ALCOHOL-DESPERATE FOR ADVICE

[maria1966]

Hi,really need some advice from someone on my situation.Will try and keep it short and straight to the point.
I have 2 children 3 and 1 and a half and my DH holds down a job.I have been on anti depressants til recently and am going through therapy also seeing a health visitor.My DH drinking has always been a issue in our13 year relationship but never violent just embarassing and mental touture when he has had a few drinks he can be really nasty and hurtful.Since having the childdren although he is a great dad and helps around the house he is a social drinker and goes to the pub straight from work most evenings and on weekends off sometimes finds an excuse to go to the shop and then sometimes returns 3-4 hours later drunk.
I am having a hard time at the moment with stress with the children,suffering from agrophobia which i am having therapy for and passed issues of bereavement of my parents years ago and my brother last year which have all been brought out since i had children of my own.
I feel trapped and don't know who to turn to.
I have sisters and a niece i confide in but they don't know the whole story about DH drinking as i don't want them to see him in a different light.
His family live away and although since having their first grandchildren i am a bit closer to my MIL i feel i should'nt involve her.
Just before christmas though things came to a head and he came home really drunk puting me down as a mother and making fun of my agrophobia and taking anti depressants he threatened to take the children from me and put me in a mental hospital.
I panicked and rang his mothrers number and was really distressed which worried her.He saw what i was doing and put the phone down she rang back result he had an agruement with herand they did'nt speak for a few days.
I felt really awful about this and phoned to apoligise to her only to get my FIL who put the phone down on me and said nothing.
Anyway DH rang back apoligised and spook to them both all was well.Except i asked him why his dad put the phone down on me,but he said they did'nt discuss it.
Sorry for ranting but DH came in this evening 9pm hgis phone was turned off kids are in bed and he could'nt stand just flaked out on the sofa,no explaination nothing.Me i just burst into tears and thought what do i do this can't go on.
I know he will be all apoligetic tomorrow and will expect me to forget it but this happens weekly and i can't do it anymore.
What do i do?
I have hined to the health visitor about this but notthe full story as i am scared because of the children.I knoew that i and my children are not on danager and he ever shouts at them but i am worried what they will think.
His parents my last hope as they know he likes a drink as he comes from a socialable background of drinking dinner parties etc and to them is probably normal.i thought talkingto his mum they would help me but it turned againest me and i suspose i was seen as a mad woman over reacting.
Helpplease what do i do.
am scared for my childrens future i don't want them growing up with this and there mother being a nervous wreck,i feel so alone.

Yes shurb- yes another cover up. I thought I was doing to right thing at the time trying to preserve my father and our self respect, but eventually I told our family. It was awful at first my Aunt blamed us all for not been supportive enough ( I thought 15 years was plenty)she blamed my mother for leaving him. I use to find bottles in the most incredible places. It took our family and friends years to understand the impact Alcholism on us and what we went through. Others on theis thread have said similiar things. Especially went confronted my father would say some horrible things about us- I guess to move attention from himself. He is a very remorseful, pityful sober man. He physically can't drink anymore, it hard to day how long he has left to live. He is hospitalised and looks like a very frail old man. His personality has altered. ALchol abuse has made him paranoid and metally ill. However my mother predicted he would not live past 60 years ( after all she works with alchol abusers) and i guess we have all been prepared for this. All i can say is don't cover up and start to rebuild your lives. I too found it hard to think of Alchol abuse as an illness.

I remember one of the most liberating moments of my life was when I was about 15, sitting in the loo at school with about four other girls and two fags between us, and one of them whose parents were divorced was talking about going to stay with her dad at the weekend and what a pain in the arse it was because of his being an alcoholic. She said it so casually, in the course of conversation, it was a blinding revelation to me that if she didn't need to keep this dirty, shameful secret, then neither did I.

I feel so sad for people who go for years feeling they have to cover up for the alcoholics in their families.

shrub - I think we are coping o.k. At he moment I feel angry for what he has done to our family and sad by the fact he is going to die soon and never really know is grandchildren.

really feel for you dillysue - one thing i've found with people who have had an alcoholic parent is that we are all so self-reliant -because we have had to be. i still have a lot of anger because i look at my own children and think how i could never do that to them - though it took the first 3 years of my ds1's life for me to realise i coudn't be a perfect mother either! bloomin amazing about your aunt - i can remember my dad being convinced that if only i could keep my bedroom tidy, my mother wouldn't drink! try and surround yourself with people who do understand what you have gone through and what you are going through.though my children have been my biggest lesson in life that they live in the moment and i try and do the same, though this isn't always easy. thinking of you x

caligula - what wonderful advice! i wonder how many people could step forward who we think we already know - friends, neighbours, acquaintences if there could be no secret alcoholic in the family?