I drank for 23 long years but I knew nothing about addiction.
I thought the mere fact I knew I’d struggle to stop drinking through a nine-month pregnancy meant I’d be a bad mum.
I knew I didn’t want to stop drinking.
I knew that drinking through pregnancy would be selfish.
So, I chose drinking.
I chose to shape my life around booze; effectively, I chose booze over having babies.
I opted to lead a life centered around my career, driven by social networking events with alcohol and celebratory glasses of champagne. My entire focus was on my CV, striving for promotions and paycheck hikes, jet-setting across the globe – always with a glass of wine in hand.
Booze was more important to me than connection. Booze was my best friend.
I know that’s a sad admission to make, but it’s true.
‘I chose to live a life where I threw myself into my career, fueled by boozy network events and celebratory champagnes,’ Corrine writes
From London to New York and later to Sydney, I can confirm that it wasn’t fulfilling. Regardless of your dedication, you can be replaced within a week of departing, and all that remains is the reflection staring back at you from the mirror.
There were a few moments along the way that I came close to considering kids.
I vividly recall a moment during my first marriage, sitting on the bed with my then-husband, discussing how adorable our potential children would be. It may seem superficial and trivial, but at that time, I was just 24 years old.
He was sitting on the chair in his crisp white shirt and sharp black suit. I imagined a baby with his eyes and my smile snuggled into his lap.
But it was all just a pipe dream. Because there was no way I was giving up wine bottles for baby bottles. Nights out partying, for quiet nights on the couch. If I was going to have broken sleep, it was going to be because I’d had a bloody great night out, not because a newborn was waking me up every three hours.
Not to mention, our marriage was entirely toxic – another product of my terrible, alcohol influenced decision-making.
With my second husband, I did get pregnant at 31, but I was the main breadwinner. He was much younger than me, unemployed and we’d just taken on a horrifically huge mortgage that all hinged on my work. I just couldn’t see how it was logistically possible long term.
Oh and there was the whole ‘giving up booze for nine months’ thing to consider as well. Absolutely not.
I decided not to go ahead with the pregnancy.
Corrine got sober at 40 and met someone soon after. But another sad turn of events took away any chance she might have had left of becoming a mum
Again, I told myself that my maternal instinct wasn’t there, I just wasn’t wired that way.
I spent years wondering if the mental block I had around having kids was because I didn’t know my biological father. The thought process went along the lines of, ‘if my father could create me and walk away from me, then couldn’t any man do the same?’
I didn’t want a little human to feel everything I’d felt when that happened to me. It was one of the reasons why I drank after all; one of the reasons I’d suffered suicidal ideation from a very young age.
How could I create another human only to inflict that on them?
When I left Sydney to get sober just before I turned 40, I moved to the Gold Coast. I walked away from a career I loved in an attempt to save my life.
It was going well and I met someone new. I knew I’d left it a bit late to have a family, but maybe there was still a chance?
Then one day, lying on my sun lounger by the pool, I saw a lump in my abdomen. A flurry of tests followed and I was diagnosed with a benign tumour that had grown to 15cm.
I ended up needing a full hysterectomy. Because of the size of the tumour, keyhole surgery wasn’t an option. I was sliced open from one side to the other.
And that was that.
Any last hope of having a baby naturally taken from me in an instant.
I curled up in the foetal position on the floor and sobbed into a cushion, trying to accept the news. It hurt so much I realised maybe I had been hoping to be a mum one day more than I realised.
I’m nine and a half years sober now. I’m financially secure, have a safe and peaceful home and a wonderful circle of friends. I see my friends having children and even grandchildren, and the sheer joy it brings to their lives.
I’ll never get to experience that.
Corrine is grateful she gets to be a mother figure to the young women she meets in AA
Christmas can be hard because it’s such a family focused time, but I try hard not to dwell. I have the odd nightmare about being drunk and pregnant, that’s how hard-wired that fear runs in me, even all these years since I put down the booze.
I wake up feeling relieved that I don’t drink anymore, as I do whenever I have a drinking dream. I feel relieved that I didn’t just get pregnant and drink throughout, completely in denial about the damage I could be causing.
I feel relieved that no child had to live with the alcoholic mother that I would have been.
Still, I wonder how different my life could have been and the sadness persists.
I sponsor a lot of women through AA. That means I do my best to try to help them get sober and stay sober. I also work as a support worker in a 24/7 residential drug and alcohol rehab specifically for under 35s.
I know that’s my way of making amends and making my peace with not having children.
Some of the women I work with are as young as 18.
I try not to be too preachy with them – that’s not going to help them see why they should work hard to create a life away from addiction.
I look at them and I think: if you can stop drinking now, your whole entire life can be different. You can have everything you truly dream of.’
Young women have left that rehab, stayed sober, had children and become amazing sober mothers. Those are true miracles that I hold onto.
Maybe, just maybe, things could have been different if I’d staggered through the doors of AA sooner.
But there comes a time in life when it’s helpful and kind to yourself to let go and step into acceptance of where you are today.
During this lifetime, I will never get to experience being a biological mother.
But I do get to get to be a mother figure to all the young women I meet through AA and rehab. That’s such a huge blessing, I can only feel immense gratitude for where I’m at today and what all my experience enables me to give away.
