Alcoholic Wife. The breaking point.

Sorry for the confusion ... I got her pregnant shortly after the initial breakup before things were, ahem, finalized. We had a custody battle over our son. I eventually gained total custody and her parental rights were permanently terminated (my wife adopted him), and her ex-husband gained full custody of their daughter.

It's my understanding that she is now in a custody battle over her 10-month-old daughter with a third guy that she is likely going to lose because she can't stop drinking and failed an alcohol screen.

 

Wow, she's like an alcoholic Shawn Kemp.

 

It's fucking awful, I can tell you that much.

 

First off, lots of great advice on this thread. Sounds like you're taking the right steps, ex, and best of luck to you.

I want to address Alma's point, which is a salient one. I'm really, really careful any more about how much I go overboard when it comes to drinking. I love beer. I love hanging out with friends and drinking beer. Like any normal person, I hate the hangovers, which have gotten progressively more brutal as I've gotten older. When I get one every once in a while, it serves as a pretty good reminder to slow down, because it's just an awful feeling. You lose a full day because of it. You can't shake it off in a couple of hours and live normally. Luckily, I've fallen into a friend group that, while, we like to drink, we also all have jobs that require us to be up early, so we find ways to cut it off reasonably. I feel fortunate that I'm able to manage it that way, but am always extremely careful of not letting it get to a point where it's out of control. Threads like this are a great reminder of how things can go when they go badly.

 

Oh, the "functional" part ended for him. But that's how it started.

 

There's really no better feeling than the morning after the morning after ...

 

Although as I get older, it's sometimes the morning after the morning after the morning after...

 

Get help for yourself as well. If you are not in therapy, consider professional help of some sort. Think of it as a service to your kids, who would benefit from the knowledge that at least one parent is on the right path.

 

Ex,
First my heart goes out to you and your family. I hope your wife discovers that she needs to get help for alcohol abuse. Like many have pointed out here, getting help is a realization she needs to come to on her own, but there is plenty of help out there. In my experience AA does a great job because it is a support group that has pieces within it for accountability. Some with find success with other programs, but I do, personally, love AA.

My experience with this is as the child caught in the middle of all of this. When my parents initially separated, I lived with my mom who was abusing drugs and alcohol. My dad left for NYC for work and couldn't take my sister and I with him. After about a year with the separation—which included my dad being told by my mom to keep us for an extra day during his visit because her boyfriend had beat her—my dad finally completed the divorce and gained primary custody of us. Mind you, this was back in the late 80s in Colorado. Basically, there should be a strong chance you will get your kids. Do what you need to do to protect your kids and yourself.

 

My father, best as I can recall, was a functional alcoholic for a while. He'd down a couple of six-packs at least a few times a week, enough that I can remember a lot of empty beer boxes around the house. He overcame a long hospital stay in 1987, stayed sober for a few years, then eventually slid back into it in the early 90s when I was getting ready to graduate from high school. He worked for the Post Office, and somehow managed to keep his job through most of it. By the end, though, he was only going to work once or twice a week if that, and would often be drinking by noon. He'd hide the beer as soon as someone came in the room, thinking we didn't know.
The one thing I'm eternally grateful for was that he wasn't violent. Emotionally and physically distant, sometimes abrasive, often asleep, yes, but violent never. He mostly focused on hurting himself even if there were side effects he didn't see or didn't care about.
He also had a penchant for taking the family car and heading to the bar. One time he "went to the store" at midnight and came back at 6 a.m. with a busted out headlight and smelling like someone had taken a 15-minute piss on him. I hope he only hit a parked car.
Another time, when I was a senior in high school, I needed the car to meet some classmates at the library to work on a project. Naturally, he'd taken it two hours earlier and didn't come home. This was around 6 p.m. I got so pissed I started walking the 10 blocks or so to his favorite watering hole, and a few blocks into the trek I saw him driving home. I turned around and watched him nearly rear end someone at a red light because he hit the brakes late. We got home about the same time and I yelled at him as he was getting out of the car. His face had the look of a child who didn't understand why he was being yelled at.

I went off to college in 1994 and moved out for good in 1998. He died in 2000, at the age of 53.
He and mom didn't have much of a marriage from about the mid-1980s on. Near as I can tell he slid into a lonely, deep depression the last couple of years and eventually drank himself to death. He was pretty sick and didn't leave the house much the last year or so.
I wonder sometimes if I should have reached out to him, tried to yell at him, or if he was too far gone for anything to do any good. I was only 23 when he died, and had a lot of my own self-esteem issues so I'm not even sure how I'd have held up in that difficult conversation. Eventually, you realize what others have said here -- if the person doesn't want to change and doesn't have a deep incentive to change, they'll never change. It has to come from within.

All of that is to say two things, Ex:
1) Do what you can to make your wife realize she has to change. If that's leaving with the kids, suing for custody and divorce, catching her while sober and having a deep personal talk where you lay everything on the table, do it. Don't have any regrets. Don't leave anything on the table. But at the same time realize she still has to have that "on" switch to want to get help.

2) Don't be afraid to talk to your kids about what's going on. When I was young, my parents often left me in the dark (including during his long hospital stay, when they wouldn't even bring me up to the room yet I still had to go there every day) and I hated it. Talk to your kids. Children of addicts often become addicts themselves, and how you handle this might be the difference between steering them down the right or wrong path.
I vowed at an early age that I would never drink (I have never been drunk or high in my life), but not every kid will be the same way. I've also seen aspects of an addictive personality in myself and have had to make conscious efforts to steer away from it. Every addict has or had the opportunity to just say no at one time or another. Make sure the kids understand that they still have -- and will always have -- that opportunity for as long as they want.
Your kids don't necessarily need to know every little piece of everything, but make them feel loved and included as much as you can. It can pay dividends years down the road.

Most importantly, remember that you're not alone. As you can see, a lot of people have gone through something similar. We're all rooting for you and here to help as much as message board friends can help. Good luck and godspeed.

 

Don't think you can beat that for advice.

Ex, outside of being sorry that you have to live through this, there's not much I can add except this. Your wife has obviously damaged her life. She's damaged your life in the process. There are two others who can be guided through this with less damage. Put them first.

But I think you know that. Good luck, and my thoughts are with you.

 

Ex,

I am very familiar with numerous addicts. As people have said, unless your wife is ready, it won't work.

But, you don't have to reach the bottom to decide you want to quit. Some quit because they decided on their own. Some quit because they realized they would eventually be on the street and lose everything if they didn't. Whatever.

The trick is you have to realize you cannot drink socially or normally and not fight it anymore. Just give it up.

Al-anon would be a good resource for you to find advice and support in dealing with an addict.

All addicts are pretty much the same. They will lie, steal, cheat, whatever to feed that addiction. BUT if they can beat it, they can turn their life around -- character change -- and be better people than they ever were.

Good luck. Let me know if I can do anything.

Add: I do think AA can be beneficial because people can open up and get support from others who went through the same thing.