welcome mmcoy-
i'm writing as the ex-partner of an alcoholic with a little girl far away from his previous relationship.
he is equally inconsistent with his phone calls and yes, the children suffer. he suffers.
he misses his calls if he has been drinking. he doesn't want to call if he is drunk.
since he is often drunk, he often misses his calls and comes up with similar sorry excuses, like his phone dropped in the river and stuff.
what his ex-partner did was to set a time for his call. it's tuesday at 7 and he calls a special phone that she turns on only for this hour.
i don't know if that is a solution or not, but it does permit him to establish contact with his little girl and it also leaves the family to get on with their life without interuption.
watching all this over the years, i have mixed feelings about it. i feel it is important that the father has an opportunity to have contact, for both the child and the father.
he misses a lot of his calls but does manage to maintain sporadic contact. when i listen to the calls, the little girl is delighted to share her life and he is always saying to her "i love you".
not really parenting, but i personally feel that BOTH the father and the child would suffer emotionally to not be in some contact.
it's a tough call but perhaps consider the special cell phone for a scheduled weekly call as a compromise.
naive