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Not really sure how to start this. Definitely have been an enabler by trying to deny there is a problem or being scared to confront the problem (or any number of other excuses). I accidently stumbled into an AA meeting about 2 years ago and realized at that point that my wife is not only an alcoholic but I am not responsible for her drinking. Easy to say and harder to believe. So here is my story. I have been married to my wife almost 13 years. We met right after college and being in our 20s we would go out often. She definitely went overboard at times but so did I and I simply chalked it up to us being young. Once we had our first child I pretty much gave up the idea of going out. My wife didnt go out anymore either but she did start down the path to where we are now by continuing to drink. I didnt really think too much of it as I didnt grow up around alcoholics. The first wake up call for me was when she passed out drunk on our bathroom floor after a night of drinking by herself. She apologized of course and I let it go. Over the years her disease progressed to the point that she was wetting the bed on a regular basis. I of course started sleeping on the couch and have done so off and on for the last 5 years. The crazy part is that she is fully functional during the day. She has an important job and performs well. She also manages to be an important part of our childrens life by volunteering at their school. Truly looks like a perfect mom. People of course dont get to see her start drinking around 5 and continue until she passes out around 8 or 9. She has hidden her alcohol although I knlow she is drinking at least a bottle of wine a night. I am also pretty sure she is mixing vodka into the wine. We currently have three kids aged 12, 9, and 6. They seem to be fairly oblivious to their mother's drinking although I am probably fooling myself. I most certainly have not confronted her in front of them abiut her drinking. I could share some horror stories as I am sure everyone here can. The worst ones have happened this summer and are why I am considering divorce at this point. The DUI happened about 3 years ago and she of course promised to stop drinking (failed of course) and never to drink and drive again. I caught her this summer mixing vodka into a water bottle to have at our kids little league games. She was then driving them home after the game. When I confronted her she definitely played the victim and blamed me for checking. I told her that if I saw it again I would be the one to call the police. Needless to say I drove the kids to the rest of the games. I just found out that my wife was confronted by the middle school principal at middle school orientation. I was out of town for work and evidently she was drunk enough that he tried to stop her from driving home with our children. I found out through a friend that told my brother what she saw. (I guess the family secret isnt as secret as I thought). I truly do not know what I should do. I of course am in a situation that anyone looking at from the outside would know immediately what should happen but I am discovering that being in the situation yourself makes ones vision cloudy. I am very worried about the safety of my children...that is paramount. Complicating things is my job. I travel about 6-8 nights a month for work and have gotten to the point where I am considering trying to find a job where I wouldnt travel. Easier said than done in that I am not sure I could do so. I used to lie to myself that as long as she isnt putting the kids in danger I could live with her drinking. I guess part of me is still telling that lie because I havent left her and taken the kids yet. That leads to another concern. Being a guy I am very worried that if I do leave the courts will award her custody. While I would want her to be a part of their lives I have told myself that staying in an unhappy marriage is better because at least I can oversee their time. For example, she is passed out drunk right now in our room. Our kids are asleep in their beds. What happens if the courts give her custody and I am not i n the house? It is the same thing I think about when I travel for work but the major difference being the right to oversee their safety. My parents live 5 minutes from my home and I know I can count on them if needed and my oldest knows to call them if there is a problem. Writing this novel has made me realize how truly crazy my life and the lives of my kids are right now. There is obviously a ton more I could write but I feel I need to cut it off at some point. For those of you guys out there...how did the courts treat you in this situation? For everyone...how do I deal with any of this?
Welcome to MIP and glad to have you here. You are in good company and lots of moral support. I am married to an alcohol husband (Ah) for 36 years. Drinking and driving is so common in our household. Once I discovered he was driving my daughter and mother while intoxicated, I stopped them from riding with him. They are not to get in his car under any circumstances. They have back up numbers of people they can reach out to if I am unavailable. Safety is my priority! My mother is elderly and my daughter is disabled. I also applied for Access transportation for them both. Just sharing my experience, strength, and hope here. Your kids are smaller and someone else can share on that. Please, keep coming back. Don't leave before the miracle happens. Attending Alanon face2face helps me a lot.
I'm glad you are here and hope you stick around. If you can find face-to-face meetings in your community too, they can be invaluable. They say to try 6 meetings to find the one for you because they are all different.
I have been through something like this with my alcoholic husband who was endangering our child through negligence. My experience is that the key is to get a divorce lawyer who is familiar with alcoholism. That doesn't mean you need to go through with the divorce right away (or at all). But the lawyer will tell you what the courts need as evidence to make their decision. You will probably be served well by keeping a record/diary of events: "Saturday August 13: wife passed out on the sofa at 5 pm and did not get up again until the next morning at 8 am" or whatever happens.
