Tuffgirl's got a point.But I'm still waiting, after two years. Kids go to his house, he goes out partying with his friends. Leaves them alone, no babysitter. Some nights he comes home, some nights he doesn't. Some days he takes them to school, some days he calls them in sick because he's too drunk to drive them. But he's not letting them go.
I will say this: I have a shared custody deal. I agreed to it because I was stupid enough to believe that his stint in rehab was honest instead of just a stunt. I believed that having the responsibility of parenting would help him stay sober. It didn't.
What that HAS given me, though, is a situation where I wasn't the bad guy who prevented the kids from seeing their dad. On the contrary -- I allowed him the full single parenting experience. Which, of course, as a drinking man, he can't handle. Which means the kids are seeing him for what he is.
While that's a good thing -- them finding out that he cares about one thing and one thing only, drinking -- the bad thing is that legally, as long as he wants to have them half the time, the courts will let him. I've challenged it twice, and came away with "well, there's no evidence that they're being neglected and the law really only requires him to give them a bowl of rice and a glass of water three times a day in order for it to not be neglect."
So that's where I'm coming from when I'm saying -- you will NEVER have as good an opportunity to protect your children from an alcoholic parent as you do now.