The holidays, although joyful in many ways, have always been very stressful times for me as well. I associate certain times of year with sad things that happened in the past during this time of year and became very depressed.  (I have always focused on the half empty instead of half full glass). Thanksgiving time has always been a sad one. Back in the 1980's, I fell very much in love with a man who showered me with compliments and flowers. He gave me an engagement ring and talked me into dropping out of college and moving 1,200 miles away from my small hometown to be with him.  After a couple of years, he became engaged to someone else at the same time he was engaged to me. I found out about this on Thanksgiving Day. Well, that wasn't a meant to be obviously. I eventually married another man and we had a baby within a couple of years later. I was carrying my second child in 1993. My family and I got the go ahead from my doctor to go on a trip to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania although I was having a few problems which the doctor assured me weren't anything to worry about. We were having a good time until I had to be taken to the emergency room and admitted to a hospital in Lancaster. I had to stay there for almost two months while my husband and my daughter had to go back home, several hundred miles away. It was very difficult to be away from my young daughter and my husband and the fear that we might lose the baby was overwhelming.  I prayed every day throughout the day for my baby to be alright and for strength to get through this. Eventually, my doctor said that I was able to be transported back to my home city and admitted to a local hospital and I was happy that I could be close to my family. I was there for about two weeks before I went into labor. I was around seven months at this time and she was a tiny thing and had to be in an incubator and she was hooked up to all kinds of things. She was beautiful with curly blond hair. It pained me to see how tiny and helpless she was whenever the nurses would take me in my wheelchair to see her. I prayed for her survival. We were told if she survived she would probably have severe disabilities. Two days later she died, which was several days after my birthday. On the following New Year's Day, my father died suddenly of causes related to his alcoholism we were told. His birthday was on Dec. 28th. My Mom's birthday is on Christmas Day. A couple of month's after his death I took my daughter to the Discovery Zone, one of those indoor playgrounds. She got hurt while there and had to be taken to the emergency room because she couldn't stop vomiting and was talking out of her head. They did a cat scan on her and  we were told they saw hemorrhaging in her brain. This was devastating and  I didn't know how I could handle losing my baby, my dad and my other child within a few months time. The only thing I knew to do was go to the little room in the hospital designed for praying, so I went and got down on my knees and prayed to God to save my daughter. The next day more tests were done on her. The specialist came in and talked to her dad and me and we were trying to prepare ourselves to hear the worse. He looked at us and said he couldn't explain it, but she seemed to be fine and the tests they did showed no hemorrhaging. We were relieved and ecstatic, to say the least.

Despite this blessing regarding my daughter which we had to be thankful and grateful for, over the following years, I became extremely depressed during the months which each of these things happened. Starting in September I would drink more. I would get back to my "normal" drinking after a couple of weeks. Then around Thanksgiving and throughout New Year's , I would feel overwhelming depression and the urge to drink more. I would buy wine and drink during the day and hide bottles that I hadn't finished and carefully dispose of my empties so my husband and daughter wouldn't see them in the trash. Looking back I don't know if I consciously made the connection with the sad things above which happened in the past with my drinking patterns, but these were the times which my drinking greatly increased.

Anyway, this Thanksgiving was the first one that I have not had the need to drink. I didn't drink in September either. Although my life isn't as hunky dory as I would like it to be, I still have so many things NOW in my life to be grateful for...so many blessings to give thanks to God for. I have come to terms with things in the past and not let any of these sad things cause me to feel sorry for myself and drink. And that is one of the biggest things I have to be grateful for. I wish you all a happy and sober holiday season.