My suggestion CO Dad, after reading your response is this:

You are doing good. A lot of men I know would just keep looking past these kinds of issues. The most troubling thing to them would be that they had to get up in the night, not that the wife was passed out on the couch. Keep up the good work, you are a good Dad.

Remember, you mention getting custody. Start acting like it is just you. When an incident like this happens, act as though she is not there. You need to be able to go comfort your son without your wives help. If you get full custody or even half time one day, you will need to be able to do this.

Then come back downstairs, grab your cell phone and snap a picture of her passed out. There is no comparison between a letter you write her and showing her how it really was.

This sounds tough but parenting is tough. There is no easy way to say that your child needs to come first. As soon as I realized that this was my role in life, it made standing up to my husband, and doing the right thing for the kids, so much easier......

Thinking of you Dad.
4MyBoys

((COD))

This is tough stuff & a horrid environment for you and your son ~

My only suggestion and question is to take a good hard look at this journal you have of the events and actions of your wife ~

Now pretend this person was the Administrator of your son's day care ~ not related to your son ~ just a paid person responsible for supervision of your son ~

would you allow this person acting this way to have so much time around your precious child?

Just from my e, s, & h ~ because a person is a parent it does not allow them access and the right to be around their children ~ sometimes due to this awful disease ~ it is not the healthiest thing for the child to be around their parent.

I know that I did NOT do everything in my power to protect my daughters from this disease of alcoholism and addiction ~ they were much older than your son - but they suffered greatly mentally ~ They still bear the scars of those harmful years ~

Please continue your path of healing for you and for you son ~ may your HP guide you as to what is healthiest for both of you -

PINK HUGS,

Why?



Also, I ran across this thread yesterday. It may be difficult for you to read but I think it's important.
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-children.html

I would find out what is needed to prove her an unfit parent in court. It varies from state to state. I personally believe the "unfit parent" category includes parents who drink and then black out, but find out what you need to do to prove that in court.

A child in the care of an adult in a blackout is a recipe for disaster.

COD...I feel for you. A lot of good comments for you here. I just wanted to add something from a different angle. When my son was 3, sound asleep, and AH drunk, passed out in a chair in the living room at about 11:00 pm, I began to hemorrhage. And I do mean hemorrhage...very badly. I tried to wake up drunk AH...I got told to f*** off.

I had to drive myself to the hospital. The ONLY thing that made that possible is that we had a friend of AH staying on our couch downstairs that I did wake up and tell him to listen for our boy just in case. By the time I got to the hospital, I was on the verge of passing out due to loss of blood. I was told I could have died. I ended up calling my adult daughter who lived on her own to come to hospital and then go to my house and wake up AH, tell him I was going in for surgery and for HER to take care of our son.

I only share this because God forbid something should happen to you, how would your son be taken care of? What if she was in a black out like my AH? If it weren't for his friend being there, who knows what would have happened. I can tell you this: if that friend wasn't there, I would have had to wake up my son, bring him to the hospital with me. It was bad enough I even drove myself, much less if I had to have brought my son with me to the hospital too. (Not to mention the trauma that would have caused him to see all the blood running down my legs--sorry to be graphic.)

My sharing this is to hopefully have you think about what could happen (that you may not even think could happen) if you do not keep proceeding the direction you are going. You are doing well....just keep going forward in protecting your son. Hugs.

My AH tells me all the time that he will always take care of me. I know it's not true. I'm so glad that we don't have minor children living with us.

COD, I recorded AH one summer evening. I still have the video on my phone. He was pathetic at best. He can't believe it's him and was in denial even after seeing it. Like that's not him!!! I set him up. Okay....

Truth is, it's him being a disgusting drunk.

Boy did that strike a chord with me. I spent a long long long time wishing that. For me it was a wish that took me deeper into my co-dependency and feelings of hopelessness. Of course I was not here then, or doing any of the recovery work that you are doing.

Trying to be succinct here with a complicated issue so missing some nuances - that wish was held for so long for two reasons.

1) I didn't want to give up. If he would only go away, I could get what I wanted (needed really) without taking ownership or responsibility for any of it. I wanted him to either change or leave but either way - I was making him responsible for fixing my life. It just doesn't work like that. I was giving away all my personal power, which made me feel very very stuck.

