Things I ponder
 

These things often come to my mind regarding AH and my son.

I often think what if I get sick (knock on wood) or even if I had to go to the hospital for something minor where I had to stay overnight? How can I leave my son alone with my husband? Because there have been a few times where I needed to go somewhere and my husband would be looking after our son and when I would get home I would find AH drunk.

So I made it a priority to never leave my son alone with my husband. But what if there was something that came up, and I couldn't be at home?

Has anyone else encounter this and if so what how did you handle it?

Do you have any immediate family near by?

I do. My father in law lives in the apartment upstairs. But the only thing he can do is probably pop in and check in on them I guess.

There was one incident that happened back in Feb. where I needed to go out of town for a funeral. My husband was having dental surgery that day so he couldn't come. When I got home that night my husband was so drunk/stoned. He had taken Percocet earlier in the day for his toothache and then he was mixing it with alcohol. I told him that you can't mix Percocet with alcohol and he was just brushing it off as if it was nothing. My father in law was down earlier in the evening (when I wasn't home) and he still left my husband alone with my son. (I think my father in law couldn't really tell if my husband was drunk). But I certainly could tell. When I was still on my way home I had called my husband at home and he was just on the verge of passing out at that moment.

Agree with anvil and Pie: make arrangements with someone else who can step in during an emergency and take over if need be...it does not sound like it would be a safe situation for your son.

Your posts reflect you are doing a lot of thinking about what's best for you / your son. Good job..keep posting, and we're all here for you!

When that incident happened back in Feb. I called up my husband's sister (me and her talk alot about his drinking) and I told her what happened. She told me that if ever I needed to be somewhere and I needed someone to look after my son, then to call her up.

But I can see that if I did this and then his sister shows up at the door, he will be pretty pissed off that we don't trust him to take care of his own son. My sister in law said too bad if he gets pissed off. But then I have to live with him thinking that I don't trust him.

Which is more important...your child's safety or your husband getting pistoff?

My son's safety of course.

My son's safety of course.

Good deal. Like I always say, your husband can get glad in the same pants he got mad in. ;)

BINGO! One of the things that attracted me to my XAGF is her love for her own children when she was sober. That slowly slipped away on the day that I was watching her kids and a young man(autism) that I was working with and she went out to get lunch for everyone. Three hours later, and after a lot of where is my mommy, she came in stumbling drunk like nothing ever happened. Since she had no immediate family in the area, I stayed, not to take care of her, but to make sure the kids were taken care of.

Adults take care of children, that is what's normal. If an adult can't take care of themselves, then they are disqualified, and that too is normal.

About 3 or so years ago, my mother had a heart attack and was on life support for about a month before she died. My father had died 25 years prior, so me and my sisters were her health care proxy. I let my sisters make all the decisions, since I was always the scapegoat in the family and was not going to let that happen, especially with this. In any event, that got me to thinking .... what if I had a heart attack and RAH had to make medical decisions for me? Do I want a drunk making life and death decisions for ME??? Nope. So, I drew up a health care proxy, naming my ex-DIL (who I am still very close with) as my proxy to make all my healthcare decisions. I have three kids, and I didn't want it put on them because they all feel differently about things, and my daughter is an addict, but I refuse to let a drunk make those decisions either. Further, I stated to exDIL that I did not want RAH up at the hospital, drunk as a skunk, if I were ever in that position. I know she is a strong enough woman to carry my wishes thru. Even tho RAH is in recovery now, I still have her as my proxy because I don't know how long he will stay in recovery, or if God forbid something bad happened to me, he would use that as an excuse to relapse. Now that I have custody of my two granddaughters, I have it written that, in the event of some medical crisis happening to me, that my best friend of over 30 years care for them until I am well enough to do so. She is also willing to go to court if need be, if anyone should give her a hard time about it. Life is short, things happen, you need to be prepared. There are alternatives.