I am so glad you have found us, and so sorry you are going through this. I wanted to say that I have had very similar experiences.  My AH (alcoholic husband) was a binge drinker, so he could go for a long time with no drinking, when I thought he was done with it for good, and then suddenly he'd start again and everything would go out of control. He was taking care of our son, who was three, while I had to work abroad -- 8000 miles away -- for three weeks. He had been sober for quite a while but of course that was the time that the binge started again. You can imagine the rest.

One thing that I eventually realized, in my own case, was that he wasn't going to stop.  He could be sober for long periods but the relapsing wasn't going to stop. In our case, he put our son in physical danger one time. We were staying in a high-rise building and I came home one day to find my AH passed out and our three-year-old with nobody watching and a window that reached down nearly to the floor wide open.  It was a miracle that our son didn't just climb or fall out that window. When my AH was sober, we had actually discussed the necessity of always keeping that window closed and locked.  (Why a high building had a dangerous window like that is anybody's guess, but there will always be something dangerous.)  That's when I decided to leave my AH.  But everyone's situation is different.

My AH and our son are close, and what I realized is that I just must treat AH as if he is always going to drink, because I can't predict when he is.  So when they go out to lunch together, they walk, not drive. I don't let my AH pick our son up from school because that requires a car.  Etc.  The good thing is that your child, like ours, will soon be older, and as he gets older he has more autonomy.  I know that if our AH passed out again with my son there, my son could phone me and I could come and get him.  I should say that also as our son has gotten older, I believe my AH has been more careful about visible drinking, so that he has never passed out or anything in front of our son again.  If he had, I would revise my plans of what they can do.

This also means that when I'm gone I get other people to watch our son.  I've developed a wide network of parents of his friends and other people he trusts, and when I have to go to a business meeting or something over a weekend, he goes over to one of them, not with his dad. I'm not sure he even realizes he's being "babysat"; I think he thinks it's a fun sleepover with a friend.  Of course we have lots of his friends over too so it's balanced and not one-sided.  But this means that I'm not thrown on having to depend on my AH (now ex-AH) for care.

That was the solution we arrived at.  If I could do one thing differently, I would have gone into my own recovery at Al-Anon earlier.  I hope you can do that, find meetings, get a sponsor, and learn all you can.  Keep coming back.

Oh boy, that is terrifying about the car.  The fact that your husband is minimizing it ("It was only a one-day slip-up!") is terrifying as well.  It suggests to me that he still doesn't understand what tragedy could have happened if he had tried to drive your son in that condition.  If I ever found that I had made a decision like that, I would check myself into rehab the next day or even quicker.  The fact that he just takes this in stride shows just how insane this disease makes people.

I think when we first begin to realize how severe the problem is, it takes a little while to get everything set up so that we can detach our life from the alcoholic's.  During that time we just pray that things work out safely. However, when we're thrown on our own resources, it's my experience that it's amazing what we can do.  I never would have predicted that I could be the single mother of a three-year-old in a demanding career and come out of it sane with most things taken care of pretty well.  And yet it has worked out.  Our son is ten now.

My AH was also the stay-at-home parent because he was self-employed with a part-time and not very lucrative career.  It was not very lucrative partly because of the choice of career and partly because his work habits were not the steadiest.  At his most successful he hardly made enough to support a single person.  I thought that once I asked him to leave, he'd have to ask his parents (who weren't very well off themselves) for money to support him.  He had never shown any ability to support himself with any security. But come to find out that he has kept himself going just fine all these years.  When you throw alcoholics onto their own resources, they're more able than they can appear.  I now think he projected a sense of helplessness and incapability all those years to keep from having to be an equal contributor.  I thought he would be living under a bridge within six months.  He's pleaded that he's too poor to contribute child support.  But I sell things on eBay now and again and I look at his sales record.  Come to find out that he's spending hundreds of dollars buying frivolities (such as comic books) on eBay.  I never would have known, just as I never would have known the extent of his drinking.  These days I don't really believe he's helpless any more than I believe he's longterm sober.

