Maybe, in the back of our minds...
"MY GOD. He won't do it for me, but surely, having a child, will get through to him, and he will pull it together for that".
In a rational world, it would seem that he would/ could. We think rational. They don't. I don't know when/ where we reach the level of accepting that the alcohol WILL HAVE PRIORITY over anything normal or rational. I am still working on that.
I wonder if some of the detaching isn't even so much detaching from a person, but detaching from the idea that SOMETHING will get their attention and create a change?