What Changes When Parents Stop Drinking

Open thread, share your thoughts! 💬

How has getting sober changed your relationship with your kids? Or how you show up as a parent?

I recently asked this question on Substack Notes, and the responses brought tears to my eyes. Even though I’m not a parent myself, parents who choose not to drink will always hold a special place in my heart. If that’s you, let me just say: you’re offering your kids a precious, precious gift. One I longed for deeply as a child and, later, as an adult.

You’ll find the responses below, along with links to each writer’s profile and publication in case you’re looking for more sober writing and community.

We’d love to hear from you too. If you’re a parent who has chosen not to drink, how has this changed things?

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“I’m just present for it all: the good, the bad, and the ugly. I’m also more patient. When I would drink to ‘take the edge off’ or ‘relax’ I would end up getting short with the girls if they weren’t in top form. It’s not that I never get short with them in sobriety, but my patience is much greater and I’m so much quicker to make repair. When I was drinking I never would’ve made repair, I would just try to make it through bedtime and then continue to drink after they went down, even if it wasn’t that much. In short, my parenting is a million times better in sobriety.” — Josh Luton, Gone Dry

“Many people in my family struggle with addiction, and my kids see this. I’ve noticed that my sobriety has built a new line of trust for us, specifically them trusting me in a very specific way. No matter which direction anyone else’s journey takes – their uncle’s, their grandparents – they know they don’t have to carry that same worry with me.” — Elizabeth Austin, Writing Elizabeth

“With drinking came the ability to grind through the witching hours while showing up (I thought) as the relaxed parent I aspired to be. Dinners were playful and bedtime routines were filled with imaginative pretend stories. But the next day I couldn’t remember any of it. Not the stories I told or secrets the kids shared during bath time. Four years sober, I now know the reason behind every scraped knee and bug bite. I remember every whisper of a dream shared. And I am present in mind, body and spirit to all things—good and bad.” — Mary Knox Miller, Speaking Human-First

“Getting sober has made me a better parent, in every way. I am more in tune to their needs (and my own), happier, calmer and more present than I ever was while drinking. It’s allowed me to put my family first, to live a value-based life, and to embody an outlook of love and gratitude.

I don’t know that any of that would be possible if I was still drinking. When I say my entire outlook on life has changed, I mean it.

My kids can trust me. There will never be a time of day that I am not 100% myself, and capable of caring for them. There will never be a time when I am unable to come to their aid. They won’t have memories of me drinking.

And I hope that they will learn from me, what it looks like to be brave, to be strong, and to love yourself and your family.” — Laura Catanzano, The Light Within

“If I’m being completely honest, getting sober has helped me re-parent myself which sort of had to come first. It has enabled me to view my kids more authentically – see them for who they really are – beneath the veneer of appearances or how I want them to ‘act’ out in the world. It’s like I handed my kids a permission slip that read, ‘go be you. You can leave me here. I’ll be ok.’

Sober living awakens me to wonder and curiosity – which only naturally brings out the kid in me. My sober lens on life feels magnetizing – drawing me closer to all the things that were duller before – including the micro moments of connecting with my kids that I missed because my mind was hijacked by my addiction to alcohol.

My only regret in getting sober is that I didn’t do it sooner.” — Allison Deraney, DARE TO BE

“I knew I had to get sober if I was going to become a mum: it wouldn’t have been safe for me to look after a child with the amount I was drinking. And, after a 20 month journey to sobriety, I had my last drink a few months before I became pregnant with my son River.

River is now 4.5 years old. I am eternally grateful that I have always been sober as a mum. My son has never seen me drinking or drunk. It means that I have been able to take care of myself during those brutally hard first years of motherhood. It means I could co-sleep with him and breastfeed him without worry.

And my knowledge of addiction has also affected how I parent him, especially around allowing his feelings. I know that not being held with my feelings, and being shamed for them, as a child was a huge factor in why I started to use alcohol to escape them. So I am now modelling (as best I can!) being with feelings to my son, and I am allowing (as best I can!) him to feel his.” — Ellie Nova, A Little Fantastic Sober Life

“Four and a half years into my sobriety, I think our home feels safer, quieter and less chaotic to my three children. I used to be very quick to react when I drank. I was impatient and yelled a lot, as much as it pains me to admit. I knew I had to stop drinking because by the end I was unable to find any joy in the everyday life of being a mom.