Note, however, that if the courts observe you letting her drive the kids someplace when she is impaired, they may consider you potentially negiligent as well, or consider that she must not really be drinking, or why would you let her drive? My lawyer pointed this out to me, and at first I was resentful, and then I thought: that's a good question. Why would I let a drunk person drive my child?
It requires a huge amount of arranging to keep an alcoholic parent from driving children around, certainly. Eventually I had to treat it as if, heaven forbid, my husband had been hit by a bus and killed. Would I say, "But I can't get the kids to school"? I would find a way. So I considered that my husband had been hit by alcohol and put out of commission.
When it's a parent who's impaired, it's hard to see that the situation is just as dangerous as if it were a stranger. But the question is: if we saw that a babysitter we relied on was getting drunk every day, would we let that babysitter continue to be in charge of our kids?
I keep remembering the woman who crashed her van on the highway, and her kids and herself were all killed. Everyone said, "But she was such a great mother," and then the alcoholism started coming out. What a tragedy. We must make sure not to let things like this happen again.
Anyway, a lawyer will know exactly what's needed to prove to the courts that your kids should not be under your wife's care unsupervised.
I have seen situations where the courts have taken very good account of alcoholism in the parenting, so I know it's possible. I think the most helpful thing would be to be proactive (as you are being) and not leave it to chance.
I would also tend to second your hunch that the children actually know very well what's going on. My guess is that what they know is that it's not talked about. When I was growing up my family had several unspoken rules about what must never be mentioned, even though it was staring us in the face. When I grew up, my mother was astonished that I knew all about it. She thought if I said nothing, it meant I knew nothing. In a way, saying nothing meant I knew too much.
Read all the messages on these boards, pick up the literature at meetings, learn all you can, keep taking care of yourself!
-- Edited by Mattie on Saturday 13th of August 2011 06:14:24 AM
Welcome and please find a face to face (F2F) meeting in your area and start going. It's a wonderful tool to help you deal with what is going on in your life. Alcoholism is just an awful thing to deal with alone. It hurts the whole family. I don't know as much as you think the kids don't know you'd be shocked by what they do know. Before alanon I don't know what I would have done with it in the past 8 months and I wish I had gotten there so much sooner!!
You've already received from the previous posts some wonderful encouragement, support and hope (ESH). Please know you are not alone in any of this and there is a wonderful community of people in your area. Some meetings even have babysitting if that's an issue for you. The hardest part for me at least has always been reaching out.
Keep coming back,
Hugs P :)
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Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.- Maya Angelo
Hi Pen, Welcome to this web site. Read, read, read.
The safety of your children is much more important than keeping the secrets of your wife. Reach out to your parents too. If they live that close to you they can be part of your safety net for the kids. It is obvious the school already knows. So you can use them too. The school social worker or principal can be told what you want to happen when your wife is obviously drunk at school events. If you can't be reached they can call your parents or another school friend's parent to take your kids home with them until you or your parents or some other designated person can come for them. You can also tell the school that you would like the police involved (actually, if the school in the USA knows they MUST report it..... I don't know why they didn't that other time. Probably trying to be nice.)
Don't make any big decisions yet. Don't quit your job unless you have another one lined up that is as good. Try to get to meetings of AlAnon and get your support system up and running. My girlfriend had the same problem and once the consequences started hitting her she decided that was not how she wanted to live her life....and she quit the booze....
This web site can also be part of your support system.
Pen Hello and welcome, you landed in the right place. You brought up several issues in your post, i can only reply with those i have experince in. My father was an alcholic, I was quiet aware of that by the time I was 5 yrs old. So thinking that your children may be blissfully unaware in highly unlikely. They aren't talking about it because no one is talking about it. It is the elephant in the room. We are only as sick as our secrets. I would suggest not only Alanon for you asap but alateen for your children that are old enough. I made the mistake of revealing our family secret to a neighbor friend at around 5 yrs old. I was brutally punished and learned quickly never to talk of it again. Not good. Kids need an outlet, they need someone to talk to about it. This is a progressive disease so you can expect your wife's drinking to continue to get worse. Right now I am dealing with my son who despite our best efforts turned to addiction. No parent wants to think they cant fix thier own child. I had to hit my own bottom before i crawled thru the doors of alanon. I had to accept I am not powerful enough to fix anyone but myself. But your children are young, by you attending alanon and starting your recovery it will aide in the recovery of your children. It is a family disease, you are all being affected negativly. It took me a while of working the program to get the courage to get out of my son's way and out of the way of his Higher Power and let him feel the natural consequenses of his own behavior. I had been cushioning his bottom for yrs. And as long as you keep your secret and cushion your wifes bottom ( enabling ) the longer it will take her to hit her bottom and reach out for recovery. An we never know what another persons bottom is, we know what ours may be and we try to place that senerio on our loved one when in fact we just never know someone