Shit They Don't Tell You About Fatherhood: Sobriety

Shit They Don’t Tell You About Fatherhood: Sobriety

I enjoy a good cocktail when at a fancy event. I love Central Coast wines and find they go with almost any meal. After working outside on a hot day, nothing goes down better than a cold beer. But once you have children, these things are replaced by something much more relaxing, much more addicting. Sleep.

This may not apply to everyone, but it applies to me and as much as I like to believe the contrary, I’m not all that unique, so it probably applies to at least some of you. Here’s the deal: As I get older, I’m finding even a single drink disrupts my sleep at night. And I don’t need to explain how tired new parents get… But, I will anyway. When you have a baby (or two), they interrupt your nights with any number of these things:

Separation anxiety
Teething pain
Dirty diaper
Night terrors
Illness
Fighting sleep
Practicing a step routine
Playing bagpipes

A good night’s sleep is more than the Holy Grail of parenting. It’s the Holy Grail full of water from the Fountain of Youth being held by the dead hand of Jimmy Hoffa who is sitting atop a unicorn at the gates of Atlantis.

So, those few nights during which your wee one does sleep through the night, you’ll want to be sure you haven’t done anything that keeps you from taking advantage of it. In fact, I’d wager parenting could be a pretty good rehab program if all those alcoholic and drug-addicted parents out there didn’t affect the results.

For me, the one-drink-keeps-you-up thing is relatively new and I do believe it is related to the super-hearing thing I wrote about before. During my recent “mancation,” I celebrated St. Patty’s Day the usual way — with whiskey and a corned beef and hash burrito. The former I enjoyed, the latter was like having my stomach raped by a Mexican leprechaun. That night, even though I didn’t get blasted and even though my boys were away with my wife, I couldn’t sleep. I just lay in bed thinking about how I wasn’t sleeping, getting more and more angry. Damn Irish.

Upon my return, I decided I would simply cut out all alcohol unless the occasion really called for it. That means no glass of Tolosa Lily Gil Pinot with dinner. But it does mean a good night’s sleep. And that’s something I would gladly binge on.