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Hi, I am sort of new here although I joined last summer I haven't posted since. As I sit here at 3:15 in the afternoon my AH has yet to come home from being out last night. This pattern has become increasingly difficult recently and I am having a hard time explaining why daddy doesn't come home much to our 3 young sons. I pray that God will give me strength to come up with the right words. He goes straight from work to the bar and rarely makes it home. If he does, he drives his drunk self home. I am full of so many emotions. Worry, sadness, anger, frustration, confusion, etc... My pain triples when the kids ask about it. My oldest is 10 and I fear that he has lost all respect for his dad. He knows something isn't right but I'm not sure he knows what. I try to be strong for the kids sake. Someone please tell me what I am supposed to do. I don't think he thinks he has a problem. I have mentioned AA meetings that he should look into and his response was,"Do you think people that go to those meeting are there because they want to be there? They only go because a judge says they have to". So that gives you an idea of the attitude I am dealing with. He used to be a loving father and husband and over the last year that has taken a downward spiral. I fear that the drinking is going to end our marriage and the relationship that my kids will ever have with their dad. ANy advice or suggestions? Thank you so much! This website is wonderful for me.
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Sometimes it's not about making it through the storm, it's about learning how to dance in the rain.
The A I was with for 7 years went on a downward spiral last year. Last April I left but I still had contact and helped him and worried obsessively about him the whole of last summer. I can definitely empathize.
I also worried tremendously about what others thought, what would happen, what could happen, how I could cope. Eventually the a went to live with an Uncle. I do not know where he is now, perhaps in jail. I finally surrendered to I could not control his addiction.
There are many of us who have been in such tough spots. There are numerous tools you can use to help. Detachment is one. If you go to the al anon world wide site you'll find leaflets on it.
I don't think you are responsible for finding exactly the right words to make it all better for your chlldren. Maybe you are responsibel for helping to care for them and getting them through this but there is no magic when your parent is an alcoholic.
I think its terrible that your children are in pain, at the same time you are looking for help. You're in recovery they have one parent present for them that's something, it may not be perfect but its something.
I shot for perfectionism for a long time, if I were a better girlfriend, if I made life better. I stood on my head all last summer, nothing but nothing stopped him using. Nothing. He did not want to stop. No matter how awful it got he always had an excuse, lie, another layer to go down to. Eventually I stopped being present for whatever level he decided to descend to. I have to say it was hard to walk away but essential for me.
For me there was only two answers to my son's questions of "where is Dad?". My reponse was "You'll have to ask your Father that question". I figured since he was the one staying away he could explain it to his son himself and if there was any lying to be done it wasn't going to be from me..
The other answer I gave was the truth. Dad has the disease of alcoholism and it makes him want to drink alcohol. It doesn't mean that he loves us any less. It just means that right now Dad has a problem. Dad isn't ready to get help for the problem so you and I will just do the best we can to stay happy.
I wouldn't use the latter answer to a younger child that might say to his Dad, "Mom says you are sick and have a problem"..that could start a war.
In small doses I helped my son to understand about the disease as much as I could. He's 18 now and his Dad is 2 yrs. sober. I don't think Dad can ever make up for the missed fishing and camping trips although he's trying real hard.
Christy
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If we think that miracles are normal, we will expect them. And expecting a miracle is the surest way to get one.
I really like Christy's response. I use the ask dad one with my younger children as well. It works. I refuse to lie for him anymore, especially to our kids.
I was given an alanon book called, "What's drunk Mommy"? and My 8 year old has read it. She knows daddy is sick and it isn't something that medicine can fix. But of course it did help that he was the one that first told her about the disease, opened the door for me to continue on with it.
My marriage is over, this disease tore it apart, and both he and I gave up in the end.
I encourage you to go to meetings. My kids feed off my energy and even if the chaos if I can remain serene they feed off that. I do the alanon for me, but they so benefit from it.
Keep coming back.
Yours in recovery, Mandy (You may remember me as Dolphin)
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"We are not punished for our unforgiveness, we are punished by it" Jim Stovall
When my daughter was smaler she would ask "where is Daddy".And I would tell her he was out w his friends.The conversation would be much like this...Momma , wheres Daddy? Daddy is out w his friends.. Cant we go? No honey we cant Why? Cause they all sit around and drink beer, and burp and fart, and tell silly grown up boy stories EEEEWWWW When my son was little , he never asked where Daddy was,cause Daddy was always passed out or drunk at home What a terrible disease tht it could take a loving parent and turn them into something else entirely.My ex A is a shell of himself. He doesnt resemble the man I married, not at all Im sorry you are going through this . I know it hurts. Focus on you and your children when hes gone.The worst thing you can do is sit by the phone or the door.The hardest thing you wil ever do is to recondition yourself to not sit by the phone or the door.What worked for me was prayer, and leaving the house.Take the kids out to the park,family, friends,mall any where.And try not to think about where he is, and if anyone asks, just say you dont know and change the subject . Eventually they will all stop asking. Hugs for you..... Midget
I agree - "I dunno, sweetie, you'll have to ask him" is the response to those questions.
Another aspect of it - if you are sitting by the window crying when he doesn't come home, that sends a message to the kids. If you are sitting with them cuddled up on the couch reading a book or watching a movie, it sends one too - a healthier one.