In our case I was lucky because he just went along with what I decided about custody and access.  He's not very combative, plus he knew that I would arm myself to the teeth with lawyers and evidence if he tried to oppose the plan.  I have tried not to be blaming.  I say, "I don't know whether you're drinking or not, and I'm not asking you to tell me.  But I have to make sure [our son] is safe, and so I'm going to assume that you might be drinking, and so I can't let him do [whatever] with you."  He just rolls his eyes as if I'm this crazy person who still has this deranged idea that he drinks.  (Even when the court ordered that he go into rehab, he blamed it on a judge who has the same deranged idea that he drinks.)  He'll never believe there's anything to this.  But he knows the law will be on my side, and he can't afford a sharp lawyer to combat it.  And truth be told, I think he likes having even less responsibility than he did before.  So he gets to live his own drunken life without anyone to stop him, plus see his son sometimes.  That's his idea of a good life.  And as long as I can keep our son safe, I think that's a comparatively happy way for this whole mess to end.  He does mean well.  But he's in the grip of a disease and that's the way it is.

Sorry this has been so long.  Hope my experience helps.  Take what you like and leave the rest.

Thank you so much for sharing your story. You are so right! The incident was more than terrifying. I heard the whole thing transpire over the phone from across the Atlantic and wanted to fly through space and swoop up my son. I have never in my life felt so helpless or panicked. I don't care if it was one day or one minute. It was horrific. Period.

I, too, did the single parent thing with my very demanding (long and unpredictable hours with lots of travel for production) job. My alcoholic partner (AP?) (ABF?) went through six months of rehabs/relapses/ER visits/detox/disappearing (seriously, missing person for 5 days) a couple of years ago before I finally forced him into an apartment and went on with life. My son was four. I wish I could say it was easy, but I actually thought it was very stressful and very expensive. Maybe it would be easier if my job didn't require me to travel weeks at a time. But it does, so I had to bring my nanny and pay for all of her expenses. And now that my son is in school, I would have to hire someone I trust and who he is happy with to watch him. So, for me, my current job probably isn't sustainable as a single parent. (I think that's why after a year and a half of sobriety, I let him eek his way back into the family.)

My ABF definitely wants to be involved on a day-to-day level with my son and has been (besides the 6-month period of relapse indicated above) his primary caretaker during the day. He has been very good at it too, teaching my son golf (he was accepted into the world championships this year), soccer and participating as the class photographer at his school. Cooks, cleans, does my errands. That's why it's so hard for me to write him off. But it is also so hard for me NOT to write him off.

I should also add that my ABF is a lot older than I am, and I am 42! He was in the corporate world in my industry, and it's a young industry, so he is not very employable at this point...plus his health has deteriorated so he definitely can't do physical stuff. He has helped me renovate two old houses, which increased my net worth a bit. So, as ridiculous as it sounds, I actually do feel like I have give him some money to live. Maybe I sell my nice house and give him some money. Uggh.

I don't feel protective of my ABF at this point, but I do feel protective of my son and what my son gets from him during the long periods (years) when he is sober. A lot to figure out!

Thank you for bearing with me. Hearing what you have to say is very meaningful.

Merci beaucoup, as my new French friends say!

Camille

As the adult child of an alcoholic, I have an entirely different perspective. Some of what I have to say may be tough for others to swallow, but life can be pretty ugly sometimes.

I was physically and sexually abused by an alcoholic, who also did other things that often put myself and my younger brother in danger. J (I dont want to use her name, but I refuse to call her mom anymore) didnt do anything to stop it. She even caught him in my room once, but denied the abuse till the day she died. She always said that she made a vow before God and she wasnt going to break it just because things got tough. If that was her choice, thats her business, but I never felt she had the right to make that choice for us. If she wanted to stay, more power to her, but she should have made other arrangements for us, for the sake of our safety. To this day, I have FAR more anger toward her than I do toward him. At least he had the excuse that he was drunk and didnt know what he was doing. She had no such excuse. She could have done something and she chose not to. As far as Im concerned, shes as guilty of abuse as he was, if not more so.

Dont think that anyone (especially the alcoholic, but not even the kids either) will ever appreciate your willingness to let the kids spend time with dad so they can get to know him. Too often, we do what we think is best, when really all it is is whats easy. Too many people make the mistake of trying so hard not to step on the alcoholics rights and feeling sooooooo sorry for the poor, poor alcoholic who just cant help himself. Well, maybe he cant, but if YOU can do something to protect the kids from him, DO IT, and the hell with his rights! It only takes one instance of letting your guard down for a kid to be scarred for life, whether mentally, emotionally, physically or sexually. Not only do you have to live with that for the rest of your life, but so does your kid. I would have given ANYTHING for somebody anybody! to be more concerned about MY right not to be abused than about HIS right to do the things he did things that he never remembered afterwards, but that Ill never be able to forget. Hes been dead over 30 years, and I still read the recovery books, go to meetings and come to online groups like this one.