elses bottom. You and your children must come first. By attending alanon you will learn better, healthier coping skills, you will get truly educated on how this disease works and your behavior will change for the better. Your children will have at least one healthy parent. We do suggest here that you make no life changing decisions for at least 6 months after working the program. By that time you will be in a much healthier head space, be more educated and most importantly then make an informed decision. It's a life long disease and a life long program. There is no graduation date. We work the same steps as AA just in a different context. But I promise you this... as i said I crawled thru these doors broken in a million peices and about a hopless as one can get. And alanon has worked in ALL aspects of my life, not just learning how to cope with my son. And my life has changed so dramatically I am not the same person who came thru those doors 3 yrs ago. And my recovery as can your recovery can aide in the recovery of others. Others will want what you have, maybe your wife even. She may want a life of peace and serenity. It's not a given for sure but you never know who you will touch with you recovery. Pls find an alanon meeting in your area and start your recovery, get your miracle wishing you the best, keep posting Blessings
I can relate to a lot of what you wrote. The family secret, coming to the realisation that the problem is getting worse. I strongly suggest going to some meetings. For me I found going to an all men's meeting at first worked best. The power of 12 step programs is that it is people with the same problem helping each other. The feeling of being alone and unable to relate to others about your problem goes away. I suspect you have that feeling pretty strongly right now. I also suspect your children are much more aware of the problem then you realize, they are looking to you and the sooner you accept help from others the sooner they will feel more secure as well.
Hi Pen and welcome to MIP. It sounds like you found the right place. I have found friends to check on my kids when I am at work. My 13 year old watches my 3 year old until I get home from work, during school I have daycare. My exAH whom I recently divorced doesn't get my little one alone and my 13 year old and him have an agreement that he will not drink while they visit, if he breaks it we have a written agreement stating that he loses his time with them that week if he does drink.
My saving grace has been getting myself to face to face meetings and finding a sponsor to help me to start taking better care of myself and stop focusing on my A. I have gotten my 13 year old some alateen books and if there were meetings in my area I would be taking her to them. I have the number for Al-anon to help in finding meetings in your area under my signature.
I suggest the book "Getting Them Sober" by Toby Rice Drews, it helped me immensly. Keep coming back and sending you courage and support.
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Sending you love and support on your journey always! BreakingFree
Al-Anon/Alateen Family Group Headquarters, Inc. 800-344-2666
" Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional."
"Serenity is when your body and mind are in the same place."
Aloha Pen and welcome also. There are guys here who can relate better than others and then maybe we all will relate to being married to an alcoholic woman. Solutions done come overnight because the problem didn't either and only solutions for you are your responsibilities. Learn as much about alcoholism as you can and about being the husband/lover of an alcoholic woman. Literature that helpful can be found in the face to face meetings of Al-Anon along with tons of other useful information. Face to face networking with others who are or have been in your situation is also very supportive. We understand and know how your shoes fit. Learning how to live with and treat someone who is "sick" with a fatal, progressive disease is very enlightening and was for me a great lesson. I thought my alcoholic/addict wife was a "bad" person not a "sick" one. Child welfare services, YWCA, and other services in your neighborhood that deal with parenting and dysfunctional parenting is also helpful. In my town there are lots of points of service and mostly free too. If she has had a DUI and it was adjudicated and she is still drinking and driving you have a source of power regarding keeping yourself, the children and other citizens safe before her next event. Call the sherriff's department of the local police and ask. You can also call the local AA Central Office and ask if there are women in recovery who will come by and speak with her. There are sources. MIP (here) and Face to Face Al-Anon meetings in your area will help you tremendously...if you keep coming back and participating. ((((Hugs))))
Hi Pen, I know I am replying to your post a few days late and I am probably repeating all of the above....but welcome. I was in a similar situation as you when I crawled, crying by face off into my first Al-Anon meeting. I was terrified for the safety of my children after my AH drove drunk (again) with my kids on the car. There was a DWI...there was rehab....and the drama still went on and on. On the outside, we looked like a perfectly family (well, I thought we did...)
I was also deeply in denial. But, the most important thing was that Al-Anon taught me how to deal with the situations and get my sanity back and I started to change my own behavior. Listening to people who have survived the same chaos and are now smiling, peaceful people...it carried me through, although I am by no means out of the woods yet!! I hope you can find a face to face meeting and meet people locally who you can talk to who understand alcoholism--although this is a great place to connect and get support. My heart goes out to you--you are not alone. Your children are very lucky to have you.
I spoke with my parents yesterday. They told me they will support whatever I and the kids need. They also told me that everyone knows...the family secret isnt that secret. The principal did report her to dhs according to my mother but for some reason I havent heard from them. I am going to go talk with an attorney tomorrow about divorce. I have decided that the safety of my kids is more important than my marriage.
