Do you think a pastor would be the best support after brain surgery? No, the trained ICU nursing staff, in the ICU recovery room, is the better bet. It is their realm, and where they have deep experience.
Likewise, counter-intuitive as it feels, family is not the primary support system for an alcoholic wanting sobriety. For the alcoholic wanting sobriety, the best support for them is others in their realm who have deep experience - this means other alcoholics who have deep and lasting recovery. THOSE are the people who are most important to support an alcoholic entering recovery. They are also the folks who will easily see and call BS and not tolerate manipulation, because they know it from the other side, having once been there.
It's not unusual for an alcoholic to try to lay this burden of "support" on the family, but it is erroneously, and often manipulatively done. Early recovery requires a total dedication, an immersion in a peer group of recovering alcoholics, and a willingness to do "whatever it takes" to achieve sobriety and the long-lasting thinking and behavioral changes to maintain it for BOTH the alcoholic AND the family. This is actually often done BEST APART, so old patterns aren't re-activated.
Recovery is serious business, and is much more likely to "stick" if a total "re-boot" of the system is done. For the alkie side, they say "change people, places, and things" away from those previous ones that were associated with drinking and habits that triggered it.
Sober living facilities exist because they are staffed by other successfully recovering alcoholics and because they provide a buffering zone, away from the alcoholic's previous life and patterns and triggers.
Buffer zone is good, in recovery.
And, get the right people to do the job. HER recovery, and its support is not YOUR job. It is HER job, and the job of other recovering alcoholics in her recovery support network.
YOUR job is your recovery, keeping your children safe, and finding your own support from YOUR support network.
CLMI