My name is Hope, I turned 36 in Dec. 2006. I have 4 children.

My oldest will be 22 in July she is adopted from my 1st marriage and mentally challenged. Then there is my 8 year old and then my next turned 3 in January and last but not least is my son who will be 2 the end of June and by far my most challenging to my sobriety.

I remember growing up the fights my parents would have because they were both drunk, and it was truly almost a nightly thing. I swore I would never be a drunk, HA!
Life had a different plan for me...

I started drinking at home truly when I was only about 14 or so, but it got worse as I got closer to 16. My dad had left my mom so she was in a mode of letting us do just about what we wanted to be our friend and believed it was better we drank at home than out where we might get hurt. Who knew that one thought would end up causing me more pain than she thought.

I started drinking REAL heavy when I moved out at 18, and I moved out of mom's & in with now ex-hubby at 18, I was lost. In a new town knew nobody, he went to work at 5am sometimes not home till 11pm or later. I got to know 1 of his long time family friends and would go over there some mornings as soon as hubby was gone & start drinking, most days so drunk he'd come home and have to come get me cause I couldn't even walk the 2 blocks home. We were married in June 1989 and after all he could take he said quit or he was sending me home to my mother, therefore causing me to lose what little time & contact I had w/ my oldest daughter (his biologically).
I tried for months and couldn't "totally" quit. He made me go home in Oct, when I realized he was serious I quit (with several falls, slips, flat out face dives) in November 1989.

As I got sober I realized what double standards he had as he was smoking pot & using crack ( I didn't know that until we split up). But I did get sober. I moved back to TX from GA where I had been living. Got my 1st REAL job, met a wonderful man that I have been with now almost 13 years. Fought for and got sole custody of my daughter.
And had my dreams come true, as I became a mother not only to her but children of my own.

But let me tell you honestly that staying sober was not as hard until the fears of my kids came along. With every scare ( when I was pregnant with my 1st they were worried about her heart, with my next daughter they thought she had a severe cleft lip, then they found 4 cyst in my sons brain & thought he had Trisomy 18, recently found asthma which has his lungs weak and a heart murmur. Just to give you an idea of what scares I am talking about) I can feel the "whisper" of a drink. But I can remember what life was like in my home when I was a child and what life was like w/o my kids, and I can't chance that. That's what I use to stay sober, the knowledge that if I start drinking again, not only the terrible life & example I am showing my kids, but I could stand to lose them.

I can't say that I have this beat I just love my kids so very much that I can't allow myself to hurt them by going back to being what I was when I was drinking.
What will I do when I have no kids left at home? Hope for grandkids, lol. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Hope