Support group for those affected by someone else's drinking thread 6

[pointythings]

A new thread so that the conversations can continue overnight. We have sadly been very active lately, so I thought it best to be proactive.

These threads are for everyone who has an alcoholic in their life: partner/husband/wife, sibling, child, parent. This is a safe space where you can vent and say all the things you can't say out loud in real life.

The people on these threads have all been there or are still on their journey. We will share what we have learned, crack dark jokes and offer a shoulder to cry on. Welcome to the club nobody wants to be in.

Link to previous thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/alcohol_support/5515006-support-group-for-those-affected-by-someone-elses-drinking-thread-5?page=40&reply=153683715

because sometimes addict bingo is the dark humour I need to process the trauma having loved an addict:

can anyone top this for a reason (excuse) to drink:

• Its a full moon

@pointythings @MamaBear81 yeah that’s kinda similar to him but he can easily go 5/6 weeks with no alcohol between binges so I’ve said to him let’s see how the next 6-12 months go. He is now back living in his parents house which at least is better than hotels. At the moment I just feel disgusted by him so don’t want to spend any time outside of him visiting/seeing our lg

its so sad because I feel like he’s chipped away at all the love I had for him. I can’t see a way back to even feeling attracted to him or wanting to be in his company. Like u @pointythings I feel like my boundaries are being stuck to so well this time because I failed so many many times before and nothing ever changed so I just feel done. God it’s exhausting though.

Oh and he brought me my favourite coffee to the house this morning 🙄 just feels all a lot too late

@Nogoodusername

Yep, not seeing his daughter was another reason (aka excuse) for him to drink also.
But as you said, the inconsistency is unfair.
He was seeing DD (3) once or twice during a sober week, then not at all for the next 2/3/4 weeks because he was drinking.

He would ask to see her, while clearly drunk. And I would say no. And there was his reason (excuse) to bombard me with days on end of abuse from morning to night, about how cruel I am for stopping him seeing his child. He couldn’t register that it was HIM who was stopping it, by drinking and therefore not being in a fit state to be around her.
Or how cruel HE was being by wanting to subject her to him in that state anyway!

Although I think his contact with DD was always more about using her as a tool to see me. When it was me supervising his contact, he would demand it almost daily then give me abuse if I was busy/said no because he was drinking. Sometimes he would only give me 45 minutes notice to meet him with her, and if I already had plans (god forbid I have a life and didn’t stay at home all day every day in the off chance he might ask to see her), I’d have him slating me all over social media, suicide threats etc. But he had the cheek to call me controlling for refusing to tolerate his drinking.

However, after he assaulted me and it was his mother who started supervising, he only asked to see DD twice in two months. Then he was held on remand for 3 weeks after his sentencing had to be adjourned. Didn’t ask to see her after he was released, although was invited by his older DD to join her and his mother at the park they were taking my DD to two weeks later. And he turned up drunk, when that was the first time he would have seen her in 5 weeks.

The fact he did that despite there being a restraining order, and he had been charged and sentenced for an assault against me, while she was present, which took place while he was drunk - absolutely no more.
If he wants to see her, he can take me to court. His presence in her life the way he is at the moment will do more damage than his absence.

I so hear you on that @MamaBear81. I think in active addiction the behaviour is closely akin to narcissism. Everyone, including their young children, are just pawns that exist in their universe to serve them. They are unable to think of anyone else’s needs or wants, just how it impacts them.

while recognising that our court system always contains a degree of risk because it is an individual judge and individual CAFCAS officer, I think it is a safe bet to let the addict apply for a CAO. Nine times out of ten they won’t because it involves effort, expense (if they don’t with legal help), and being with it enough to do forms and phone calls. For those that attempt the first hurdle, there are safeguards for your DC. Ex got to the first hurdle and even the basic CAFCAS safeguarding check went against him - his first wife declared his addiction and the rehab stays, he has a DUI conviction, and there were multiple social services referrals on his record - from the kids school as well as from his erratic A&E attempts. Full CAFCAS report was ordered and then ex dropped out.