Living on your guard 24/7 is a hell of a way to live - the stress alone will kill you after a while. Kids dont always understand why parents make the decisions we make, and some kids might scream and cry and accuse you of all sorts of hateful things because you wont let them see the other parent anymore. Their safety is FAR more important than their understanding. Being a parent sometimes means making unpopular decisions (whether keeping the alcoholic away from the kids or even finding yourself another job so you don't "have" to rely on him as much as you obviously think you have to). BE THE PARENT! It may be tough for a while, but trust me, someday they will understandand theyll thank you for it.

Red Hawk

One of the most tragic things about alcoholism is that, because it's a disease, relapse can happen at any time and without any warning. I've heard of people being sober for years on end and then suddenly they start drinking again. It seems to happen less with people who are either in therapy or AA because they have a support network they can fall back on and they're working on the issues that cause them to drink in the first place, but it still happens. It seems to happen more, though, with people like your guy who are only doing it to get what they want. It sounds like he's only trying to stay sober to appease you so he can see his son, not because he believes he really has a problem and needs to change. Judging by his flippant remark that he just had a one-day slip, he still doesn't realize he's an alcoholic.

I'm glad you found Al-Anon and these message boards here at MIP. Have you ever considered looking into Codependents Anonymous (CoDA), as well? You might find that helpful, too. Melody Beattie has written some excellent books on the subject that I highly recommend.

I have several daily readers that I use regularly, and this is part of one of my very favorite readings. It comes from a book for ACoAs, but I hope you find it helpful: "Today I will be gentle with myself...I will experience this day without demanding perfection from myself or others...To promote my recovery, I live each moment treating myself with gentleness and kindness...I feel renewed and encouraged as I concentrate less on finding the correct answers to my problems and more on how I am treating myself along the way. As I learn to take care of myself, answers will come." (June 16)

Today's reading also seems appropriate:

I Will Not Control My Loved Ones

I will cherish my own individuality today, and I will respect the individuality of others. I will not control my loved ones, nor will I take responsibility for their actions or their words. Many times in the past, I've tried to control the alcoholic's behavior by continually making excuses for their embarrassing behavior, their blunders, their excesses and their diminished responsibility. Instead of feeling my own individuality, I felt responsible for the alcoholic's actions.

I will be strong today and concentrate on maintaining my own personhood. I will not take responsibility for anyone else's actions or emotions.

I will be able to detach emotionally from the stresses of others. I will accept my powerlessness over others. I will accept myself, and I will accept others in their own unique individuality.

I will cherish my individuality today. (July 27)

Rokelle Lerner, Daily Affirmations for Adult Children of Alcoholics

Believe me, I know it sucks! No matter what you decide to do, there are no easy answers, and I certainly don't envy you the choices you're facing. Just dig in deep to your Higher Power for the strength and wisdom you need. And keep coming back!

Red Hawk

Well, Mattie, I reached the same point you reached after your husband put your son in danger...I have finally officially left my partner.

It is very clear that his sobriety after another traumatizing incident for my son, that my partner's sobriety will always be intermittent. My son and I had to urgently move cities (I took a new job--a great one, at least). Now my ex-partner is packing up his stuff in the old house in the old city and will hopefully leave when it gets rented. (Of course, he has said that he won't leave even though I own the house.) Add all the drama to the fact that I have had to find housing, get my son into school AND knock it out of the park in a new job (and my dog died a few weeks ago) and it has been VERY stressful.

I know I have no alternative but to keep my son away from him right now as he is too unpredictable. Don't know whether in the future, IF he is sober, if I will let him see my son in a controlled environment or if that would be too confusing or hurtful to my son when his dad falls off the wagon again.

I think what floors me is that though I'm doing the right thing I am in so much pain (for my son) for the loss of our family and with the worry of my ex-partner's welfare. (Probably doesn't help that we have left ALL of the life we had, not just dad, a great neighborhood and school!) Trying to be positive and believe that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but there is a lot of anxiety attached with moving on!!!!!!!!!! At moments, I feel a little bit free, but mostly, as a mom of a a now virtually fatherless son, I just feel like a wreck right now. Did anyone ever feel this way?