LostSister

Dear All,

I've read in a number of posts that the key to an A starting recovery is for them to first reach rock bottom, this is precipitated by taking away supporting behaviours given by friends and family.

But what happens if the A has children? My sister is a divorced mother of two young boys and my family is very scared about what the children would probably have to go through before my sister reaches rock bottom.

Not only this, the father is a self-abusing, controlling, drinker himself and I know my parents would be worried about the effect on the boys going to their father, or worse still the children being taken away and put into care.

Does anyone have any experience of what can happen to the children in this kind of situation? At the moment my parent's support is sustaining my Sister's drinking but it is also maintaining some kind of normality for her boys who are 10 and 7.

Lost Sister

cagefree

Hi Lost,

Sorry - I cannot relate to the situation with children. In my experience, the A's only get help when they choose to - some never do.

I'm not sure I understand how enabling someone's drinking maintains normalcy for children. When my A was living with me, my life was anything but "normal". Al-Anon, "Under the Influence", SR, and attending OPEN AA meetings helped me to understand the disease from a lot of different perspectives.

It may help to check out the ACOA forum to get the perspective of adult children of alcoholics.

LostSister

Hi Cagefree, good advice, I'll check out the posts in the forum you mention.

You're right, it sounds very contradictory to say that by supporting her, they are maintaining some kind of 'normality' for the children. I can see that this sounds weird. It's probably far from 'normal', but at the moment my sister only drinks in the evening once her children are in bed. So they don't actually see her drinking or drunk, but it would be naive of me to assume that she is able to function 100% in the mornings and day time and give them all the emotional input they need, when she is probably struggling alot herself.

I do believe that it will have to get worse before it can get better, but I guess, we, as a family are all scared about the impact the 'letting things get worse' could have on the boys while they are still young and living at home.

I'll check out the forum. Many thanks for your response and advice.

Warm wishes,

Lost Sister

Barbara52

I didn't have children with my AH so I have no direct experience. I can tell you some legal possibilities. If/when you believe the children are at risk because of their mother's alcoholism, you always have the option of bringing child services into the picture. Or informally or formally taking custody of the children and removing them from their mother's household.

Part of her bottom may need to be losing her children. Sad but true sometimes.

From the perspective of someone who grew up with alcoholic parents, believe me, those boys are already learning that alcoholism and all its behaviors are "normal." I am 52 and still unlearning those lessons. I remember from a very young age being aware of my parents drinking and the abuse that went with it. I remember being ashamed to bring friends homw and therefore being isolated. I remember taking blame for my parents' behaviors. Those boys are being negatively affected now.

As far as her only drinking when they go to bed, well I hope you are right but who knows what the reality is.

LostSister

Very true Barbara, none of us 'really' knows if her drinking is confined to the evenings. You're so right.

I wonder if my parents would be able to claim custody over my husband's ex-husband? Hmmmm, something I might try and find out a little more about.

Thanks for your response Barbara and sharing your experiences. I'm sorry you suffered during your childhood and it's so generous of you to be helping others in this forum.

Thanks and warm wishes,

Lost Sister

Barbara52

Helping others is part of my own recovery process. I learn so much from others in here. I hope my experiences and words can help others also. These conversations in here often clarify my own situation for me and help me continue to move to health.

LaTeeDa

I stayed with my children's father for 20 years, 18 of them married. I thought I was doing the right thing for my children. They were 12 and 8 when I finally had enough and kicked him out. They suffered emotionally throughout those years and are just now (over two years later) having some 'normalcy' in their lives. I know your situation is different than mine, and I really don't know what you can do, but I do know that enabling an alcoholic parent to drink does not help the children. I am also the child of an alcoholic father and codependent mother and still carrying around the effects of that at age 45. The only 'normalcy' I can remember in my childhood was when my parents would take us to stay with relatives so they could drink without us. In my opinion, the best way to help those children is to spend time with them and be a role model, not by enabling their mother to drink.

L

LostSister

Thanks for sharing your story with me LaTeeDa.