His first wife was very sensible also to create an evidence base - calm email stating that contact would be removed until he provided evidence of period of time sober (whatever it is that the DVLA test looks at, can’t remember whether 3 months or less) because the DC were being emotionally harmed by the off and on contact because of his frequent relapses and the number of times he could not/ did not provide a breathalyser, alongside his erratic presentation during some contact sessions where she believed he had drank as soon as a negative breathalyser was provided (also imagine he had done coke overnight as well as he is awful the next day).

I actually feel utter disgust at Ex for his inability to see the harm he was causing his DC. Even faced with evidence (school reports) that the poor things were traumatised, he still wailed on about how he couldn’t possibly attempt sobriety while contact was being removed.

Every time I hear your stories I'm thankful that my DC were older teens when it all went down - 15 and 17 - and that they could refuse to see him without consequences for them or me.

@Nogoodusername

ex also lost his drivers license for drink driving. Multiple records of police involvement surrounding alcohol fuelled incidents.
A very recent DV assault and harassment charge which took place while I was holding our child.

I have evidence of him demanding to see DD while drunk. I have evidence of him turning up to see her while drunk multiple times. Including the video from two weeks ago where he turned up to that park in a disgusting state blatantly saying he was there to see her.

Evidence of him not turning up to pre-arranged contact. Evidence that I spent a long time trying to facilitate a relationship between him and our DD safely.

And a restraining order that states he cannot have any contact with me whatsoever, not even via a third party, other than through a solicitor for child contact purposes.
So that restraining order is basically forcing him to start court proceedings if he wants to see her, because third party arrangements have been removed. They were allowed as part of his bail conditions while awaiting sentencing, but he breached those bail conditions 19 times.

He also breached his restraining order 8 days after it was issued, by emailing me directly asking me and DD to join him at a local event. I’ve reported that, police came out a week ago today to take a statement and evidence of the email, and said they were hoping to arrest him that night if they could locate him. I’ve heard nothing since, so I assume they haven’t managed to find him.

@pointythings

Sometimes I’m glad DD is still so young, so she doesn’t have a full understanding of what’s going on.

@Howdidiendupthere

I hear you on the attraction thing. My ex would use me not wanting to be intimate with him as another reason (excuse) to drink because he was feeling rejected.
But after seeing him passed out covered in his own vomit so many times, having to clean it (and him) up, the smell of stale alcohol he sweated out.. is it any wonder?
Plus all the name calling and vile things he used to say to me while drunk, he thinks it all goes away when he was sober and being nice. But it doesn’t. Why would I want to be intimate with someone who called me a slag, c**t, threatened me etc so many times, and In front of our DD too. I think it’s only natural that attraction would fade. And turning up sober with a box of maltesers (my fave, like yours with the coffee) doesn’t magically make it reappear.

@pointythings he actually said he hadn’t hit his rock bottom. WTF.

where as mine attended aa but was drinking before /afger

i queried with al alon why aa didn’t say you are drinking

he would say I’m 2/3/4mths sober and collect the coins

I spoke to a friend who went to aa and she said they know he drank and lied and I said why didn’t anyone pull him up on it and say you aren’t sober 6mths and no you can’t have the bloody coin !

ive seen dh liver function results and fine. God knows how

yes he also said he couldn’t be away from me and dd and not seen us for 4/6w - has to see dd every day and why he never did rehab

times now he doesn see her for 2w + if been drinking and has the bug 💩🤮🙄

Hmmmm.

Called to let me know he'd bought beer and felt 'like a terrible failure' about it. I suggested he pour it down the drain. He replied (indignantly) "Beer drinkers don't let good beer go to waste!!!".

and

"It's my last hurrah" (for the nth time).

Speaking of DH, he's back in hospital. From what I can tell he took an Uber, probably because now when he calls 911 they dispatch sheriff's deputies rather than EMS. I'm still not exactly sure why he's there, but he's saying it's for pain management (for broken ribs).

I went to check the house and honestly, I think I went into a 'disassociated state'. It was so horrible, but I felt like I wasn't 'there', you know? Like it wasn't my house. I grabbed what I went for and just locked the door and left.

