whowho

One of these days I will need to speak with our children about H's alcohol abuse or alcoholism. I'm wondering how you have dealt with this in your own homes.

I don't want them to think that excessive drinking is healthy, normal or fine. They have been told that moderate drinking is fine and H presents himself as a moderate, responsible drinker.

I want them to feel like they can talk about issues they might have with the drinking.

I'd love to hear your experiences.

Liveitwell

Stoney the Pony is a great book....there are others on amazon that I have found as well. A good therapist or Minister can guide you as well. Honesty is the best policy as they need to know they can trust one parent.

dandylion

One important thing that I learned about approaching children...my children.....is to first, find out h ow much they already know and what they are thinking. That will give you your baseline of where to begin your conversations with them.
Over the years, I discovered that parents always underestimate h ow much their kids know and observe in their environments. They also have thoughts and feelings that they might not have the ability to fully articulate---but, never assume that just because a child is not talking or reacting that they are not affected or not "thinking".

Dad: "Son, I want to talk to you about sex."
Son: "Sure, Dad--What do you want to know?"

dandylion

CodeJob

I started with the DARE programming in school as an opener in 4th grade, and a refresher in 5th.

When I kicked my H out and he went to rehab, I got him a counselor. He was in 6th grade.

Now we are in a habit of checking in with each other about Dad while cruising around town. Thank God for cars to entrap kids for deep conversations!

dandylion

Code Job.......LOL! LOL! LOL! You are sooo right. It is the oldest trick in the world. Trap them in cars.
Most of them are too scared to jump from a m oving car......

dandylion

ladyscribbler

I used the disease model. Daddy is sick, he has a disease called alcoholism, that's why he doesn't always make sense when you talk to him on the phone. Daddy's anger is inside him, it's not because you did something to make him mad. When he drinks alcohol it makes him sick and he acts mean and sounds weird.
Our son is six, so I kept it factual and age appropriate. Older kids will have a different understanding.
It was also helpful to talk about boundaries, though I didn't phrase it that way. I just told him that we love daddy, but it's also OK if you don't want to talk to him when he sounds "funny" (i.e. drunk). Just tell him goodbye and that you love him and hang up.
You might want to talk to your kids about not riding with a driver who has been drinking (even if it only seems like a little bit) because it's not safe and that we're allowed to tell someone "no" (even a parent or someone we are normally supposed to obey) if that person wants to do something that we think is dangerous.

FireSprite

How old are your kids?

DD is now 11 but was about 5 when all of this started to get real in our lives. We have always talked pretty openly & age/maturity-appropriate & I've found that honesty & transparency have served me well.

Here are some great older threads from this forum on this topic (but there are MANY if you want to search out more):

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...lcoholism.html

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ir-denial.html

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-children.html

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...nderstand.html

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...lism-kids.html

Wisconsin

This is becoming a real issue for me, too. My daughters are totally in the know, and we discuss it openly. But AH is their stepfather, not their father. My son just turned 5, and appears to still be in a place mentally where he thinks all Daddy drinks is soda. *sigh* AH will be mad as hell when I start talking to our little boy about the fact that Daddy isn't drinking soda, and everything that flows from that. I'm trying not to worry too much about that in the coming weeks, since my priority is to find an apartment and get moved, but I know it's on the horizon. So I appreciate this thread a lot, and FireSprite's links.