Why I drink

There's a lot of talk out there about moms who drink. It's a hard job, the daily routine of thankless tasks: changing, feeding, bathing, napping, burping, bouncing, dressing, undressing, changing, napping and feeding that feels like it's for life, that a mom will always have to be there for that tiny person.
I was there once, twelve years ago, with two tiny persons. The Old Soul and I call them the black years. He started a new business 2 months before they were born and so was gone a good part of the time in the early months. Don't get me wrong, when he was there, he was awesome and hands on for everything but it was still hard. It made getting up and going out the door everyday (which I had done ) look like a piece of cake.
I keep trying to remember how much I drank then. It doesn't seem like it was so much, although I do remember pumping and throwing the milk away because I had drank wine and didn't want to give it to the babies.
I remember happy hours with the neighbors, but never drinking alone, and never being obsessed with when I could drink again.

I think my obsessive drinking started when my elderly mother became too ill to stay in her own home but not ill enough to die. I had to make all the choices about moving her and watch her go in and out of hospitals and skilled nursing rehab, and even hospice. My kids were eight and I was also juggling my real estate career and being office manager for my husband's latest new business which he started when the kids were four. I was more stressed than I had ever been in my life, even at my crappiest job.
I would visit her as often as possible, go to all the caregiver update meetings, and fret constantly if she was in the right place and was I doing the right thing. There are no right answers and so many woulda, shoulda, couldas. Previously, I had gone through exactly the same thing with my elderly dad; although my mom was there so it didn't all fall on my shoulders. I learned so much about the whole elder care scene that I was sure I knew it all. When it was my mom's turn, I found I didn't. I spun all the same wheels knowing the theoretical answers, with the same pitiful results. The system was broken and I felt I wasn't doing enough. It was my fault their quality of life in their declining years wasn't better. But I was just too tired to do more.

So I started drinking, heavily. After a day with mom, in the depressing place that was now her life, I looked so forward to the release and escape of that cold, crisp bottle of Chardonnay when I got home. I remember thinking this would only last until I got through this life chapter. When she was gone, I wouldn't need to drink so much.

My mom passed away in June of 2009. During my moms' decline, I had retired from real estate and working for my husband because when that became a three person job. I became a stay at home mom. And except for the 80+ days last spring and a few weeks stretches here and there, I have drank a bottle plus each and every day. Sometimes I start at 8 am.

I think a lot about why I do this. Boredom, resentment, sadness; I can't quite put my finger on it. I psychoanalyze my childhood and adolescence, my marriage, my existence. AA says I should get all my past resentments out and make amends. I just don't feel like I have that many, or they have gone away. I am afraid to explore further for the increased pain it will surely dredge up.

But I digress.

I started this piece to say that those baby days were hard and I can see why they would make a mom drink. I did some, but I wasn't in trouble then. The trouble now is, those precious babes are growing up and I am not on call anymore. Every day I realize somtehing we will never do again together. Hold them in my lap, go to the zoo, watch an animated kids' movie...
They can fix their own breakfast, they aren't scared to spend the night at a friends anymore, they go to school everyday and leave me at home with an empty void to fill. And lots of time to think about how I could have done better by everyone, my whole life.
When does that stop? And do I drink because of it, or is it so, because I drink?