How do you get through this without drinking?

This is something I posted to the Alcohol Explained Facebook Group. I thought I may as well share it on my blog.

Hi everyone, sorry I’ve not been very visible recently. I’m currently working from home (which has its own challenges) but also trying to look after and school my 9 & 7-year-old sons all on my own, and recently a close family member has been hospitalised with Coronavirus.

The big question is ‘how do you get through all this without drinking?’

I’d turn it around and ask ‘How on earth do you expect to get through this if you are drinking?’

I’m waking up well rested, I’m as patient and calm as I have the capacity to be, which is in turn keeping our household as calm and happy as possible. I have the energy to work, school, cook, and do some housework. A bit of everything is all I can manage, but it’s the best I can do and it’s enough to keep us ticking over. I’m even managing to find some pleasure in this, spending time with my boys that I wouldn’t usually have.

How can you possibly get through this if you are tired, lethargic, anxious (over and above what is normal), grouchy and bad tempered?

If I was drinking the house would be a state, the atmosphere toxic, there’d be arguments, everything would be hard work, I’d be miserable and worried and tired and lethargic all the time.

We’d be bickering and getting each other’s nerves. I’d be a force of anxiety and anger in the house instead of a force of calm (usually). And what would I get in return? A couple of hours every day where I will be slightly less anxious and miserable than I was before, then the whole thing would happen again (only worse) the following day, and the thought of lying awake through the early hours suffering with alcohol induced anxiety absolutely turns my stomach.

These aren’t the best of times, but drinking would turn it into an absolute horror show.