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To make a long story short (if I can), back in September, I was out of town for work. My AH, who is also diabetic, decided to drink one day and not eat, while he was in charge of our 7 year old son. While my son was in school all day, he had to come home to his father being totally drunk and having a diabetic low. When it was bed time, my son was trying to wake my AH up to tell him he was going to bed and he could not wake him up and my AH was breathing funny. My son ran to the neighbor's to get help. My neighbor called 911 and turns out my AH was about 20 minutes from dying. Because my neighbor called 911, the police came and to make this long story short, my husband was charged with child neglect. He chose to drink & not take care of his diabetes or our son. Now, my AH is in a out patient rehab where he attends a class every Monday morning. We have a social worker working with us for 6 months because of neglect charge. He is not supposed to be drinking at all. Which brings me to why I am writing this. Two weeks ago, my AH drank pretty much all day on a Saturday. He goes to rehab on Monday and they made him take a urine test (thanks to me calling his counselor and telling him about my AH's drinking) and last week he got the test results back, which he failed. I can tell in the last couple of days when I got home from work that my AH had been drinking beer. I can just tell by his mannerisms and the way he talks. My son told me last night that he saw Dad with a can of beer, so I called my AH on it. He got really defensive and when I asked why he took some cash out of the tyme machine, he came up with a couple of stories, which I knew he was lying. He's been spending a little to much time in the basement lately, so this morning I decided to go down there and do some looking around. I found a 30 pack of beer, which 1/2 of it was gone. I am doing everything in my power not to call him at work and let him have it. Will that really get me anywhere? He will probably say that I planted it. That's how sick he is. I want to dump it out and not tell him, but I don't want him spending another $20 on beer. I'm thinking that I am going to call his counselor and tell him what I found and let him deal with my AH on Monday morning.
I know this is long and I would appreciate any comments.
Calling to confront him wont do any good - has it ever in the past? Why create an opportunity for him to lie, yet again and for you to be hurt/angered, yet again?
In the past, I sat in tons of AA/NA mtgs when my childhood friend was gettting clean (over 20 yrs ago) and the addicts in those room told me, unequivocably that when you confront an A and corner them with the truth, you willl only get about 1/4 of the truth out of them - they are removed from the truth and reality- as they are lying tothemsleves, first, then the rest of the world, so they begin to believe their own denials/lies as their reality.
All the looking, seraching - who cares if you know the truth? He wont admit it and he will (as you say, most likely) blame you for planting it there! None of us would pour alcohol or drugs down their faces.
The best way to help an A, is to work a solid program of our own, to start with that means putting the focus back onto you and taking your life back from the disease.
I am not a mom but I think I would be contacting a lawyer or a freee lawyer to ask what my rights are regarding this latest issue. I unfortunately know that your kid is suffering, no child want to be brought prematurly into adult sitaution and for him to ahve to literally baby sit a drunk - I would be way more concerend about my precious child, and how I can allow them to be safe. The children dont have choices and the adults - do. So, please focus on what YOU can change and control ~ YOU.
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Light, Love, Peace, Blessings & Healing to Us All. God's Will Be Done. Amen.
Kitty - you are so right. I knew the minute after I confronted him about when our son told me that he saw Dad with a beer, I should have kept my mouth shut. Thinking about it now and what he said after I confronted him, all he did was talk in circles, never denying he had a beer, but somehow our conversation got twisted into something totally off the subject that was my fault.
What you said made me cry..."the children don't have choices and the adults do". So much truth to that statement.
When I thought that having a neglect charge brought about him would be his rock bottom, no way....I think it will be when he kills himself or someone else. (I'm thinking out loud). Pretty sad.... time for me to make some honest decisions.
The 3 Cs: You didn't cause it, can't cure it, can't control it.
Confronting him or throwing the beer away will not change anything. He'll deny it, blame you, and then get more.
I don't know the relationship between you and his counselor. When I was in your position, I called and it didn't really help. I don't think my exHA (AH at the time) was honest/ truthful with the counselor and I had come to believe that my communications with his counselor had no place with his therapy. It is his to work out alone; if he spends it not being honest with his counselor, then he will be faced with the consequences. He has choices and I cannot choose for him.
