Alcoholic or enjoys a drink?!

[Blue_Fox2740]

Hi,

I am 31yrs, and enjoyed a drink before I had kids and didn’t think anything of it.
I currently have 2 kids, 2yrs 9 months, & 6 months. 
I haven’t worked in the last 6months and struggled with not drinking through my second pregnancy, (which I didn’t).

i am also struggling identifying drinking too much and just relieving stress because I looking after kids most of the time while my husband works full time, which I find very stressful and irritating at times. 
It isn’t effecting the was I handle my kids, and I don’t drink when looking after them, but my husband isn’t liking me drink as much as I do when he is home due to his father being diagnosed with kidney cancer, again, 2 years ago. 

There is the fact that my husband would enjoy a smoke if I didn’t tell him he was t allowed and he compares that to me drinking.

I would probably drink, (Rum & Coke), about 3 drinks a night, sometimes more sometimes not everyday, it varies.

I’m just really confused at the moment because I’m not working and spending the with the kids 24/7 and my husband gets an outlet of going to work ,40hrs a week. 
I am a highly stressed, irritated and anxious person. 
I’m also finding it difficult because my husband doesn’t drink much and is working and I’m ‘stuck’ looking after the kids and we don’t know what hard each others job is/how each other really feels. 

I normally wouldn’t write in these things so, thanks for your comments and support in advance. 

[therising]

Hi Blue_Fox2740

As a gal who's been on both sides of the fence, as a drinker and now largely a non drinker (might binge just a couple of times a year), I tend to look at alcohol as a drug of dependency in some cases. I suppose you could ask 'Do I depend on this mind altering substance or do I depend on it to alter my chemistry in some way?'. For me the answer used to be 'Hell yeah!', while trying to manage long term depression many years back. Nowadays I tend to depend on a lot of other resources to help manage my mind and emotions, with the internet being just one of a variety of resources. Being full of wonder and a serious researcher, I tend to wonder about and research how I tick on a mental, physical/chemical and soulful level. I suppose you could say it's about researching how and why I can be suffering through depressing or anxiety inducing challenges or periods in my life. Sounds a bit weird but I find if I was to drink then I wouldn't be able to feel or sense the true level of my sufferance in some cases. Feeling or sensing my emotions is what typically pushes me to address the reasons behind the emotions.

Putting a different spin on sensitivity, you could see it as 'the ability to sense'. I'll be completely honest in saying that I could sense just about every anxiety inducing and depressing aspect of being a mum to babies. Btw, my babies are now 19 and 22 years old and absolute legends. I could sense the depressing inner dialogue and other stressful and depressing challenges. I could sense what 'no relief' feels like and a whole stack of other stuff. I could also sense the intensely depressing side effects of serious sleep deprivation. My husband, understandably, couldn't sense all those things because he wasn't feeling or facing those same challenges. He was feeling and facing a different set of challenges. If I had my time again, I would have done the early years of motherhood differently. One thing I definitely would have done differently involves a 'responsibility roster'. I would have had more strategic breaks from responsibility, rostering my husband on for periods of time so that I could have sensed what 'relief' or 'peace' actually felt like. I think our partners can overlook what a 24/7 job looks like and feels like. In a normal job, you get to go home after 8 hours or so while also having breaks within those 8 or so hours. With a 24/7 job, being on call all the time does something to cortisol levels. The cry of a baby or even the word 'Mum' can become a triggers to stress. Going to post natal depression group therapy came as a massive relief for me. It was a relief to find mothers who could also easily feel the depressing and stressful elements of being a mum. I wasn't alone in how I felt. All of us in the group had a history of depression or you could say we all had a history of being able to easily sense what can be naturally depressing.