I'm really sorry that you had to go through all of that as a child and I'm grateful for your advice.

Your words of advice reassure me in the sense that my parents, who are loving grandparents and great role models, have the boys every week-end and some week nights and this is giving them some of the love and emotional input they need so badly.

I must admit I often feel very frustrated as I currently live on the other side of the world from them, but hopefully by 2008 I'll only be a 2 hour flight away and can play a more active role in supporting my parents and being there for the boys.

Thanks again,

Lost Sister

fluffyflea

Yes we need to let them hit rock bottom ESPECIALLY if there are children involved.


Ngaire

tryingtoheal

Sorry, I swear I don't mean to be the Crypt Keeper in this reply. I just read pepperpod's post about the suicide of her AH who was seemingly 'okay' before he did it and didn't leave a reason.

I am by no means implying that your sister may be suicidal...I was just moved to tears by pepperpod, the post's sadness and the insanity that can take hold of a seemingly 'normal' person when they are drunk/alcoholic.

It's my understanding that the desperation to quit drinking when you truly feel you cannot is menacing (speaking from stories of AA people, SR, my own short-lived addiction, etc.) Coupled with possible depression, unresolved past issues, pressures from life, etc., I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to get totally wasted after a really bad day and decide (in your drunken or delusional alkie mind) that you've made such a muck of everything, including your kids lives, that you'd be better off dead.

I guess I am echoing some of the above sentiments about emergencies and the danger in drinking while the kids are asleep. We never know what could happen, and we can never fully understand what is going on in the heads of others. So I'm rambling now, but just wanted to commend you for being proactive about this for your sister's sake and that of her children. Much better than having to be reactive to a potential future crisis!

I truly hate addiction...wish alcohol had never been created. The toll it takes on so many lives, even the wee lives of children who don't touch the stuff, is so disheartening. I'm so sorry you have to deal with your sister's issue. I love that you are trying to help her and her kids.

One more thing...I think Barbara52 mentioned that perhaps having the kids taken away temporarily (or the threat) could serve as a catalyst to further nudge your sis into the realization that she needs to get her sh*t together. I recall that at least three people in my rehab were there because they had to get sober in order to get their kids back. They all mentioned that having their kids taken away was their 'bottom' and the only reason in the world they saw fit to get sober. That was just my experience there...don't know if that is prevelant or not.

guyinNC

Tough One...

I believe in doing what is needed to protect the children. But they are minors and of a young enough age that they can not be expected to decide where they want to live. Courts will normally yeild to parental rights on deciding custody. Either the mother or the Father. Hearsay is not enough to remove the kids from their custody. So if they were removed from the mothers care, they would go to the Father if he wanted them. So......out of the frying pan and into the fire!

Most of us would agree that the addicted has to hit "rock bottom" to change their behavior. However, rock bottom could be a tragic car accident killing someone, or even their own death. The theory about an "intervention" is that it creates an artificial rock bottom that may get the addict to change their behavior.

A best case scenario would be an intervention where she agrees to go get help and signing over temporary custody to her parents. But remember, the Father's rights will be protected. So the advice of a lawyer would be prudent.

NOMOMERLOTMAMMA

Hi Lost,

Just chiming in as a recovering alkie here, and mom of two. I can tell you that even though I tried to keep the drinking to only at night when the kids were asleep, it soon turned into as soon as I got home from work, screw whoever is up. I CAN tell you that my kids were def. affected, considering all the time that it took to recover from the night before. I wasn't up to get them off to school, make breakfast, lunch, talk to them about their day, just spend time with them cause I wasn't feeling better till bout 3 in the afternoon, (on the weekends) then the whole thing started again. My daughter who is now 12 has self esteem issues that she needs to start therapy for. So, the kids are being affected.

Sounds like your parents are pretty much taking them all the time, and that's a really good thing. And you sound like a wonderful sister, daughter and aunt.

Good luck with this..

