Breach of Alcohol Undertaking Family Court

So you have managed 8 weeks without drinking. Is that the longest you have gone? You say the “blip” last Wednesday - how much did you drink then and were the kids with you?

Was there a trigger? Why did you have a drink and how did you get the alcohol? If it is in the house - pour it all away now. Don’t have alcohol in, going out an buying some might be enough to give you second thoughts,

I know you miss your kids, but I think you need to give yourself at least 6months free of alcohol before you even consider having them back. Give them the stability of knowing where they are going to live. If you love them as much as you say you do, it is doing the right thing for them now the best thing for you!

So how long since you had a drink now?

@Minions2000 you have a lot on with accepting sobriety is the only way and dealing with it, possibly rekindling with partner and being the mum your kids need.

Sounds like best for them to stay with dad with supervised visits at present?

A blip is a once in a blue moon 'forgot to go eat before heading out for birthday drinks' and getting plastered. It's not an ongoing condition where your kids father has requested you to to agree to an undertaking requiring sobriety so that you can not only be an effective parent but one whose behaviour doesn't put your dc at risk.

Addressing this with court action on the same day is TOO LATE

Your kids want to be with you. They also want to live in their pyjamas, eat chocolate instead of vegetables and never go to school. What they want is not often what they need.

You need to face up to your problem, get and engage in help and demonstrate your commitment to your kids.

I hope the courts will protect your dc.

4 night's and you got drunk?
Where are the kids now, with their father?

It is always the first drink that gets you drunk (not the fifth or sixth or whatever). Even if not every time, you are not in control of whether you just have one or a couple or end up in a dangerous state for your children. If you could control it, you wouldn't be where you are now.

Look up the NACOA if you need any more impetus to get your alcoholism sorted. Alcoholic parents ruin children’s lives. Get sober before getting your children back. Permanently sober.

How long were your kids not in your care?

I think you should do some very serious thinking about the wisdom of having children living with you when you are fighting addiction. It isn't necessarily the best thing for you or for them.

So what is the court action?

In case this helps you, this is what I posted on your other thread…

I’m not a social worker but I have some experience in this field. It sounds to me as if the following is your situation:-
Your drinking was causing the children to be at risk so they were removed from your care. The children are now living with their dad so they are no longer at risk and social services have ceased their involvement. You have regular contact with your children - although it’s not clear whether this is unsupervised or not. You would now like the children to return to living with you.
What you need to do now:-
If the children’s father is in agreement (and you are addressing the issues that led to you being a risk to the children) then you could start increasing contact to regular overnights at your house with a view to them returning permanently to your home.
If the father is not in agreement then you will have to go to the family court to seek an increase in contact or to change who the children live with. You will have to demonstrate that this will be in the children’s best interests. You will probably also be asked to prove your abstinence from alcohol and the steps that you have taken to address the issues that led your unsafe behaviour.
In the meantime, you should continue using your time away from the children to improve your own situation and should make sure that you are the best mum you can be when you are having contact with them. In addition to the work you’re doing to address your issues with alcohol, I would recommend doing some parenting courses.

Have you tried AA?

People understand that. You don't have to be drinking on morning or drinking every day to damage your kids.

My father was a classic "respectable" alcoholic: upper middle class, good job, very presentable and articulate as far as his public image went. I don't think I ever once saw him drink before 6pm, he was never falling down drunk or vomiting drunk. But he did consistently exhibit a pattern of aggression (mainly verbal), emotional abuse and neglect towards his kids as a result of being under the influence. I learned from a young age not to ask for anything or try to engage him after he'd had the first couple of drinks.

You seem to suggest that because you're not drinking first thing in the morning, its not bad enough to merit this situation. But once you start, you aren't able to stop, hence the comment about "one drink". There's no such thing as "one drink" if you have a problem with alcohol. You're still in the phase of bargaining to be able to drink "a little".

I don't want to give you a kicking as you're clearly a loving and thoughtful person who is very distressed about this. But I think you have a long way to go before you have reckoned with the extent of your problem and understood that you need to remain completely sober before you can regain residency. You need to do this work before applying to get your kids back.

Where are your children living at the moment?

It’s this with bells on @Minions2000

If you are an alcoholic; you cannot have that one drink. If you want to fully recover; you must never ever have that one drink again.

Listen to Alcohol Explained by William Porter. It’s a short book, written by an alcoholic who is also a doctor.

best of luck to you x

I think having a relapse the week before your court date isn’t great, as a social worker I’d be putting a hold on returning the kids to you until I had evidence you could maintain sobriety long term. To get to this point, eg family court, isn’t a one time blip, there’s been a pattern of behaviour that previous support hasn’t changed which has been deemed to put your children at risk of harm.

I understand your regret and your fear, but you need to be working in this day by day, using the supports around you and demonstrating long term you can be a safe enough parent for your children. They don’t need you at your best every day, they need you to be good enough so how can you do that?