Sometimes when the kids were small I'd work myself into a frenzy waiting for my husband to come home, diving into him the minute he walked in the door "You said you'd be home in an hour, it's four hours later blah blah..." Sometimes I'd feed the kids their supper and leave his on the stove, and take them out for a walk, a play at the playground and ice cream cones on the way home. We'd straggle into the house, happy, at bedtime, and there, usually, would be my husband - drunk, maybe, but mostly happy to see us with the kids running to him to tell him about their day. It only took me a few years (!) to figure out which was the better choice for me to spend my time. Even when we'd get home and he still would not be there, we would have the whole activity of bath and bedtime to go through, and then I'd do some yoga, before I'd let myself sit and cry at the window. Half the time I just wouldn't bother with the crying, and just go to bed and get some sleep instead. If my husband came home to a house of people happily and busily living their lives rather than tensely waiting for him, it didn't guarantee a good mood and no fight, but it sure lessened the probability. And, no matter what the effect on him, those well spent hours improved my life, and those of the kids.
Welcome back. I can speak from both sides of the issue. My Dad was an alcoholic (he is deceased) and I am also married to an alcoholic.
From my childhood, the most prominent memories I have of my Dad's drinking are those times when my mother made a big scene, crying and yelling etc. Those times were very scary to me and my siblings as young children. I don't recall my Mom attending AlAnon meetings, but she must have gotten some help from somewhere because after a while, there were no more of those scary times. My Dad continued to drink throughout their marriage, which finally ended in divorce after I was married myself. My Dad was sober for a few years after he and my mom divorced. He attended AA meetings quite regularly for a few years but evenually he went back to drinking.
In my own marriage, I guess I was destined to repeat my Mothers mistakes in handling my husbands drinking. I can see that this has caused a lot of stress for my daughter. After I found help for myself in AlAnon, I could see the changes in made in my daughter as well as myself. My husband is still drinking, but the way tht I choose to react to it has changed.
If I slip and fall back into my old habits, I can immediately see that it causes an uproar in our home life.
As far as telling your kids about Dads problem goes, I don't remember my Mom ever doing that, but she didn't really have to, we knew it anyway.
Hope this helps a little.
Love,
Claudia
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A person's a person no matter how small --Dr Suess
I recently traced back a lot of not trusting myself to this subject. It could have been avoided with esh like this. Drinking or even not coming home wasn't a big issue.Just thought it was the way men supported their family. dad would go find a job, get a temp home, come home on weekends while he looked for houses and scouted out the area. No big deal, drinking was no big deal. What affected one brother the most was Mom's scenes. He still recalls here tirades with resentment and the idea that much could have been controlled without the constant demoralization and backbiting.
For me, I don't care about that cause she came to Al-Anon a little later and changed her ways. Someone changes their ways, I forgive. Seems easy enough.
I spent a long time confused over the denial though. The long absences started to bother me when they became terminated by auto accidents. The fear set in and not before. Even as a child of 8 I looked for answers and found my Dad fit alcoholisms symptoms. I asked my Mom repeatedly if that might be the problem and she denied it over and over. What I learned was to distrust my own thinking and judgement. I strove for approval in school by getting good grades. At the same time I developed an ulcer. I said it was worrying about Dad. The denial set in and it became even the doctor's opinions that this was brought on by my constant struggle for high grades. My opinion was thoroughly discounted as that of a child and I accepted that cause I was after all just a kid but... I became confused again. My grades fell and the disease started to set in with this cloud of confusion masking right from wrong and facts from lies and good judgment from fantasy and blaming for accepting responsibility. If your own mind and concience are invalid, what have you got to follow?
I've met more than a few alcoholics that got a severe dose of reality when their kids asked if they had an alcohol problem. I wonder how differnet things might have been if I had been told to "Ask my Father," when I queried about alcoholism?
I'll never know but I do know my judgment is much better than I have been led to believe. ;)
As a child, my uncle was the main drunk in the house. I was told he was sick, eventually I was told he was an alcoholic. All of that made sense. It was very obvious. What was the really sick part was how my mother and grandmother chose to handle his alcoholism. They had me searching out bottles and pouring out 3/4ths and replacing it with water because they figured they could protect me from his rath but they couldn't protect themselves. They would yell and scream and hate him but never ever kick him out. He stole from them, lied to them and put us all in danger consistently and they just denied that reailty. It was as if they could say to me, as a child, that yes, HE had a problem, HE was sick, and only HE could do something to change it. But THEY were perfectly normal and their reactions to his disease were completly justified. That part made NO sense to me at all. That led me to many resentments that I still have today. Not against my uncle but against my mother and her denile.
With my own kids, it has been so hard for me to talk to them about this stuff. What I have told them is that their father is sick. He has a disease and it makes him do things that are not healthy and not right. I threw in that it is a genetic disease and that it runs in both sides of their family. I said it has nothing at all to do with them. At all. I told them I know it hurts when he is gone and we don't know where he is. I apologized (many times) for my crazy behaviors that they witnessed. I explained that I was very hurt and angry when their dad took off and left us. They have all been to alanon and AA meetings. My middle one took her first steps at an AA meeting and my littlest one has been comming with me since she was 2 weeks old.
Things have changed since I talked to them. But talking to them, getting the secrets out, sharing with them has made a huge difference in my realtionship with them. I am honest with them. It is a family disease and we are family. If we can share the disease, we can share the recovery. Honesty (age appropriate) is the very best policy.
P.S. if I had left it up to them asking their father, they wouldn't have. And he sure as heck wouldn't have brought it up and there continues the cycle of secrets and denile. I wasn't going to enable him to give tem the illuson that he and his behaviors were normal or ok. They weren't.
Yep, I echo Christy's response too..... I went through the same stuff, with my A-wife at the time, and tried too many times to "own" that relationship.... My sponsor reminded me to keep my relationship with my kids to "MY" relationship with my kids.... My only appropriate response was always that I loved them, cared for them, and told them they were safe..... I could not answer for their (at the time active) mother, no matter what age they were.....
Tom
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"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
