10 Questions to help you assess your drinking and its affect on your children
More children are witnessing their parents drunk either on the weekends or on a normal school night as Mums and Dads turn to alcohol to escape from their daily pressures. Here are a few simple questions to help you understand how your alcohol drinking might be affecting your children. It is easy to brush off your alcohol drinking as nothing to worry about but as children feel uneasy around adults who drink it could be affecting your relationship with them as well as their perception of alcohol. Be honest with yourself as you answer the questions to build a picture of your alcohol habits. "My 15-year-old son's behaviour is dreadful so I drink to cope with him. The whole household is stressed and disfunctional. Since listening to the hypnosis downloads I am drinking less and my son's behaviour is better. One day last week I had a bad day at work so I drank to excess for the first time in ages. This time I could see a direct effect on my son whose behaviour got worse. I think it is my drinking that makes him so moody and aggressive. Now I think about it, I am sure his behaviour became bad because of my drinking. Then it became a cycle of me drinking to cope. I have noticed he has no respect for me when I drink." 1. How often do you drink
alcohol in front of your children? e.g. every day, three times per week, only at weekends. 2. Is your
alcohol drinking increasing or decreasing as your
children get older? By how much has your
alcohol drinking increased over the last 2 years? e.g. from two glasses of wine to three. 3. When there is a crisis do you reach for an
alcoholic drink in front of the children? "Mummy needs a glass of wine" or "Time for Daddy to have a beer." 4. What time of day do you begin
drinking alcohol in front of the children? e.g. at 5pm, during their bath time routine, whilst they eat their dinner. 5. How do you sleep with or without a
drink of alcohol? Do you wake feeling sluggish? Do you get up in the night? Are you irritable with the children when you have been drinking? 6. Have you ever done something embarrassing in front of the children when you have been
drinking alcohol? What and when? How often? 7. Are you aware children pick up your habits on a subconscious level meaning they may accept your alcohol behaviour as normal once they are adults? 8. When you were a child do you ever remember being around a
drunk adult? How did you feel about that person when they were
drinking alcohol? e.g. I didn't like it or they smelled of
alcohol, bad breath... 9. Have your
children ever brought up your
alcohol drinking or tried to stop you drinking? What is their body language when they mention it? e.g. angry, frustrated, they remove the glass of wine.... 10. Would you like to deal with your stresses so you don't feel the need to
drink alcohol so regularly? Remember everything we do is a habit. Children learn from the habits of other people's behaviour around them, in effect you are hypnotising them. Think about what message are you giving your children about life and
alcohol. Hypnotherapy is a useful tool to break bad habits to
take back control of alcohol again. "The hypnosis download to reduce alcohol has helped me take back control. The Relaxation hypnosis download for teenagers has helped my teenager release the stress of living with a parent who has drunk alcohol too much." Chapter 13 of my book "
Cut The Crap & Feel Amazing" by Hay House, has useful techniques to help with alcohol reduction. Also, I recommend: "
Take Control of Alcohol" hypnosis recording "
Stop Binge Drinking for Women" hypnosis recording "
Stop Binge Drinking for Men" hypnosis recording
