alcoholic friend and caring for a child

[WoodlandFaerie]

a friend has a son in reception year.

She drinks every day while caring for him. Do not know how much each day at its height but the least she drinks is 3-4 cans of lager. She often drinks more, certainly in company as she is 'social drinking with company' ie, uses it as an excuse to drink.

She sneaks off in company to drink more than it seems, uses the filling of people's glasses as an excuse to drink more again. This is why i suspect that the 3-4 cans daily is more than that. But not able to say for sure.

She has on several occasions at least collected her son from school drunk. She is normally reeking of alcohol when we see her, regardless of the time of day (normally we see her around 4pm as we both have young children).

She neglects her child. He mostly eats bread, or if out with others at social gatherings, someone else makes sure he is fed, he fends for himself, he cleans u after him and her if a mess is made for some reason, she is short tempered with him, forgets to clean his teeth.

Anywat, to things happened have happened which have made me feel, more than ever that she is not capable of looking after her son atm and want to know your opinion.

firstly, last week, she was drunk, very drunk, while in the presence of her son, and she fell over while attempting to swing a 4 pack of beer across her shoulder, and hit her face on some stone steps. Her son witnessed this, she stayed down for a while and he thought she was dead until she finally moved. Her face is a mess, grazed badly, luckily she did not break her nose/cheek/teeth/neck.

The second thing is at around 4pm during a gathering of friends in an outdoor venue, she was drinking heavily but descretely as normal, she asked her son to fetch her a beer. He did so without questioning, as if this a normal thing to do. She asked it like it was too. Much to the amazement of others, and followed by some backtracking (she was only joking, aw bless him sweet boy).

Should i take action (tell her x-dh, ss, someone else?) I feel so sorry for the boy who is a lovely kid, and when others are around at least, she lets them look after him, she pays him no attention. She is not prepared to address her alcohol issues, she has been there before and is not ready to do it.

Is the child's father around/involved? Does he not know the extent of the problem?

Sounds like that little boy needs someone to step in.

In the first instance I'd talk to the school. I'd also give the NSPCC a call and ask for their opinion. But do, please, raise your concerns with someone.

tell her ex husband IMMEDIATELY. Like, tonight.

I would also tell the school that although you with to remain completely anonymous, you have some concerns about neglect with him.

He left her because of her drinking.

He sees his son every other weekend.

He knows how bad her drinking is, but she hides it from him when he visits, she had gone to aa for a while and then stopped when she had it 'under control' and gone backwards. I think he 'knows' but chooses to ignore, as his son appears, externally to be fine. You know, clean, goes to school.

She has a new partner who does a lot of the caring i think, and her ex thinks she does fine. but her partner works full time and cannot challenge her i don't think, she says it is her son not his (but happy for him to do the dirty work).

ex-dh had initially stated he would seek custody of him, but not sure what happened with that, he changed his mind i guess. He is a bit of coward anyway tbh, and now has a new family.

You are right. Of course you are.

I have to do something. He is such a good little boy. He and DD get on so great. I hated this weekend (we were all away, us, her and him, and some other friends with children) that he was not cared for by her, she drank, he asked others for food. He stayed with us a lot.

Poor little sod.

tell the school.

oh good idea about the school. It is a small school, so maybe the teacher has noticed the smell of alcohol too.

It might be that his father finds it easy to leave him with his mother when she appears to be 'coping' - he won't find it so easy to shirk if a social worker turns up at 6pm one evening with the child in tow and says "This is yours. Your ex wife was neglecting him. have fun with that, bye!"

If the ex-dh won't do anything, then you need to tell the school or social services.

If her drinking was bad enough for the ex-dh to leave, why did he think it was ok to leave a child there?

i was just unsure as to whether i was just being a busybody, but i am not am i? i really do need to pass this on.

Thanks for reassuring me.

misus god i have no idea. He did take him for a while, after an 'incident' but then returned him. Like I said, he is a coward, he did not do things well when he left, and he made it easy for her to 'blame' him for the breakup as he was not honest. So she had an excuse to carry on.

I guess he felt if he was not there, she would sort herself out? i guess he thinks now, if she looks sober when he sees her, he will pretend he does not know the rest.

colditz would they do that? take him to his fathers house if they felt she was not coping? that would be a good thing i think. I do think if he was forced to see how bad things were he would have like a shot.

they won't take him into care if he has a competent parent.

my councilor told me that as I am actually SS Phobic and convinced myself once (and on many occasions since) that my children would go into care because they fell down two steps/wouldn't eat a balanced diet for a few weeks/I phoned the midwives 3 times in 2 hours after taking ds1 home/my washing pile was stacked up high when the Hv came/delte as appropriate.

that man would have to give a SW a VERY good reason why he couldn't care for his son, and "I haven't got spare clothes" just would not cut it.

oh crap, i don't know her address.

