Many people feel amplified stress when dealing with their divorce. So, if you’re finding yourself pacing the floor, having trouble sleeping, or worse — your divorce seems to be driving you to drink — you’re not alone in this, at all. In fact, statistics show that many people resort to drinking alcohol as a form of coping with the stress and emotional turmoil of their divorce.

But this can develop some unhealthy habits for you and it can harm your health. It may even harm your ability to heal from all of this. 

Too Much Alcohol?

PubMed reports in their article Stress and alcohol: epidemiologic evidence that “General life stressors, including divorce and job loss, increase the risk for AUDs.” AUDs are alcohol use disorders and they can carry significant negative impacts to your health and your life.

Wiley Online Library reports in Heavy alcohol consumption and marital status: disentangling the relationship in a national study of young adults that “Marital separation was accompanied by increases in heavy drinking, with pronounced short-term effects. Adverse alcohol-related health consequences may occur in the immediate period around divorce.”

If you fear you are drinking too much, then it’s likely you’ve had some problems arise from your drinking or that it’s already interfering with the life you want (and for the record, deserve) then it’s time to sit back and get a little real with yourself. This isn’t easy to do, especially in the throes of the high stress and high pain that accompany your recent separation and impending divorce. 

But, ask yourself a few hard questions:

• Are you making excuses so that you can drink?

• Are you avoiding intimate connections with other people, or closeness with your kids, so that you can drink to numb your pain?

• Is your drinking creating problems for you at work or school?

• Are you finding that it takes more and more alcohol for you to “forget everything” or fall asleep at night?

• Are you rearranging things in your schedule or social life so you can stay home to drink?

• Are you making risky decisions because of your drinking?

• Are you experiencing black outs, memory loss, or physical symptoms of hangovers because of your drinking?

If anything, there’s some alcohol dependence going on that’s (if we're being completely honest here) not helping you at all. 

Yes, it’s numbing your pain — but it’s also numbing out the opportunities for healing. 

Yes, it’s helping you forget your pain temporarily — but it’s also making you forget the sweet words your child said to you last night. 

In short, you can’t numb out your life (the bad parts) without missing out on the good parts as well.

Take this survey to analyze your alcohol use.

Also: Talk with your doctor. They are far more equipped than us to advise you on how to stop using alcohol to cope. We can only encourage you and remind you that someday this pain will be behind you. Don’t let alcohol become a long-term coping mechanism (for short-term pain) or create problems for you that aren’t so easily fixed. 

And a gentle reminder here: Regret is far more difficult to heal than the pain of your divorce. Just ask any adult child who watched their parents drink through their divorce.

Reasons to Avoid Drinking Your Way Through it All

We’re not here to judge you or make you hurt because you are leaning on alcohol to keep you afloat during a painful divorce. We really aren’t. But because the writers for Alimonia Life are all divorcees, we’ve seen things. Experienced things. We’ve been there, and yes, many of us picked up alcohol during those tough years. It’s because we’ve been there that we reach out to you over this tough topic. Divorce and alcohol do not have to be bedfellows. In fact, you may learn that navigating the pain of your divorce while sober-eyed and sober-bodied, you build far more confidence, strength, and resolve.

Alcohol-dependent drinkers make excuses to drink. Perhaps, you’ve been making excuses to drink. So, let’s talk about reasons not to drink your way through this painful divorce.

1. Make a list of all the things that truly matter to you. Then, next to those items on your list write out the ways that your drinking could negatively impact those aspects of your life.

2. Make a list of the ways drinking too much can impact your health. 

3. Make a list of the ways your drinking is already costing you — Is it making you late for work? Groggy? Gaining weight? Suffering headaches or hangovers?

4. Lastly, make a list of other coping mechanisms you could try in lieu of drinking too much. Like walking, going to the gym, or working with a doctor or therapist to navigate the pain of your divorce.

Better Coping Mechanisms

Developing better coping mechanisms is only the beginning. You’ll also need support if you want to kick a drinking habit and get on with the business of rebuilding your life (for yourself and your children.)

Find a local support group or an online anonymous support group so you can talk with others who are going through what you are right now. Then, it’s all about developing the coping skills that will really work to help you navigate the pain of your divorce.

Consider these healthier methods of dealing with pain — ones that will help to rebuild your confidence and your inner strength:

• Try meditation. It may sound like something a yoga guru would say, but likely you remember a medical doctor saying to you before “Perhaps you can try meditation?” Don’t discredit this idea. Many people have found soul-strengthening calm by using guided or open meditative practices. Why not try?

• Consider a walking practice. Walking helps you to clear your head and it also tires out your body — which may help you sleep more fully at night than those few heavy drinks you have been having every night. In fact, your body will have the clean opportunity to do all that wondrous healing work it does while you are sleeping, without the weight and biological stress of processing all that alcohol.

• Check out this list of coping skills to help you get through this tough time with confidence.

If You Need Help with Your Drinking

If reading this blog has caused you to confront your own drinking as a negative way to manage the pain and stress of your divorce, there is help out there. Talk first with your doctor, who may recommend treatment programs and support groups for you. And, talk with those around you who you trust to help hold you accountable. Lastly, don’t give up. The life you are working so hard to achieve is just around the bend.

Christina M Ward