The Emotional Drinker

14/07/2025

✨ We all want peace, healing, and happiness — but so often, we resist the discomfort that gets us there.
Letting go of what numbs us… changing habits… facing hard truths… it can feel like a kind of dying.

But here’s the truth:
✨ Every time you choose healing over hiding, you’re coming back to life.
And you don’t have to do it alone.

— Valerie Moughan, The Emotional Drinker

19/07/2024

Beautiful story... guilt will eat you alive 😔 and we all struggle with a guilty conscious

My dad was an addict. He died from an overdose in 2018. I once got mad at him when his food stamp card was denied and I had to cover his groceries. It wasn’t about the money. I gave him a hard time when he broke my glass measuring cup. It wasn’t about the cup. He commented on a new haircut and I was enraged because he’d already seen it and I assumed he was too drunk to remember. It wasn’t about my hair. I drove him from doctor to doctor, from rehab to rehab, but I was frequently short tempered. Visibly put out by what he required of me. It wasn’t about the time. He was homeless for many years. He used to stand on corners with a sign and ask for whatever money or food people were willing to give. I loved him, but I was frequently embarrassed by him. I was mad about my childhood and what bled into my adulthood, and I found any way to take it out on him. He’s gone now and I’m not mad at him anymore. I’m mad at how much I let my inability to forgive him affect our relationship. Now he is free and I’m chained, weighed down by all the grace I couldn’t bear to give a person who so wholly was in need of it. Give forgiveness. Because my regret over withholding it is stronger than all the anger I felt throughout the years.

- Scarlett Longstreet

21/05/2024

Great article from Rest Less on Grandparent alienation. Something that has started to become a common theme...

"One of the uglier sides of family disputes is the use of grandchildren against grandparents. This typically involves a family member intentionally denying grandparents access to grandchildren, often as a form of revenge.
This period of denial can be temporary, protracted, and sometimes even permanent. In more serious cases, parents can even begin to turn grandchildren against grandparents.
This is called grandparent alienation syndrome and is an adaptation of parental alienation syndrome, an idea put forward by the psychiatrist Richard Gardner in 1985. According to the child legal organization CAFCASS, parental alienation syndrome is “when a child’s hostility towards one parent is not justified and is the result of psychological manipulation by the other parent.”

Watching your grandchildren grow up and being involved in their lives is one of life’s great joys. A warm and connected relationship with a grandchild is something most of us long for and look forward to. Most grandparents envision sleepy bedtime stories, trips to the park, fun days out, and magic...

30/03/2024

When a person is in full blown addiction. Everyone blames the person for all family problems. Many want the addict to die so they'll go away and finally... The addicted person is not given a voice...

16/03/2024

10 tips for Surviving Paddy's Day Drinking, Hangover and hangxiety!