I’m trying to find my voice with this blog, I don’t know whether I should document my daily existence as a mum, wife and recovering alcoholic, or whether I should focus on my alcoholism and recovery. You see I’m conflicted, because the biggest challenge I have had as an alcoholic was that I was highly functioning. Even though I was drinking daily, and regularly felt hungover or just unwell, I was still able to do all of my mum tasks, I was able to hold down a high profile career, and I have been able to hold down relationships and a very successful marriage.

This week has been a bit of a struggle because my husband was travelling interstate for work, this meant that I was the sole career for my two children, and had zero respite. You see, normally my husband gets home anywhere from 6 – 7.30 pm and he ‘takes over’ the kids, or at least shares the load. However as he was away, there was no load sharing, I wasn’t able to go to meetings and I was barely able to get in touch with my sponsor or AA network.

Normally when my husband was away for work I would use it as an excuse to smash down a bottle of red, with some cigarets and without the judgement from a non-alcoholic person. However this time, I had myself to deal with.

Over the past few days my children have been a major handful, they both woke up through the night and on the Tuesday night, when trying to put my toddler back down to bed, I put my back out. Normally;y a few wines would distract me from this pain, however all I had was my painkillers and a heat pack. I found myself doing an emergency dash to a doctor that I could get into, just to get some muscle relaxants because even just sitting in the car was causing me excruitating pain.

Having valium in the house really took the edge off my pain and my anxiety, but I did find myself chain smoking. I never smoke around my children or husband so was constantly sneaking out the back away from my kids, and in the evening, was trying to smoke at the front of the house to stay away from my neighbours.

By the time my husband got home from work on Friday night, I was done. I was desperate to get to a meeting, I was desperate to get away from the children, and I was desperate to hit the gym.

I’m still struggling every single night with panic attacks and a complete lack of focus, I don’t know where my focus has gone. I can’t find TV shows to watch, some days I struggle blogging, I can’t engage myself with my small business, sewing, writing, painting or anything at all. In fact, I just want to be in my own little bubble of introversion.

Maybe this is how normal people feel, maybe normal people get tired in the evening after a long day and choose to rest and turn off their mind. The adjustment from using alcohol to prop me up to not having anything to prop me up has been extreme and honestly, I don’t know what my new normal is.

I’m enjoying being sober, and I am so excited to get my 1 month chip this coming Monday, but at the same time it is a huge adjustment getting used to being sober and resetting my life.