I know where she lives, as in i have been there lots, but not the street name or number, never needed to know it! (she lives in a village, the name of the street never really seemed important!) and she has a house name rather than a number. I will try to remember it. I can find the street name i am sure.

well, i do know that worse case scenario, he could stay with his ex-dh's parents as before he moved in with his new girlfriend, that is where he stayed and they helped him.

I think the only issue would be the size of his flat. He has a step child and a baby with his partner.

thank you ladies. I am going to call the school in the morning, and I think, possibly i might have to call ss. I just do not feel happy with this any more. Not that i ever did, but now, i just feel i cannot sit on my hands and pretend that poor little boy will be ok. Even if he is now, he won't be forever.

I would intervene, you could make a big difference in this boy's life. If he was being cared for fully maybe, but if he is not getting even his basic needs met, it's a case for ss.

I remember in year 9 being friends with a girl who was new to the area. She was wild, going out to nightclubs and having sex etc. We went back to her house and her Mum was blotto,she went into the kitchen to be sick and came back in and had wet herself, she just sat down and continued drinking. I was at the time, but it is so sad in hindsight,I can't imagine anything good came of that girl.

The exdp needs to step up and take responsibility/grow some balls.

Woodland - Google Streetview will be an excellent way of finding out the actual address. royalmail.co.uk will help you with the postcode.

HTH

poor boy

Woodlandfaerie, Has her village been scanned into the street view thingy on google map?

Please do inform the school, they should not be releasing him to her if she is drunk, they are supposed to ensure children are handed over to a safe environment.

Also, things are likely to escalate. Please contact ss and school, do so in strictest confidence. If the other parents get wind of this she will never live it down on the playground and while this isn't necessarily the priority at this moment one day she may clean up her act and it will be all the more difficult if the other parents are judging and watching her. Good Luck.

I would think she already has a reputation for her drinking in the local village. She used to live around the corner from me, in a city, and she visited the local shop daily for alcohol on the pretence of getting bread/milk. Although, her new dp now has a car so she might be stocking up at the supermarket which she did not do before. It seems there is another alcoholic in the village and they get together a lot. We have some other friends in the village, our best friends and the female of that couple does try to support her, but she does not want to change her behaviour yet.

If I call the school, i won't need the full address will i? they will know who he is with just his name. Also, i spoke to my dh last night about talking to her ex-dh. we used to be friends but are not on speaking terms any more. He might think we are just interfering/stirring, but we will think about whether that is an option. I don't know, maybe we could go directly to his own parents, we do know them to talk to.

But, i will google earth the address. It should be easy to locate as it is a detached house with only a few houses.

Thank you ladies. I am i think now more worried about her son than I am her, so that is time to take action.

ok, i have taken my emotional head off and put on my work head (am a tired new mother on ML so not easy ). If someone came in to see me (i work with drug and alcohol users myself, but not in this context) and gave me this information how would I handle this? I would most certainly contact ss. So, I see no difference now, other than she is a friend, and I know more of the picture, not less. And so, thinking of all I know, i should have probably already done it.

As a friend, rather than a professional though, should I call first and foremost

school?
Ss?
NSPCC?
Ex-DH?

Good on you for getting involved. This poor child certainly needs help.

I don't think I would contact the ex really as then (1) you don't know that he WILL take action and (2) he may well tell her it was you who contacted him and that may well mean that your friend will cut contact with you which would not be good for the little boy either.

I think I would contact SS and possibly also call the school and tell them the problem and that SS are involved.

buda i agree re ex-dh. Her little boy and my little girl are very good friends and I would not like for that to change if possible. And agree he might not take it too seriously, out of sight out of mind.

I wish it was different, i wish i did not have to do this.

FWIW I'd go for SS and school as well. I think you're doing a good thing here, poor boy.

I think I'd call the lot tbh.

Don't want to sound like I think this is a small thing for you to do, I admire you. There are so many posts on here, all over the place, from children of alcoholics, detailing how it has affected their lives in every possible way. You are doing the right thing. And I'm afraid it won't be pleasant. But imagine how it could be - a boy living with a sober parent, not scrounging for food , probably still in touch with his mother. It might even shock her into wanting to change, but the priority has got to be him. Bless you for doing this.

You are doing the right thing