By November 2020, I was in survival mode, counting down the seconds until wine o’clock. With the pandemic, that moment had started to creep earlier and earlier in the day. Prioritizing wine over my children was a frightening realization.

Over the last 4.5 years, I’ve found my children to be the ones that make me smile regularly and laugh most genuinely. Spending time with my three kids brings me true happiness, whereas it used to irritate me or feel like a distraction from my drinking. And even though parenting is still exhausting and difficult some days, I’m able to take a moment to pause and reflect with gratitude now, rather than reacting with angry frustration and immediately turning to the bottle.

There is an authentic openness and genuine honesty that exists between our family now. My kids come to me with questions and tell me what’s on their minds, because I’ve been able to show my vulnerability and be open with them about my pain and struggles.

I’m proud to say that a feeling of calm now exists inside our home, built on a foundation of mutual trust. That’s better than any glass of wine.” — Kimberly Kearns, Unshattered Sobriety

“Becoming a sober mom is hands down the best gift I have ever given myself. My kids were the catalyst that sent me on a journey of wanting more, and I got sober in large part because I love my kids—but also so that I could show up in this life as the mom I want to be, so I could stop running from myself.

This is not to say I’m a perfect parent—I still skip pages in Berenstain Bears books if I’m tired (or at least I try to, but my kids have really caught onto this), but at least now I know I’m skipping the pages because I’m just exhausted, and not because I’m trying to escape the room to make it back to my glass of wine.

I caused a lot of damage in the relationship to my eldest ‘ex’ stepkid (I am now divorced from his dad/my first husband). I was sober when I returned to Idaho for his college graduation, and traveling through an airport, showing up at the graduation party, going out to dinner, being fully present—knowing I would not embarrass myself or him (at least not due to alcohol) was one of my proudest moments as a (step)parent.

Knowing I can fully trust myself, that I’m going to show up, in my own skin, not hungover, is something I will always be grateful for.

I’m not running from myself, anymore—I show up as the mom I want to be, as best I can be—not the shell of myself that I was when I was drinking.” — Kristen Crocker, Recoverettes

“My decision to get sober was born of the fact that one morning I woke up next to my twin then seven-year-old boys with my clothes still on from the day before, a throbbing headache and no recollection of how we’d got home from our friends’ BBQ. My husband assured me that we’d all been safe and I’d done nothing wrong – I’d got the boys to change into their PJs and brush their teeth and had even read them a bedtime story – but the thought that I was blacked out while actively parenting was terrifying. That was over three years ago and I’ve never picked up another glass.

It was only after I stopped drinking that I recognised how much my time with my boys was affected by alcohol. Many playdates had revolved around mums drinking champagne. There were bottles of wine and beer at kids’ birthday parties at trampoline parks. Where I positioned myself on the sofa when we watched family movies in the evening was determined by easy access to my gin and tonic.

The boys are ten now, and they’ve noticed that I’m the only mum they know that doesn’t drink alcohol. I’m so glad that I can talk to them about my choices around drinking with complete clarity and openness. In fact I trust myself implicitly, now, to talk to them about anything at all, as I’m living with intention and integrity in a way that I wasn’t before. I’m by no means puritanical about it all – I know they’ll experiment with stuff when they’re older and there’ll be no judgment from me – but by example I can steer them away from our society’s insistence that alcohol is the norm and sobriety is other. And when they’re older and they might find themselves in tricky situations, I’ll always be sober and in control and able to go to them, night or day, if they need me. I feel good about that.

My boys still want me to snuggle up with them till they’re asleep at night, and I’m hanging onto that routine for as long as they’ll have me 😊. And I’m completely present with them in those moments, as there’s no part of me wishing that they’d hurry up and go to sleep so I can get up and have a drink. The conversations we have there in the darkness before the boys sleep are some of our best. They’re one of the many gifts of my sobriety. 💕” — Michelle Neeling, Oblivious Witness

“The biggest change? It’s not always about me.” — Sondra Primeaux, Special, A Serial Memoir

If you’re a parent who has chosen not to drink, how has this changed things? We’d love for you to share in the comments.

And before you go, would you take a second to tap that little heart? It lets others know there’s something helpful here and grows our sober community.