Let me first start by saying that I am trying to sort out my feelings about a situation that just occured. Input is appreciated for sure!! My AH is really having a hard time, more than usual, matabolising his alcohol. It may be because of all of the meds he is on for his heart and high blood pressure. It doesn't really matter why, the fact is he is having this issue. Last night we were having a discussion about our Church service and how nice it was. Our son, my step-son, was reluctant to join in the conversation. He is 14 years old and goes to his mother's house every other weekend, most of the time. When he goes there they go to a Catholic church, we however go to a non-denominational church. My AH asked our son if he was cold, lukewarm or hot for Jesus and religion. My son responded with I am not lukewarm. Which I felt was appropriate and fair. My AH however was not so understanding and went into this whole thing about how my son was going to go to a new meeting on Tuesday for the HS aged kids at our Church, which I had wanted him to join in too. I did not feel like, at first, this was going to turn into this HORRIBLE, rant about who's religion was "better". My son said that he didn't feel like he should be made to go to our Church that he preferred Catholic services over ours. So my AH asked him why, and wanted him to tell us what he had learned in the service he went to last week, at Catholic church. Well he couldn't answer the question, I am sure being drilled was not helping him answer the question. So it ends up with my AH ranting about how my son has to come up with a reason why he prefers the Catholic church over ours. Now, not that this has anything to do with this, I don't think it really matters which Church you go to as long as you are working on your relationship with God, of our choosing. How a conversation about going to Church could turn into such a horrilbe situation, I dont' know. Except, my son was responding with major attitude and smirky grins, with insinuating meanings. Which, sober AH or not, sets him off. It does me too. But our son chose to go that route and as the conversation got more heated he asked if he could call his mom, my response to that would have been no, my AH's response was no too. I feel like, because he has tried that on me before, if we are discussing something in our house that's where it stays, his mother feels the same way. But when our son was told no, he repeated the question over and over. Which heated things up even more. Needless to say a nice calm converstaion ended up being quite ugly and no point to it after awhile. I tried to interject and asked my AH to at least calm down and that a conversation about religion should not make a child cry. My AH then turned his venom on me, but I have more tools to deal with my AH than my son does. So I knew to stop and let things go, praying all the time that things would somehow, calm down. But this kid man, he just kept doing this smirky grin and a little laugh, and I just knew that everytime he did that things were going to escalate even worse. Then he asked again to call his mother, and the answer was no and he repeated the question a couple more times. Again sending things even deeper into the H*** we were already in. I tried to seperate the two of them and my son went to his room, with major attitude, and thuds were coming from his room. Which set my AH off even more, and went to confront my son about the things making the noise in his room. My son said he just wanted to call his mom and my AH went into how he has so many more privileges here than he ever would with his mom, which is true as far as material things goes. My AH also went into how his mother had brought him to our home, 10 years ago, with sweat pants and a t-shirt on and basically left him. This is true. But also to point that out in this situation was a way to try and "break" my son and his self esteem. So my AH could control him. I know this and I think somewhere my son knows it too. But how do you reconcile with yourself that you have to give in because it is the best way to defuse the situation. Well, my AH decided that my son was trying to say that he wanted to go live with his mother, and my AH threw my 14 year old son out on the front porch, not physically and told him that he was calling his mother to come pick him up. My son said maybe he would go live with his mother, wrong thing to say and not the time either. But he made that choice and said it. He is not unfamiliar with my AH's demeanor when he drinks, so a lot of things my son did were to push back at my AH, which he knows from experience will set my AH off. My AH is not that complicated but he is frustrating. I am not blaming my son at all, but I think that he also knows better. Then after things had settled down, my son tells his father, I don't know if I can forgive you for all of this. I ask myself, why, why, why? The situations was pretty much difused, and if he had just gone to bed and let it go it would not have gone any further. Now my son has to write an essay on why he wants the Catholic church over our church and if he doesn't do it then he can't go to his mother's this weekend. All of which are attempts to gain control over our son. I am going to advise my son to try to accept that his Dad is sick and needs help, which we can't make him get. But to remember that we did not make him this way and it's not our fault and and we can't do anything to change him. We have to work on ourselves and try to figure out how to live our lives without giving into his father's drunken rages. It will be difficult, but I have offered Alateen to him and he doesn't want to take part in it, this may have changed his mind about that but I don't know. My son did get to call his mother, after my AH had called her and talked to her, and he was pretty upfront with her about what had happened.

This morning I wake up and find that my AH did not come to bed last night so I got up an went looking for him, he was not in the usual love seat recliner, and his car was still here. He had gone to the living room and covered himself up with seat cover. I woke him up and asked him why he was in there, he said he didn't know how or when he got there. This was before my son got up to go to school. I just felt like this was getting more out of hand than my AH was accepting. My AH came to bed at that point and put on his sleep apnea gear and went to sleep. He ended missing his Cardio rehab and woke up at 9 and was going to be late for work. Now I could have gotten him up at 7:15 when my alarm went off but I needed more sleep so I just went back to sleep. I don't think I should keep him on track for his stuff, he doesn't keep me on track and nor do I expect him to. Well he go up and got ready for work and left for work and then needed me to meet him somewhere because he had left his paperwork he needed for work. So I ran out and met him with his papers, and gave him more Tylenol and some gum at this request. I asked him if he was alright and he said yeah why and I told him he was asking for the Tylenol and gum and he said I think the alcohol hit me harder than I thought. I said probably. Then he left and I went back home. Later he called me and was talking about how hard the alcohol had hit him and he thought he had just had 2 drinks and I told him it was more like 3ish. He then tried to justify them by saying the first ones were weak ones and I said they were alcohol non the less. Then he said he really felt like he needed to get back into AA. I said so you want to hit the AA circuit again huh? Then I felt like I had overstepped a boundary, so I apologized and told him that I supported his decision. He asked me to find some meeting for him and I told him I would and then email them to him. Now I know that I can't do anymore than that for him and this is probably doing too much anyway. But I feel like it will relieve my conscience and know that I have done all that I can do. Other than support him when I can. But first and foremost I have to take care of me and my son. I am sorry this has been so long and I knew that it would because I needed to let this stuff out of my head before it swept me up into a depression which is not good!! Thank you family for your input and support. Love you all!!!!!

Your in recovery,
wildthang86