Drinking

I was raised by a single mother who never really drank. She used to keep a cask of St Tropez white wine in the fridge, but I don’t really ever recall seeing her drinking or even drunk. Even when everyone was around for drinks and a party, she’d be the only sober parent and she'd always say; you don’t need to be drunk to have fun.

My father was a very heavy drinker. My parents were separated from when I was 5 so I was very rarely exposed to it, and when he drank, it was the only time he ever was openly affectionate and loving. Drinking essentially was never really a part of my life.

It's okay to say "No".

Even when it came to being exposed as a teenager to drugs, it had always just been drummed into me that I didn’t have to be a sheep. I didn’t ever have to do anything that I didn’t want to. I just always did things when I felt it was right and I remember even as a teen saying no to drugs and that I wouldn’t cave to peer pressure.

Being diagnosed with Crohn's disease at 15 didn’t really give me many opportunities to go into my adult years living like other teens. Not only had I never been raised to be that into drinking, but I was so sick that I was barely existing outside of my bed or toilet!

I’m very grateful now as an adult, for those lessons. I’m still very unique around all of my friends and 99.9% of the time, it’s just a given that I will be the sober driver…

Weighing the risks

Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy a drink but to be honest, it’s very rarely and like always, there are so many different consequences for making that choice!

I have the next day… I have 2 kids. They don’t care if mama is tired and sore and needs silence. They want to scream, and I’m pretty sure they up the volume when they know I need it knocked down a few decibels. Then there is the pain.

The other day after a horridly stressful day I thought, hey, others say that a drink helps them to calm down after a shitty day so I might try this… I had a cider. No issue. It was delicious. Then I thought, cool, I’m having another one! Then…. 2 mouthfuls in and I’m in agony. OMG the pain.

I am currently in remission, so it’s not the disease that is ripping up my insides. I can only assume that my body has gone without alcohol for so long that there’s just no build-up of tolerance and potentially, the preservatives have reacted? Either way, it was a disaster that ended up wasting a perfectly good cider.

Knowing the limits

I guess we need to know our limits and apparently my mind and my body have 2 separate ideas of what that is.

I hope that I also raise my kiddies with the same mentality regardless of their health status in the future.

Either way, I've always weighed up the risks when doing things like this. Do I suffer for the cause?! Even when my disease was in full swing, I had to be prepared for the suffering. These days the suffering isn’t worth it. I can easily make a fool out of my self sober :P