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I have posted in the past, but my wife has struggled with alchohol addiction for 6 years and we have 3 beautiful children aged 5 (twins) and 2. She has been to rehab and managed to stay sober for a year, and since then has had a couple of relapses (now only going a couple of days without drinking) to the point I set a boundary that if she was impaired again I was going to ask her to leave the home for a least a few days to get herself the help/program she needs. My point was to A) regain my sanity by having someone watch the kids while I am at work B) put her recovery in her hands to solve and me not be the bad guy/police c) to determine what I am willing to live with.
I am struggling with how much to allow my wife to see the kids (which adore her) and maintain some accountability for her actions while not using them as a punitive "punishment," and more importantantly, what's appropriate to discuss with my 5 and 2 year old on why mom isn't in the home. I want her to show me at least two weeks of sobriety before coming home (which would be another 12 days). She is also supposed to show what her plans are to keep sober and stick to them.
I love my wife and family, but will not endanger by kids, give them a bad environment to live in, or live with the insanity of a drinking spouse all while trying to raise kids.
I have 3 children and I had some struggles when they were young trying to figure out what to say to them and what not to no matter what age they are. When mine were young I was honest with them I told them that daddy was sick. I left it at that and answered questions that they asked as they came up and kept it age appropriate. I also reassured them that we both loved them very much.
Today I have 13, 11 and 9 year old children and I still do the same things, but we now talk openly about the disease. I answer questions as they come up and I keep it age approprite.
Pray, talk to your sponsor and keep coming back.
Yours in recovery,
Mandy
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"We are not punished for our unforgiveness, we are punished by it" Jim Stovall
one of the things that came as a rude awakening to me was this...if I knowingly let my kids go with their drunk dad, I could lose custody (not just him)...it's rare, but could happen. I told my exA this, too. I breathalize him if I have any question about his impairment, before he has the kids. When he was really bad, I didn't leave the kids with him at all. Nowadays, the problem is, the breathalizer doesn't detect opiates / prescription meds, which he also uses. So, there's no way to know if he is too impaired to be responsible for the kids. I too struggle with my kids maintaining contact with their Dad, AND wanting to keep them safe. It sure ain't easy.
I hope you have a meeting and maybe are working on getting a sponsor? The more we're educated about this, the better we can make decisions.
I kept waiting for my ex-AH to get sober and be recovered. He went into recovery many times -- sometimes through AA, once in a formal (court-mandated) rehab, and many times by declaring that he just wasn't drinking any more. Each time I thought, "At last we're getting somewhere!" But I didn't realize how powerful alcoholism is. I wish someone had told me the statistics, that only around 15-25% of alcoholics who enter a formal recovery program stay sober longterm. Now, because there are thousands of alcoholics, this does mean that there are thousands of people who have been sober longterm. But I think it also means that we shouldn't (as I did) think of our arrangements as temporary, "just until he/she really gets recovery underway." The statistical likelihood is that recovery will not take. If it does, it will do so on the drinker's timeline, rather than on ours (sadly). So we have to make our lives the way we want them to be, as much as we can, so that things can move ahead whether or not the drinker drinks or gets sober. For a long time everything in my life hinged on him getting sober. That turned out not to happen. I wish I had started the longterm planning earlier. Then if sobriety does occur, no harm no foul, but if it doesn't, you and your kids are okay.
The things I'd be looking for are expressions of commitment to recovery, plus the fact that she's working it hard, going to AA or other formal recovery meetings every day, determined. That's not a guarantee, but just trying to white-knuckle it is pretty much a guarantee that recovery will be too hard. Two weeks of staying sober is a good thing, but I'd be checking to see whether her actions are showing that she's got a solid support system (like AA) and that she's using it. The first year of sobriety, even the first two years, can be very touch-and-go.
I finally saw the light -- which in my case involved splitting up with my AH -- when I discovered that he had endangered our two-year-old. I had thought he hadn't been drinking for months. I thought it was totally safe to leave our child with him. It was a miracle that our child survived. It involved a window and a three-story drop. After that I said, "No more." But my AH was a sneaky drinker who only binged now and again. If your wife, when she drinks, drinks all the time, you can probably tell better whether or not she's really sober, not just between binges.
They pull us into the maelstrom and insanity with them, so our own recovery is important too. Our views become distorted without our even realizing it. And the pain can be intense. Take good care of yourself and your little ones.
