Quote:
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Originally Posted by Nickatilynx
Do this one...
Go to your kid and say , you'll never ever see me drinking again.I give you my word.
It works.
I will never drink again  |
I've taken the liberty of replacing the needed consonant in that, as it is such an important gift to bestow upon the world.
This is a man who plays "Sobriety Hardball." The lady in your life will pick you up and understand, Ryan. Your friends will do the same. But the one thing you never, EVER want to see is the look in your child's eyes when you break a promise like that. It will gut you.
It also makes you very mindful of what you could be passing on. Every parent wants their child to inherit the best of them. Not the worst. Unfortunately, alcoholism runs in families. Some say it's genetic, some say it's learned behavior. Whatever it is, you sure as hell don't want to pass it down.
My Dad scared the hell out of us when he was drunk. He wasn't a violent drunk. He was never absusive. He just wasn't "Daddy" when he drank. Thick voice, inchoherent conversation, the smell, the regrettable tendency to collapse on the floor...it was scary as hell. The "mornings after" weren't a lot of laughs, either. Instead of "happy breakfast" we got a white-faced mother telling us not to make noise...and we had no idea why at the time.
My husband "self-medicated" a lousy life with Jack Daniels before he met me. Then, it occured to him as he held his infant daughter that there was a "talk" in the future about drinking. So he stopped drinking entirely until the girls got old enough to discuss the subject intelligently. We're proud to have a 24 year old who looks at wine lists now. (If she's going to drink, she's having a good wine, thank you very much.
)
You can do it, Ryan. There's a hundred reasons to fall off the wagon. But one very important one to stay on that outweighs everything. That child.