@pointythings 'hasn't hit rock bottom'. My DH has said 'this is my rock bottom' so many times I've lost count. Even after the DUI, the medical loss of license, and the recent arrest for harassing 911 & resisting arrest he obviously hasn't hit it yet since it hasn't made him stop. Since I'm being 'hands off' with anything to do with the DUI probation requirements & court date and the new charges court date I'm pretty sure he's going to end up in jail for at least 3 months, hopefully 6.

If that isn't the 'real' rock bottom then the 'real' rock bottom for him is death.

I don’t think dd will say outright she doesn’t want to see him as doesn’t want to hurt his feelings as such

as she is such a sweet kind caring girl

@MamaBear81 @Nogoodusername

bingo
ex almost lost his license. They gave him 11p do being drunk in charge of a vechicle

we (me judge police) all know he was driving drunk , but can’t prove it that night as he says he stopped van then drank the bottle in his van 🙄

@Penguinsandspaniels mine tried that excuse twice. Crashed and was so upset he had to drink the bottle of gin that happened to be lying on the passenger seat.

Mine also tried to claim he had parked up in front of our locked gates, and then drunk, and then broke into the house….he was due in court for drink driving (not ‘in charge of..) a few days before his death. Guess the police did see through the excuse and found some evidence (maybe the fact that both I and the friend staying saw no one at the gate 10 minutes before).

Wow @MamaBear81 19 times - I think you have had it worse then any of us 🌸

how old is dd ?

I split just before her 7th birthday but tbh is should have been her 5th but I took him back after his so called constant relapses

luckily ex wasn’t a puker when together tho seems to be now every month 🤮💩

the more you say I am amazed you stuck it out for so long (hugs)

@AcrossthePond55 sorry your house is in such a shit state - must be hard to see

least you knows he’s ok in hospital - jail maybe be a blessing

@CharlotteByrde oh poor dh. Not ! So handy to have a bottle of gin

they all have the same pathetic lies @Userccjlnhibibljn8

bingo - I’m going to have a drink now as when home I’m going to stop drinking

me - why not stop now

him - I’ve bought it now

@Penguinsandspaniels

Yes, after he was arrested for assault, he was given bail conditions not to contact me (other than via a third party for child contact purposes) while the investigation was happening.

He emailed me 19 times in two weeks, was re-arrested for breaching his conditions, charged with the assault and they added harassment on top.

His sentencing then had to be adjourned for 3 weeks because he showed up for his probation pre-sentence report interview too drunk to even be allowed into the building, so he was held on remand for that time.

Was then released with a community order including 6 months alcohol treatment, 15 days of anger management and DV awareness classes, and a two year restraining order stopping him from contacting me by any means whatsoever, other than via a solicitor for child contact arrangements.

Emailed me 8 days after it was issued, using the same email address he did for the harassment charges. And has been constantly drunk from his day of release up until the park incident a week & a half ago.
Although I don’t know what’s happened since then.

DD is 3.5 (4 in feb) and we split up for good after he missed her 2nd birthday because he decided to disappear on another bender the day before it. But to be honest, I had checked out long before that, and had only stayed with him because he made me feel like I had some sort of obligation or responsibility to.

He used DD go emotionally manipulate me SO many times. But when he chose to start drinking again the day before her birthday, and spent the day of her birthday bombarding me with abuse, that was it for me.

All the nonsense he used to spout about how she should have her parents together, and as her mother who wants the best for her, I should help him be the father she deserves and the father he wants to be.. “we’re a family, we fight this together” bla bla bla .. then he chose drink over her birthday.

It dawned on me I was the only one doing the fighting, and it was never about him wanting what was best for her. It was about him wanting what was best for him - and his eyes, that was a someone to carry him every time he left himself ill and penniless.

We try and keep our family together for our kids sake

but tbh life is much better and happier without ex being in it

our daughters deserve to have happy childhoods and now they will

tho when ex dies and it will be a when not if - then my dd I think will struggle and I dread the day for her

“I was the only one doing the fighting” is literally me for two years. Thank god in the end I woke up to that.