Karen

LostSister

Dear Tracee, Earthworm, Tryingtoheal, GuyinNC, Merlotmamma...thank you so much for all your responses. You can't imagine how VERY helpful it is to have objective views on a situation which has become so emotional for me and my family. I REALLY appreciate your support and words of support.

Thanks to you all.

LostSister

christin

Praying for you Lostsister... Stay Strong.

LostSister

Thanks Christin !

fff

My AW and I have 4 children. It took her getting arrested and spending 2 months in jail to reach rock bottom. Unfortunately, the children were exposed to a lot of horrific abusive behavior. Three of them are, fortunately, too young for it to have that much of an effect, but our four-year-old was severely traumatized and I am working on getting him into play therapy.

FormerDoormat

Welcome, LostSister. You've asked some excellent questions, and you've received some excellent answers. This portion of your post jumped out at me:

I, too, have no experience with how alcoholism affects young children, but one thing I learned from my relationship with my former alcoholic boyfriend was this: as far as active alcoholics are concerned, it's safe to assume that they are always under the influence of alcohol. Mine could never control his drinking for an hour, a day, a week, a year, or even limit it to evenings only. As his illness progressed, he drank 24/7. Unless your sister reaches her bottom, this is likely what the future holds for her children.

I would look into how you or your parents could go about getting custody of her children (or if it's even possible) until your sister can get her life back on track.

Joining SR and Alanon really helped me keep my sanity. I hope you'll stay a while.

peaceteach

Has anyone talked with the children about their mother? You can't take her word for what's going on at night. It's hard enough to understand the dynamics of alchoholic behavior as a 50 year old educated woman; I can't imagine the thoughts they must be having being in this situation without a sober parent in the house to turn to. I was divorced from my AH when he relapsed after a 14 year period of sobriety. My kids were teenagers and I was able to explain his disease. Not long after that, my sister-in-law spiraled downward with drugs and alchohol when her husband (my brother) died. I finally saw the signs and gave my nephews (also teens) "permission" to come to my house whenever they needed, for as long as they liked. Within one week of that conversation, one nephew moved in to my house and the other followed within two weeks. It was much worse in their home than even I, with all my knowledge of living with an active alcoholic, had known. These were 17 and 19 year old boys, and they were SCARED of their mom. She was going from room to room in drunken tantrums; they locked their bedroom doors at night.

It was such a relief for them to have another adult to turn to, ask questions of, and most of all to provide stability and love for them. I was so sorry I had waited that long to realize what they had been going through. I hope that your family can rescue those boys before their mother's drinking escalates any further.

LostSister

Thanks Peaceteach!
I'm so sorry you lost your brother and then had to watch your sister-in-law and nephews go through that. It's so good that your nephews have such a great aunty!

My parents have my sisters boys pretty much every weekend, every day during the school holidays and as much as they can during the week. They pretty much have the equivalent of full custody without it being formal, as my sister doesn't care as long as they are 'out of her hair'. My parents are keen to keep it unofficial because they are afraid that my sisters ex-husband would make a claim for the boy's custody and he is a pretty unsavoury and unstable character.

I spoke with my Mum and brother (who still lives at home) and we all agreed that the boys needed to live with my parents as much as possible.

As for telling the boys about my sister's illness, my family is worried that the boys would talk to the school and that this may mean losing the boys to social services. What do you think? Would social services automatically give the boys to my parents or their father, or would they put them in foster care? I believe that social services would give priority to a loving family relationship rather than put the boys in foster care, what do you think?

Lost Sister

Barbara52

It may be time to formalize the informal arrangement. Talk to a lawyer who specializes in family law and find out what the options are. Taking action before social services get into the picture can help get thing arranged the way you want it to go. Laws are so different community to community that its hard to say what might be done.

As for telling the boys, they need help understanding its not their fault. That is one of the things that kids in the midst of an alcoholic family think, that they are the cause of the problems. Getting them into therapy or taking them to AlAteen can help them immensely! Giving them information will not cause them to talk! They can talk now. Although when I was a kid, I didn't talk because another lesson I learned too well was that it is wrong to talk about anything that is happening.