Breach of Alcohol Undertaking Family Court

[Minions2000]

My partner took me to court for alcohol, social and court were involved and I was a week off of obtaining a residency order and my behaviour was detrimental.
The children are now with their dad and we have not heard from social however they have been informed.
I slipped up with the drink to a point where he needed to step in, I had also been issued an alcohol undertaking
We are both as parents working together, to get the help and cause minimal disturbance to the kids.
What will happen?

What are you doing to address the drinking, Dr's are useless they generally tell you to ring AA.

IME people do not lose custody of their children for a few drunken episodes. There is clearly quite a history of your drinking impacting on your ability to care for your children safely. A safe home environment is the bare minimum children deserve.

I believe you love your children but you are minimising your drinking. You described a relapse as a blip. You were already going through a court process and still thought you could have one drink and describe your ex as viewing a single drink as unacceptable. No one thinks a single drink is unacceptable but he clearly knows from experience it's never a single drink. You seem to be in denial about this fact. If that tells you anything at all it should tell you that your addiction to alcohol is more powerful than your love for your children. You might be offended by that suggestion but you need to look as the evidence of your actions. You have lost your children because you could not abstain from drinking alcohol.

I agree with PP that you need to accept your children cannot live with you for the time being and you need to work on your recovery. The first part of that is being honest about the nature of your problem. Life will always present challenges, you need to find a way of dealing with them rather than using them as an excuse to drink.

There is no judgement from me but I know from experience that sympathy won't help you. I'd recommend trying a few AA meetings. It's not for everyone but there is no doubt that the people at the meetings know exactly what you are dealing with and at this point you have little left to lose.

https://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/

OP, I'm the one with the alcohol addiction in our family. I didn't lose my children, or my husband, but in conversations we have had, it has become clear that the possibility entered my husband's head more than one. And fair enough too. In all honesty, I think that at some points my children would have been a lot better off, and that they possibly direct anger at my husband for not shielding them/putting them first, that should be directed at me for what I put them through.

We cannot have one drink. When you say 'for him, one drink is too many', that is because he knows, because he has seen, so often, so BLOODY often, that for YOU, one drink is too many - because you cannot be trusted, or trust yourself, to stop at one. In all probability, one will become two, two will become three. . . and whaddya know, you're all in a horrible situation of you and alcohol's getting together's making again.

I have been sober for over a year now. One of the biggest things that stops me is the sheer horror I know that my youngest, in particular, would feel, if she saw me take 'just one drink' again. Because it's not just the reality, it's the possibility.

It's a bit like earthquakes. You don't know if it's going to remain just a gentle 3.5, or whether it's going to turn into a life altering 7.3. And so, the possibility, as much as the reality, does the damage.

You cannot rely on 'getting the right help' to 'fix' your addiction. It can't be fixed. It is a life time condition that you will need to actively manage. And no one, and nothing, is going to fix it for you. Ultimately it comes down to you, finding the ways that work for you (that is where the help comes in) to stop yourself, every hour of every day, thinking that you can have 'just one drink', and then having that one drink, that turns into many.

I think put yourself first. Focus on getting a long term abstinence life in place. Don't use your kids or another external factor to live and healthy life. It needs to come from you. Yes others will use this as a stick to beat you with. Let them. It may be that this is something you can't control and its better for their dad to raise them and you parent from distance.
Good luck xx

There’s a lot of talk of ‘needing help’ ‘getting help’ etc here.

Why are you laying the responsibility for recovery at someone else’s door? You want a judge to assist you in not drinking while your kids suffer?

You need to start saying ‘I’ a bit more. You are responsible for yourself and your own recovery. Yea, there might be tools and advice you can draw on, but it is 100% your effort at the end of the day.

Thank you so much for all of your replies, I am still waiting on the social worker to contact.
I have been to the gp she was lovely, she referred me to new vision, I have an appointment next Friday at the gps through them.

I am going to spend the rest of the day whilst I am off on holiday with working getting our lovely home in order as they are staying tonight for our plans tomorrow.

It's a step at a time and I need to do this, the shame and reality of what I have done is hard but I can't let them hurt anymore than they have to

@AlphabetBird you are right, this is on me and I know i can do this, I don't want to keep looking back at what I could have done different

You absolutely can do it. Don’t wait for anyone or anything to start the journey.

The social worker has contacted me, all files ready to be handed to court to give me residency and contact with dad as much as he wants.
I have been open and honest with what happened on Wednesday, he is going to speak to my ex and his manager and ring me back.
We will know soon where we go from here

The reasons why you drink can be complex but the fact is that you've proved beyond doubt that you cannot have just 1 drink.
There are loads of difficulties and excuses on the path to ridding yourself of this horrible addiction. "Do I love my kids more than I want this 1 drink?" Think of them not you. Say it on repeat while you seek support /distraction. It's so hard but you can do it. Hope you get loads of support but in the end, it's down to you.

@Brenda34 thank you for your response, just going out of my mind waiting on the social worker to get back to me at this moment

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?

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 am only just admitting that I am an alcoholic as to be one doesn't mean waking on morning or drinking everyday but simply alcohol misuse

Where are your children living at the moment?

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.

My children live with me I have residency, that's what I'm saying, alcohol misuse is alcoholism and I know that now.
Drink has changed me to a person I don't recognise on occassion

Have you tried AA?

@TheHandmaidsSnail not as yet but looking in to it

Social are coming to see the kids at home tonight and I'm not sure what will happen next

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.

@QueenOfToast no the court decided I have residency and all paperwork was to be given to court today.

Dad filed a c100 and I was given residency, then I messed up.

So what is the court action?

The court action was for the kids to be returned to me, I was given an alcohol undertaking, everything went smoothly and the case to be closed and then I drank last week.

The social have been informed by me this morning and they are visiting the children at home tonight

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.

How long were your kids not in your care?