2) I did not give myself permission to leave or break up a family unit. I was very invested in the thought that the best and only option *for my family* was to stay married. I confused myself by claiming choice and power for people to do what is best for them etc. etc. but I was not giving myself that choice. It created a great deal of confusion because I was tricking myself into thinking I was making a choice to stay when I wasn't really.

This created one life in my head based on denial, and one in reality and that snowballed. I became very disconnected from myself. Very flat emotionally with everyone, very depressed, the bitterness and resentment became debilitating and resulted in all kinds of chronic stress related physical symptoms as well as compromised my parenting. I lacked flexibility, patience, gentleness, and joy. Stress leaked out in everything I did and in hindsight I can see that living like that was not doing my kids any favors.

I hit a bottom of my own where I had to do something, despite the war in my head regarding the above two issues. Based on my experience I think it would be worth your while to spend some time thinking about those issues to see if and how they might play out for you. How can you create boundaries and personal insight to avoid that pit that I was in for such a long time because one thing is almost for certain - her disease will progress.

She was in a "blackout". That is a classic sign of alcoholism. They get more frequent & for longer periods the more she drinks.

Ah yes, the classic, "That's not me, you set me up, you MADE me do it, you are twisting my words, you are taking it out of context..."

Audio visual proof, logs, written documentation means NOTHING to them.

This is awesome:

Wow, powerfully insightful!!!

In your first post Ohiodad you mentioned you drink with her. That is sending out the wrong signal to her. If you consider her drinking to be a problem and a risk to your child, and a threat to your marriage, I would suggest that you stop drinking, completely, with her for a period of time. And tell her you want her to stop drinking completely, anytime, anyplace, any reason. Period. Stop. total sobriety.
Half measures avail the alcoholic nothing.
I am a recovered alcoholic wife and total sobriety was the only solution.

I've tried that approach in the past - no go. I heard, "You're not the boss of me", "If you want to stop, that's your choice". Etc., etc., etc.

I've been around this forum long enough to know that you can't stop an alcoholic from drinking unless it's their choice. I could throw out all the booze in the house - and she would go and buy more, and waste even more money.

I would be open to the idea of no drinking "IF" she admitted there is a problem and would be willing to quit. There is still too much denial and her thinking that she has total control over it, so anything I do means absolutely zilch.

COD, you are absolutely right about that. I think the whole town could have gone dry but my XAH would find some somewhere. I tried everything and ran myself ragged trying to come up with the answer until my health took a nose dive and I realized it's not in my hands or MY CHOICE.

You can only choose your behavior and right now you are choosing for you and your child to live with an active alcoholic. You are choosing to drink with a child in the house that is living with an active alcoholic. You are choosing to give her all the power. You can't stop her from doing anything but you are making as many choices as she is. I'm sorry I sound harsh but I don't think I have read anyone on the forum who has children who finally got out of the house with an alcoholic spouse say they wish they had stayed longer. Most of the people who have experienced this have said they are sorry they allowed their children in this situation for so long. Even though your child is young this alcoholic parent will have an influence on his life. Right now you are in the place to determine just how much and to what degree it can harm him.

Including talking to her about it, writing her letters, keeping logs, etc...

Your child has two parents who drink. Do you think he can distinguish between a blacked out parent on the couch in the living room and a sleepy parent in bed waiting for the blacked out parent to do something. All your child knows is he cried and cried and cried and nobody came for a long time. What are you teaching him?

Don't think 3 is too young to know. I see pictures of myself at 3, and i have frightened, sad, hurt eyes.

Oh boy.

First, don't let your son around her at all. She is not safe around him. I know how hard that is, but it's really better. Second, I do think the sobriety thing is an excellent idea. I am doing that right now, I have been sober for 48 days today. My ABF has 37 days. I decided first, but he never would have gone to rehab and gotten sober if I was still drinking. And I wouldn't ask him too. It is incredibly cruel to someone to sit there and drink all the time when they are trying so hard not to.

You know what I find? I find that I also do not need alcohol to survive, that alcohol also makes my life worse, that maybe all my binges when I got mad at him were sending me down the road to alcoholism. I needed help there too, not just him.

