Safeguarding referral, advice needed

[Hattoe0740]

Hi all please be kind.

Last night I got took into hospital following a head injury, I sustained whilst drinking alcohol at a friends house the night before. Long story short the hospital have put in a safeguarding referral and I’m absolutely petrified my children are going to be taken away. I have an extremely supportive husband, my children are loved, we have a lovey home. They both engage in school clubs and my daughter is excelling in dancing, but now I feel like I’m going to have everything ripped away from me, I feel sick!

i did state to the hospital that I quit drinking for a while then relapsed, due to suffering with cfs/me, so in a way I was drowning my sorrows,

I have already lost my career I was a student paramedic and had to leave the course due to ill health.

can anyone give me any advice

The hospital have done the right thing - they had no choice.

Tell the SW that y need some help - this might prove to be a positive moment when you get the help you need.

Thanks for your reply, I agree they’ve done the right thing but I’m terrified my children will be taken away

It's not clear if the children were with you at the friends house or not, as it makes a difference.

If this is an isolated incident, and you've told us the whole story, then it's very very unlikely the children will be removed from you.

They won't be taken away due to the above.
Work with the social worker as they will do an assessment. I promise they are just there to help x

Your children engaging in after school clubs doesn't make this right.

Were the children with you at your friends?

No.

Your children will absolutely not be taken away from you. Please be kind to yourself. Just talk to them and be honest - they're there to help

Sounds like you confided quite a lot in the hospital staff and they are concerned as a result. On the face of it a one off drunken incident whilst your children were well cared for elsewhere is a non issue. But if you’re an alcoholic then they’ll want to make sure the kids are being protected and you are seeking help. Your husband is a protective factor, so highly unlikely your kids would be removed.

The threshold for removing children are very high and social services are crap

They will not take your children away. They will just be checking up that all is well at home and that you are able to look after them ok. Please don't worry.
Maybe this is the jolt you need to get a bit more support in quitting drinking.

I'm a 5.5 year sober alcoholic who's drinking became a serious problem after some health challenges/issues.

I did have social services intervention. It was hard.

I did work with them, but I didn't rely on them providing any solutions, what any person needs in this scenario is peer-to-peer support, total abstinence and a willingness to do the inner work to become more resilient and resistant to the lure of alcohol and the socialisation around it.

There are lots of brilliant sober blogs out on the web - Mrs D is Going Without - a diary by a New Zeeland Mum was my entry into that world. Some great education around the psychological issues around alcohol and a similar culture to drink as we have in the UK - but there are other flavours

I also went to AA - I still do - but I have sober friends that went and found it NFM and others who have stopped attending meetings but are abstinent.

Basically it's a journey of discovery about yourself. It's brilliant and humbling at well worth doing but you need to find your own motivation to quit alcohol for good. Good luck