Happy sober Mother's Day!

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. My husband is away overseas for work so it’s just me and the kids here at home. He’s organised a gift for them to give to me which is hidden somewhere in the house. I heard them whispering in the bedroom yesterday … I think they were gathering together all the cards they’ve made for me at school/scouts etc.

Tonight I’m prepping some very decadent walnut and caramel sticky buns which will rise overnight then be baked in the morning to fill the house with a delicious scent and our tummies with delicious food.

Then we’ll just get on with the day which may or may not involve a trip to the movies, some squabbling, the odd hug or two if I can sneak them in, some laughter, a few farts knowing my sons, possibly some snatches of boredom. Dinner will be a beef stew.

Pretty ordinary right?

No. Pretty extraordinary actually. Pretty bloody stupendously, extraordinarily fabulous. Why? Because I am sober. Because I’m grounded and present and real and connected and more emotionally developed than I ever have been my entire life.

I’m not sure if my kids will ever be aware how I’ve changed their childhoods by quitting drinking. I shudder to think how different things would have been for them if I’d kept on the boozy road I was on. It wouldn’t have been pretty.

When I quit I was a daily drinker – at least a bottle if not more.  Now (over five years on) presumably that amount would have increased. My habit would most likely have progressed and worsened as the years went on. I was a lush then, I’d be a total soak now.

But thank goodness I’m not a drunk mum, I’m a sober mum. One who is really involved in each of her sons lives (they’re still very young – 12, 10 & 7), knows their personalities well, and talks to them constantly every day about all manner of inane and meaningful things.

It’s a very ordinary but (to my mind) entirely fabulous situation. And I just feel so, so, so, so grateful that five and a half years ago I got sober and dramatically turned my life around leading to me feeling how I do today.

Sobriety is hard sometimes and relentless, and life can be cruel and unforgiving at times, but any sober Mother’s Day is a very happy day in my book, and one to be treasured.

Love, Mrs D xxx