This past year, my exHA did not tell his counselor that he got married until he left for the honeymoon. To me, that speaks volumes about his level of honesty with his counselor.
The truth is that I have too much on my plate that I need to focus on; and, I did not realize just how much until I stopped looking to fix the exHA.
The best thing you can do is work the principles of Alanon, read as much as you can about alcoholism, attend face to face meetings, attend the online meetings and focus on you and your son. Alanon does work. Keep coming back.
-- Edited by bud on Friday 10th of December 2010 08:34:13 AM
Thanks Bud! You are right, what happens with his counseling sessions is his business. If my AH wants to take them light heartingly, that is not my problem. I am so glad that I posted. I feel better already. It is so nice to be have a place to turn to when I am upset or feel insane.
Have to agree with whats already been said Confronting the A is futile. Expecting to get reasonable or truthful answers from a cunning and baffling disease only sucks you into your husbands disease and takes the focus off you However speaking as a mother you have the duty to protect your child who cannot protect himself. Personally if you are dealing with child protective services and they have set the rule your husband cannot drink I would call the case worker and let them make a surpise inspection...i would not tell your husband about finding his booze but I would lead the case worker to it. Your son right now needs to be protected... thinking with a childs mind he now thinks he is respondsible for keeping his dad alive. No child should feel the respndsibility. It may be your husband is ordered to inpatient treatment or is removed from the home until he accepts and is working recovery. Keep in mind you aren't doing this for your husband but for your son. I know you are hurting and worrying about your husbands health, but he is not. His disease doesnt allow him to care about it. Maybe the thought of really actually losing his family may be his bottom. Of course none of us knows what anothers bottom is. by pass his counselor and go right to the Dept that can actually do something to keep your son safe. I know how hard it is..I wish you peace in whatever decision you make Blessings
What an incredibly stressful thing. I know when I confronted the ex A about his lies he became absolutely belligerant. I had to get to the point of detaching. I also had to be at the point of really working on not counting on him at all for anything. That was also a real real hard one for me.
In theory you no longer have to be monitoring him every second if he is not taking care of your child. I know the feeling very much. I was sick with worry so much about the ex A's using and drinking. I had to turn it over so many times and I had to refocus so much. My finances were absolutely all tangled up with the ex A's. Unentangling them has taken a long long time. After I left him I stepped in once again to help him, paid all his bills for a while and then got sick of the lies and more lies. Then a situation presented itself where I could set even more limits with him.
I know this process is incredibly upsetting, frustrating and alarming. Do you have a copy of Getting them Sober. I did find that book one of the most helpful in resetting my expectations.
For me, it is always,"protect the children." period.
It does no good to confront the A as they are very sick and will just turn it around on you anyway.
Their disease is that, their own, their consequenses, their own.
We need to do zero for them. They have to figure it out for themselves.
Hon I tell ya, we HAVE to do whatever we have to do protect our kids. IF you don't do something about his being in the home and using, you could very well lose your child!!!
Child protective services does not play around. They don't care if they find out he is drunk and you are there and the child. They will take action.
They look at it as you are allowing your child to be around a very unsafe person, father or not.
We cannot tell you what to do. I can tell you what I did, I got a Restraining order so he could not come around the kids.
HARD core I know.But he has to figure it out. AND he can.
We talk about boundaries. What we suggest is making them, AND a consequense.
EX: A I love you, but as we know child services will take son if you drink. I am telling you now, to protect our son, there can be no alcohol in the house, and no one can be drunk in this house.
If it happens, that person has to leave. NO question, no second chances.
It is not easy my friend. But I know what a diabetic is like when they have low blood sugar, to have drank too, yes is a death warrent.
PLUS hon believe me if your husband dies from it, you son will forever blame himself. He is a great kid for taking responsibility at age 7 to get help for his dad! BUT what a horrible thing huh? He should be playing with Tonka trucks in the sand and playing tugawar with the dog!
You are doing great by coming here, and by watching over for your son. This circumstance, the looking for alcohol to me is warrented. In fact there may be times where it is when it is to protect our kids.
For us to hunt to be able to do a GOTCHA is not ok. but to protect you bet.
Hope you stick around. We are here to help and honestly we do care very much.
