"I will drink less." 5 parents share what they'll 'start, stop, continue' from isolation to normal life.

As we transition back to a version of “normal” life, the iso journey is yet to end because it has changed many of us.

My family and I were initially relieved to be hidden in the safety of our home, away from any potential source of coronavirus. But each week, things changed.

First it was the toilet paper panic. Then we started to worry about a potential shortage of essential household products, food and medicine.

We are a family of five and being ethnic, I normally have a fully stocked pantry, fridge, laundry and garage. You see, my family has lived through war, they have experienced numerous lockdowns and shortages. As a result, bulk buying has become a cultural norm for us, part of our collective DNA.

While we were OK when it came to essential supplies, it didn’t help alleviate the worry, the uneasy feeling, the unexplained anxiety. Then, home-schooling was added to the mix and the situation quickly escalated to impossible.

I was lucky to be able to continue my job, working from home. However, working and also “home-schooling” or supervising three young children – all in different age brackets, with remote learning was absolute madness. So, the initial feeling of relief wore off quickly as we tried to figure out how to manage everything.

As a coping mechanism, I found myself turning to a glass of wine to help take the edge off my day. Before I knew it, the single glass had turned into several glasses every night of the week.

As it turns out, I wasn’t alone. Statistics from the Alcohol & Drug Foundation show that parents in Australia with children aged nine to 12 years increased their drinking the most during lockdown. Almost one in 10 said they were drinking "a lot more".

No surprise there, but what was surprising was that my generation were the biggest drinkers with 35 per cent of millennial parents drinking more, compared to Gen X parents (28 per cent) and Baby Boomers (16 per cent).

After one too many groggy mornings I recognised the pattern and put a stop to it. I want to be a positive role model to my kids. So, I started to drink copious amounts of tea throughout the day, meditating and either napping or exercising, or both, daily. I started #isobaking - banana bread, ANZAC cookies, and several failed loaves of sourdough. I reorganised my pantry and purchased lots of useless things online, including a fermenting pot, heavy duty drain cleaner, a replica of an OTT Kris Jenner jacket and vegan bacon seasoning – I don’t even eat bacon.

I had a few "start, stop, continue" lessons I learned in iso. My next start, when life returns to normal, will be to start travelling around Australia. I would love to visit Perth, Darwin, Alice Springs, Adelaide and Tasmania. My next stop will be to stop that pattern of having a drink each day. There are other ways to cope, I've found, so I will drink less. And my next continue will be to keep up my daily meditation - and even find a meditation I can listen to as I walk.

Some of my friends and I discussed what we would "start, stop and continue" post-#isolife. Here's what they said:

Shaminie, mother of two

 

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A post shared by Little Brown Book Events (@littlebrownbook) on Nov 21, 2018 at 10:05pm PST