Anyway. I am telling you right now, there is no way you will ever stop your wife from drinking. She has to make that decision. Yeah, she blacks out and passes out and forgets about her son, but why shouldn't she? You are there to pick up the slack, do her dirty work, whatever you want to call it. All you can do is work on your sobriety.

And not drinking is good for another reason-if you go after her for custody, don't you think she is going to say you drink as often as she does? You have a problem just as much as she does? Blah blah blah? You have to prove her wrong if you want to prove her unfit.

Get you and your son healthy. If she wants to be part of the family, she will follow, on her own. If not, then you know your answer. Don't enable, don't hide behind it, don't drink if you don't want her to drink. Alcoholics really hate hypocrites.

Ohiodad wrote That's absolutely true. I didn't suggest that you stop drinking as a ploy or attempt to get her to stop. I suggest it as a way for you to send her the signal that you think drinking is a serious problem: it is not recreational anymore. I suggested it also as a way of showing support.
It is not easy to try and quit when you are living in the same house as someone who drinks, even when they drink non-alcoholically.
As far anything you do having zilch effect: have you told her you do not want to live with an alcoholic anymore and would consider filing for a divorce on those grounds?

The sky is not going to fall in on you tomorrow. It is OK to continue to process. You are here processing regularly and that is good. I don't recall you ever saying your wife is an active threat to your son so I don't think there is reason to panic.

It is sometimes a disservice to people to sensationalize and get all extreme, IMHO only.

Keep your son safe? Yes - of course. Your son needs a sober parent present and your aw is not that person. It has to be you, all the time, every day and night.

Here is the thing with what is happening. Your focus is on your aw, not the little boy. The little boy is not ignored or neglected but you go to your wife first. Your thoughts start with and continue to circle around and back to how to handle the alcoholic wife and your discomfort with your situation. I get that. I have been in that spot. I have discovered that like everything with the alcoholism dance - this too is like gripping sand. Without ever realizing it, it slides away. You open your hand and it is gone. I looked up and my husband was getting out of a car, with my kids in it, slurring his words. I came home from work, and he was 'asleep' while my twin toddlers were running around in the same diapers I left them in. The scary part - I didn't freak out. Sure I was upset but it circled around to being upset about alcoholism and how it was ruining everything. It was a weird disconnect. It happened slowly and without notice, like the sand, because my focus was in the wrong place.

The trick is - how do you push the alcoholic wife out of the mental picture so that your thoughts start with and circle back to your son and building a peaceful life whether you stay together or separate? What will it take for the original scenario to look like this.

Son cries. Dad gets up, goes to son and does whatever is needed until son goes back to sleep, and then goes back to bed. Dad does not go to or even ponder where mom is at or what she is doing. He does not concern himself with what she knows, realizes, or doesn't know, what type of alcohol she drank or how much. He has accepted that she is an alcoholic and that he parents his son with no expectation that she will. As if that is not enough - figure out how to not get eaten alive with resentments. Not normal and some would say not acceptable but that is what you get with an alcoholic.

That is a trick - one I did not figure out. I did get up every night and take care of the kids. Always me, every night. I did not check on or monkey with my husband. No discussions. I had accepted that part of it and my actions were focused correctly but my mental focus was always circling around and back to alcoholism and my dilemma of an unacceptable life. Something to consider. I didn't really see it until I was living separately for quite some time. I didn't see how that mental focus was blacking out so much of the good things there are about me.

i wouldnt be drinking with her. i quit drinking with my ah ...have stopped for like 8 months give or take now. when my ah offered alcohol i said no when he suggested drinking i said no when he asked for us to go out and drink i said no.
i stopped joining him and enabling him and started making it about him.
when i stopped drinking with him it began to be about how unsual and what a problem his drinking is instead of feeding him denial because i too drank and allowing him someone to blame for it...like i wasnt helping hy drinking with him.
not saying you cant have a drink but i wouldnt let her know.
anyhow good for you for seeking means for yourself and not counting on her to be there for your son. shes in no shape to be.

i agree abe careful where you put it. i kept videos and pictures etc on my phone under a hidden place but while i slept ah had deleted them. this was months ago though.