You ever been so frustrated you don't know where to turn?  Well that is why I am here to help get rid of some of that frustration.  I will try to make my story short but bear with me....

I have been divorced for almost two years now.  My ex is an alcoholic and sometimes I wonder whether it was more difficult to be married to him or whether it is more difficult now that I am not there.  We have two little girls together their ages are 4 1/2 and 2 years.  I worry about my little girls every time they are with their dad.  He is still involved with them and only because he has parents who push the issue of him being involved.  He doesn't have a car to drive them so he has to borrow his mom's or his girlfriends car to pick them up or drop them off.  Several times when he has driven them, I have smelled alcohol on his breath.  I know that his drinking has progressed even more since I have left and it scares me when I think about him doing the things he was doing before but now I am not there for my kids.  He would pass out on the steps, leaning on the counter, in the middle of eating on the couch, on the toilet or just about anywhere and that was two years ago.  What is happening now I am not sure of but last weekend I saw the chief to the firehouse where he volunteers and he told me that my ex has not been to the firehouse in over 6 months. That is something he absolutley loves.  The firehouse was his life, he had so many friends there, he was so proud of being a volunteer.  The cheif sat down with him one night after he had a drunken incident on one of the trucks and told him that the firehouse would pay for him to get help.  Needless to say, he refused the help and hasn't been back there now in 6 months.  So here comes the most frustrating part of it all......His family, his mom in particular will not admit he has a problem.  They, meaning his parents, continue to make excuses for him and bail him out every time he gets into trouble.  My ex works for his parents and because of his apparent back problem now he can call out of work whenever he wants to and he can use the "back" excuse.  That is another issue because I am afraid he is taking pills in conjunction with drinking and I have watched with my own eyes him do things that someone with that bad of a back problem would not be able to do.  I honestly think that it is BS.  My concern is getting his mother to believe he has a problem because then I will have someone else on the side of my kids.  She only sees what she wants to see even after I have told her repeatedly about all the things that he has done.  Even after this sunday when I sat down and told her about the firehouse and what the chief had said.  She said she would look into it and call the firehouse herself because she doesn't believe me and now she is avoiding me.  I can't get through to him so i try to at least get through to someone and the only people who believe me are the ones who are closest to me.  Why is it that the alcoholic is able to trick everyone into thinking you are the crazy one.  He seriously has people believing that I made up his problem and that he was only drinking a lot when we were together.  He has people believing that he isn't drinking a lot now only because they don't SEE him drinking but they don't "see" the 10 beers he drank before he walked in the door or the pills he took because they choose not to see it.

How do you stop the frustration when people don't believe that the alcoholic really has a problem and they think the problem is you?  and what do I do about my kids?  Do I try to prove that he isn't capable of taking care of them and try to get full custody? apparently is so hard to prove an alocoholic even my lawyer has said so.  But I am worried about them and him and I really just want to do the right thing.

Thank you for listening to me vent and I would appreciate any input.

Leslie