Day 18. Clarity.

My mind is clearing.  Slowly, very slowly.  I knew this was going to be a process and a long one.  Alcohol has been an increasingly large part of my life for 30 years.  From the reading and research I have done, I knew that my brain would take time to become "normal" again.  It's interesting that I am not dwelling overly on the events of that Friday night, as I would normally do.  I can look back, see what happened and file it, knowing that if it hadn't happened I would probably still be drinking my way to an early death and still hurting my children.  Husband tells my I rang his mother when I was drunk complaining about him.  I find this hard to believe, and he often messes with my head like that.  I would have had to find an address book to look up her number, and she is the last person I would reach out to anyway, certainly not to complain about her precious baby who can do no wrong.  In any case, it's not important.  It's all about moving forward now, getting myself well, and holding onto my sobriety, which I am beginning to realise is a very important thing to me. 

My marriage is far from happy.  Husband has his own issues, anger, control, immaturity and he seems a bit lost now he can't blame my drinking for a lot of our problems.  I have accepted that I cannot, and will not, leave.  I need to rebuild my own life and find happiness for myself in things outside the marriage.  He is not all bad, he has many good parts to him.  He has trouble supporting me emotionally, he doesn't do emotions very well.  He is not drinking at home at all, but that is more about him than me, I know that.  he needs to be seen as "the good guy" to others, and to the kids.  They, of course, see right through him but love him anyway, as they should, as they do me.  In the past he was very threatened each time I tried to stop drinking, and would actually encourage me to drink, bring home bottles of nice wine, suggest going out to drinking venues.  And I would cave of course.  This is not to blame him, but it was one more hurdle I had to get past, and I didn't manage to do that.  Then. 

I have realised that it is my relationships that are triggers for me.  Left on my own I have no desire to drink.  But when any difficulty or unpleasantness occurs with Husband or kids the old reactions surface.  This is a good realisation, I can't avoid having interactions with my family, I just need to learn new ways of dealing with them.  What we all need to do right now is be kind to each other, and to ourselves.  E is struggling with school, but she is amazing in how she just won't give up, she is pushing through in spite of how awful things must have been for her with my drinking.  J is lost, having dropped out just months before he finished year 12.  I have decided not to worry about them as I used to, E is an adult and J will be 18 in a few months.  I will just support them and love them and be here for them, trusting that all will work out for them in the end.  This is a great freedom for me, as most of my stress in the past ten years or so has been with the kids and their schooling and the difficulties they have had.  It's up to them now to work out their future plans, it's not my responsibility any more.

I am enjoying my days, being more productive, but getting tired quickly so not trying to do too much and stopping when I need to, unlike the old me who would stress if everything wasn't done in the time frame I set for myself. 

Slow and steady, this is a lifetime journey.  I wish it hadn't taken so long for me to get sober, but I can't go back, I can't change what has happened.  All I can do is strive to make a better life for myself and be the person I want to be.