Being a parent is a difficult job. There are those days when the kids get into the magic markers and decide to color the walls or the carpet. Those are just the stresses from life that revolve around the kids. Other stresses creep in and make it exceedingly difficult to resist having a drink, which often leads to a few drinks. If you find yourself needing a drink, just to cope every day, you may be an alcoholic in the strictest of terms.
Alcohol dulls the stress and pain that you may feel emotionally but it also dulls your senses and impedes your ability to think quickly and your body is slowed in reactions too. Your ability to parent is really impacted by drinking. Here are some thoughts on how giving up your drinking can help you be a better parent.
1) Being present in the moment is important. With toddlers, anything can happen in a moment’s notice, but even with older teenagers, it is important to be alert and ready for anything to happen. Skateboarding accident, ‘my boyfriend just broke-up with me and I need my mom’ moments that are super important to your relationship with son or daughter. If you aren’t there for them, because you are too out of it from drinking, your kids will learn to turn elsewhere, and your relationship will never be the same.
2) Safety is a huge issue too. Kids can get up and walk out of the house at an incredibly young age. They have no inhibitions and aren’t reluctant to crawl out a window. If you aren’t checking on a quiet 2-year-old, you are taking a huge risk. Example: A mom thought her son was in his room playing when, he had pushed a screen out of the window and was outside, where his dad was mowing and luckily saw the whole thing and grabbed the little guy. Thankfully, it was a low, first-story, window.
3) Being involved with kids is a necessity if you want them to turn into decent human beings. Kids of all ages get involved in band, after-school-programs and extra-curricular things. Your support is the most important support that they will ever seek. Long after you are dead and buried, your child will be an adult who thinks about the time you taught them to decorate cookies or make your mom’s homemade chicken soup. They will pass those times on to their children, but it also helps them cope with life if they have always had your support, they become better students and more well-adjusted to deal with life. Don’t your children deserve that?
4) Drinking can lead to problems for you on the job. Becoming financially unstable can mean that you are incapable of taking care of your family, or even being able to keep your children if you were to become homeless due to eviction. It happens to people all the time. While it may seem impossible, it happens quickly. You live paycheck to paycheck like most Americans do, you lose your job, and, in a few weeks, you are late on rent. Next thing you know, you are so far behind that there’s no hope of getting caught-up and you find yourself unable to provide the basic life necessities for your kids. Stable environments are important to shaping young lives.
5) Keep yourself out of hot water with the authorities. If you are found to be neglectful, some states will not only take your children from you, they will also prosecute you for neglect. You can end-up in a lot of trouble with a criminal record. It only takes one incident that can happen in a few seconds. Alcohol really isn’t worth that.
6) Some of the very minor things that can happen have been known to turn into huge issues. The worst thing that could happen is that alcohol leads you down into a dark rabbit hole that leaves you wanting more and feeling empty all the time. It’s an addiction that gnaws at you and forces you to want more. Some people turn to drugs. Don’t let alcohol be the thing that your children emulate. They do what they see, especially when it is mom or dad.
To learn more, have a look at The Recovery Village website.
