit the amount of time we would spend out so I could get back to a drink (‘you can choose 3 shops to go to on this shopping trip then we must get home’). And I think my constant drinking was an embarrassment for them. My eyes probably looked a little glazed and I think some of the other parents got to know that I ‘enjoyed a drink’.
In the end, they year I got sober, my oldest child was 17 – in the last couple of weeks before I went into treatment, she went to a friends. My youngest two were taken away by their dad and my son (then 14) decided he would rather be with his dad then his drunk of a mother too. He returned my birthday card to him and when I turned up at his birthday barbecue at his dad’s he asked me to leave. My youngest was 7 at the time. She too can remember growing up with me drinking a lot – as typified by her telling the church congregation on Mothering Sunday (when the vicar asked what mums liked) ‘my mum likes wine!’. Everyone laughed; I knew it was not funny by this time.
Took Time to Build Up the Trust
My children pushed me into a clinic and I got the message that I was an alcoholic. It took some time before they trusted me again though and could really accept that I had stopped drinking for good. It took action rather than words. The first Christmas they were wary and much to my anger, asked my family not to bring alcohol to the family gathering. I can now see why they did not want to put my new fragile sobriety at risk.
Now I am Understanding and Compassionate
These days, I know I am a good mother. My experiences as an active and now recovering alcoholic have made me more understanding and compassionate. My children can enjoy my madness and eccentricity knowing that I am in not out of control. We can laugh and love – and we do.
So while I regret what I did and cannot change the past, they can benefit from what we all – me especially – learned from it.