Hello. This struggle of yours seems to start with the painful things you have been through, and alcohol seems to be the tool you have tried to turn to, to manage this pain. I don’t blame you, as it is readily in our faces in society, and is easily accessible. I too used alcohol for a very long time in my life to try to cope, and I too found to have developed a very high tolerance to it. Abuse of it runs deep in my gene pool so I guess it makes sense. I think however, that you are worth and deserve trying to find better tools and ways to try to manage the pain. As, in the end, I think alcohol will do nothing but bring about more pain. To me, when I was using alcohol as my sole coping mechanism. I was doing nothing but treating my Demons, with another Demon.
Our reasons might be similar, or dissimilar, to that I can not say without more context. But I do know of daily pain, and I do know of the many years I spent using alcohol as the coping mechanism to deal with the anxiety/racing thoughts that I would have on a daily basis, not feeling alive or social without it’s help. Feeling it gave me the ability to cut through the anxiety and actually function. It was very damaging to my health and my life though. My story about it is very long, and I’m not sure you want to hear it to it’s entirety, as this is about you. But the conclusion I eventually came to and the main factor that helped me to leave alcohol behind, along with help from peers/professionals. Was that I began to force myself to really look at the benefits vs the consequences of it as a substance. It offers zero value to mental and physical health in the end. A tiny band-aid to a much bigger problem, a band-aid that becomes less and less effective, and more and more detrimental to your health, the more you use it. I am someone who tends to get very logical, and after much thought, and some support from peers/professionals. I eventually just could not justify using it anymore. I think that alcoholism is probably defined as knowing something is detrimental to your health, but still having the inability to say no to it. Even after you have concluded that you don’t want it in your life anymore.
Whether its self-medication that can be remedied through strengthening your mental health in mental health recovery, or true alcoholism which requires specific attention in addiction recovery. There are professional and peer support systems in place, in most areas to try to help you recover from both things. I’m not sure how readily available peer/professional mental health/addiction recovery programs are in your area, but I would encourage you to try to look some up, and give them a chance if you are looking to transition to a life free of alcohol. In the end I think you have to be ready to want to recover though, and all the support in the world is not going to stop a person who hasn’t made a clear distinction like the one mentioned above. That enough is enough, and that this thing in your life should no longer be there for YOU, no one else. But I think the support is good even before we are at the point to stop ourselves. To see other people who have done it, and to learn from them. Can help lead us to making the decisions in our selves, and see ways of supporting our decisions that work, because they have worked for people like us. Also be aware, that not all professionals/meetings/groups are going to be right for us, and sometimes it can take time finding the right people who we can relate to, and who understand us. It can be a process, a sometimes annoying one, but I believe in the possibility of all people finding the right support, somewhere.
It might take some legal work depending on the type of person your ex is, and how open minded they are to having you back in your kids lives, but you can definitely get there, especially once you have found ways to deal with some of your demons. I would hope that if you were able to become free of some of your demons over time, alcohol I would include as one of those demons, then perhaps you could become a part of your children’s lives again in time. I think living for your children is a noble cause, but I also think that you should want to live for yourself. Because self-love I think becomes the core foundation of surviving deep internalized pain. Relying on only living for another, is to say we are not worth living for ourselves. It is to become dependent on the emotions of our loved ones for survival and not on the emotions of our own selves. Which then when we lose loved ones can leave us emotionless/empty to an even greater degree then someone who has developed self to a higher degree. I know it might feel hopeless at times, and I can also relate to the thoughts of ending life. I have tried and although at first I felt unfortunate to have survived, I now feel the opposite. It took a lot of work, I’m like 10+ years into this whole recovery thing(and still sometimes struggle), but over time and development of self-acceptance/self-care/self-love and things of this nature. Things I couldn’t even perceive to be real, or believe could ever have existed for myself, that now do. I have found the ability to live free of my demons for longer. And when they do come to haunt me, I understand them and deal with them more efficiently/quicker then I did before, through a deeper understanding of self and what it is I am experiencing, what it is that works for me to hold on and get through these moments. Years of habitual pain/thoughts do not disappear over night, but understanding their habitual nature and what they are. Helps me in dealing with them.
I used to turn a lot to peer support. Whether it be in the form of forum.heartsupport.com, or whether it be in the form of an addiction recovery/mental health group of some kind in person. I showed up to try to find the courage to express myself and fight what I was going through, when I had nothing else left to hold on to. As I have grown, and as I have begun to find deeper acceptance and love of self. I have begun to move more towards the way of just wanting to try to express to people going through it, that I believe in them. That there are other sides to the pain. That I believe that those of us who have had the hardest fights, and felt the deepest pains. Have the highest ceiling to see what’s on the other side of those pains. We are all capable of experiencing the equal and opposite sides of the deepest pains/pleasures we have been through. Some of us don’t make it long enough to see these sides, and it pains me knowing this. Knowing how many of us fail, but to become the greatest forms of ourselves. Is to fight and conquer these demons. The darker, and more plentiful our demons, the greater the self we can become by conquering them. I hope and believe in your ability to conquer these demons, and if you ever want to share more about what you are going through, please feel free to do so. We are here. I hope that you can have a better day today then the last, and that things are going alright today. <3