Help - Wife/Mother of four with extreme alcoholism.
I post in the new area as I just joined this board today, a member encouraged me to post in this section.
My wife started to drink heavily about six years ago but the last two years have really been bad. She began to call me at work and say she could not handle our three children at the time. We had a nanny that would help with the kids about two days a week back then. She would call on days when the nanny was off and I would come home and she would be passed out on the couch or on her way to being passed out. I thought the stress of the children must be what is making her drink so in March 2008 I hired the nanny full time.
The nanny being there five days a week actually started to make things worse. She started to drink even earlier in the day and started to isolate herself even more. Eventually it got so bad I had to take her to the emergency room on a few occasions. She eventually went to a detox facility but did not have any follow up treatment. A few months later she bot pregnant again and it was very unexpected.
At first her being pregnant was really positive she managed to cut back her drinking but was never fully sober even though she did not drink for our first three children. It was far better than where she was earlier the year and I had not yet realized how sever her problem was.
After the baby was born he was in the NICU for about a week as he was born prematurely and was having an issue with his lungs. The stress of having a baby with health issues was really difficult for both of us. Well after about a month she went right back to drinking except it was even more extreme. She started to hide bottles of vodka all over our house and was starting to forget where she had put them.
Eventually we ended back at the emergency room and they transferred her to a detox facility. At first it was really difficult having her be gone but eventually I started to enjoy her being away as I felt safe. She ended up going back to detox seven other times, each visit they kept teeing to adjust her medications thinking all of this was somehow related to post pardon depression.
She did have about six weeks where she did not drink because I was making her take anitibuse. She eventually figured out she could drink even on the drug. At this point everything seemed to be going down hill.
On the seventh visit the kept her for in patient treatment, on the prior visits the recommended an intensive out patient program which she simply did not attend. This was a 21 day program and about one day after she was real eased she started drinking again.