I’m really sorry to hear about your trip to the house @AcrossthePond55. it’s horrible the things and places that trigger trauma. I do everything I can to avoid driving past the local drug and alcohol support building - memories of waiting outside when I was trying to ‘fix him’ and also a time he went awol from it with a sucide threat and phone off and I went driving around the streets looking for him

@MamaBear81 what happens if Ex doesn’t turn up for the 6 months alcohol treatment or the anger management/ DV classes? I don’t know what my Ex’s latest court case is, but surely at stage he is going to start wracking up something more serious than fines and driving bans so wondering what sentencing might end up looking like

@Penguinsandspaniels @Nogoodusername

When Penguin described it as in a 'shit state', that is literally the truth. Dark humour, but sometimes that's all that's left to us, eh?

So the latest is that he's been enrolled at an out patient program via the hospital SW, supposedly 'funded' but he has no idea how. Problem is, it's not the program mandated by his probation conditions. I told him he needs to tell the nurse he needs to talk to the SW to see if what the supposed 'funding' they've arranged can be switched to the approved program. If not, he'll just have to do double classes, but that may not be a bad thing.

Problem is I know he has to pay for the court mandated program as part of the DUI, and I have no idea exactly who is supposedly paying for the one the hospital SW has arranged. He's said in previous admissions that an alcohol program 'is being paid for' only to find out what was actually said was "We think your insurance will pay for this". Newsflash.....it won't. But it's not coming out of my pocket, so it is what it is. He will either follow through with the SW or, more likely, he'll forget all about it.

Once again, I am so glad I 'got legal' and the separation is finalized . My assets and my share of the house are legally protected from any debt or penalties he may incur.

@Penguinsandspaniels

Yes I think I did stay so long for DD’s sake - until I realised i actually needed to do the opposite and leave for her sake, and mine.

He always made out like keeping me from leaving was for her sake too, but it never was. It was for his.

Why would living in such a toxic, unpredictable environment benefit a child at all? It doesn’t.

Neither did seeing her father reduce her mother to tears on a regular basis, spewing drunken venom. I refuse to let her grow up with the idea that’s what love is supposed to look like.

Neither did seeing her father vomit all over himself.

She’s only 3, and yesterday I opened a can of Pepsi max that came free with our takeaway, and she said “that’s papa’s drink”, because she has seen him swigging cans of lager and I rarely drink from a can.

She’s more observant at this young age than I gave her credit for, and that makes me even more sure I did the right thing by leaving when I did. It should have been sooner.

@MamaBear81

She’s only 3, and yesterday I opened a can of Pepsi max that came free with our takeaway, and she said “that’s papa’s drink”, because she has seen him swigging cans of lager and I rarely drink from a can.

Oh, that breaks my heart. They are so observant and absorb things that don't even register with us! You were so right to get her away.

@Nogoodusername

If he misses any ‘without good reason’, or turns up drunk, then he will be re-arrested and back in court for not complying with his court order. It will then be up to the judge to decide what to do next, a custodial sentence is a likely possibility considering he can’t be relied on to serve his community order.

Same with breaching his restraining order. I still have no update on what’s happening with that a week after making my statement, so my assumption is they’ve not been able to locate him to make the arrest.

My family live in the same village just around the corner from where he was living with his ‘friends’, and used to see him around regularly. But none of them have seen him since that video started circulating. God knows where he is. He hasn’t been active on social media since then either, which is very unusual for him.

@AcrossthePond55

I didn’t realise how much she was taking in either, I was taken aback when she said that yesterday. Especially when she hasn’t seen him or even mentioned him for almost 6 weeks now. But she remembers he drank from cans, evidently 😞

@AcrossthePond55 he missed the toilet ?@MamaBear81they observe a lot

ex used to take dd to the shop and buy cans or vodka

when she said daddy brought beer / kestrel with me , I said how do you know it’s beer

she said it’s on the can. Plus a pic of a bird

do you think he had drunk his self into a state and passed out

obv he forgot at 6 /7 she could read