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As an adult child of an alcoholic mother, I unfortunately married a man (now divorced) that is in third stage alcoholism and had to deal with the nightmare his drinking was causing within our family. Since my own separation and divorce from my husband, my adult children now have to deal with their father’s continued abuse of alcohol and the affects it has taken in his life. I am “still” trying to resolve my own issues with my elderly mother and what health and relationship issues her drinking has led to, but now need to help my 25 year old daughter deal with her father and his problems.
My daughter lives at her father’s house, although only stays there twice a week, however she is the only other person in the house accept for her father. My ex-husband has been through rehab three times (refuses any follow-up) and has continued to increase his drinking. Most days he consumes almost a handle of vodka a day, has extreme withdrawal when he is without alcohol, experiences DT’s, and chronic vomiting. In the past eight years, he has lost two jobs (one he was with over 20 years), and last week managed to be charged with his 3rd DUI (BAC < 1.6) along with a hit and run. Since the DUI, he has remained in a constant state of intoxication and not able to realize the extent of the problem he is now in.
At the moment, he is trying to place much of the responsibility of following up on the DUI upon my daughter by asking/insisting she contact the police station to find his car, cancel/make doctor’s appointments, along with verbal abuse when she refused to buy him more alcohol from the liquor store or call in to his employer saying he was sick. As many of you know, the alcoholic will become emotional, cry, or beg for answers to their problems, or to provide them with more alcohol. My daughter has been an emotional wreck the past two weeks with being afraid to come home and find her father dead; fearful he may be awake, and trying to control her emotions at work and to outside people.
As much as I am here for her to talk, cry, vent, or whatever she needs, I sometimes feel that maybe there is more I can do to let her know she is not responsible. It breaks my heart to see her in so much pain. Her brother, who lives with me, is just angry and trying to block everything out.
We did talk about counseling for her, including myself and son too, and will be following through with that this week. Any suggestions or tips from anyone with anything else I can do to help her would be greatly appreciated. I would rather have my ex dump on me honestly rather than my daughter and son. I find it unfair and cruel to put her through even more trauma than he has already put our family through.
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