Tough Love Sucks

As I write this, my boyfriend is at his sister's house sleeping off what amounts to a five day drunk.  When I came home from being in another town in the ICU with my dad, I walked into a house where there was electricity in only half of the house.  Owen and the dog had been playing, the dog knocked Owen over and he (Owen) fell, hitting the light socket on the way down.  Hannah, my oldest, said there were sparks and a terrible smell and then the power on that side of the house went out.  All through this, Steve was drunk on my couch.  He was, apparently, drinking all weekend, even going so far as to have two of my children blow into his Intelock device so he could drive to the store to get more beer.  Twice.  Every single dish in the house was stacked up on the counter, old food stuck to them.  There was shit everywhere, the house was totally trashed.  Owen was in just a diaper, absolutely filthy; not just filthy in the way that all 18 month old kids get, but filthy and smelly in the sense that he hadn't been bathed since Friday night, when my kids stayed with my friend.  There are, for all of us, feelings of guilt-I feel like I should have known the few times I talked to him that he was drinking, but I didn't pick up on it.  Jackie feels like she should have gone over to check on them and get the kids.  Heather, his sister, said that she had a feeling that she should come to my house but ignored it.  So we all feel like shit about it, because Hannah is just barely 15 and was in the position not only of having to babysit and care for her brothers but worry about Steve as well.  SHE has guilt, too, because she should have called someone but was too afraid to.  However, we can all feel as guilty as we need to, but the only one who is responsible is Steve, plain and simple.  I made him get up and took him home, and he has been drunk since.

Last night, I went to his house and  told him that if he doesn't get help, I am done.  Not only am I no longer willing to be part of his life, but I will not allow his son to be as long as he is drinking.  After the weekend, I now have legitimate grounds to pursue full legal and physical custody of Owen, and I will not allow Steve to see him as long as he is not sober.  I will also call his probation officer and report him, as well as testify against him if the need arises.  He was turned in three weeks ago and his probation officer made him come in and do a urine test, but he never called Steve back in; I don't know if he was is just giving Steve enough rope with which to hang himself or what, but I will call and tell the PO what occured at my house over the weekend.  I will be a support person for him and help him as much as I can provided he gets help.  If he chooses NOT to, then I will no longer be available for him, on any level.

His sister is really struggling with this; his family has tried to help him in so many ways over the years, but what they have been doing is making it easy for Steve to keep drinking.  They have done this by bailing him out of jail, paying for his attorneys, providing a place for him to live.  They have also searched his home and poured out his alcohol, they have encouraged him to blame everyone save himself (including me and Owen, his job, etc...).  His mother will go over and make sure he has food in his housel she still sends a lunch to work with him every day, helps him pay his bills, and all of that is extremely harmful to an alcoholic.  However, when I talked to Heather yesterday and this morning, I think she finally gets it; I think she finally understand that the things they have been doing in order to help him haven't worked, and is ready to try something else.  If he doesn't get help, he is going to die, plain and simple.

Tonight we are meeting at her house to talk to him, to make sure he fully understands what will happen in terms of his relationships with each one of us.  We will tell him those things we are willing to do in order to help him, and we will also tell him the things we are no longer willing to do.  The idea, as I am sure you all know, is to let him know that we love him and don't want to see him live and die this way, but that we can no longer sit back and be part of it.  For me, well, I have been through this before with my ex-husband; not an intervention of sorts, but living with an active addict and alcoholic; I know well the damage it has done to me, to my children, and when I walked into my own home on Sunday, I had an instant flashback to what my life used to be like, and where it will go if I continue to sit back and be part of it.  I think I wrote, several times, about how I would instinctively know when the time was right, and today is the day.  I can hope and pray that his family will follow throughl I can hope and pray that he is in a position tonight to be willing to hear, and I can also hope and pray that his family doesn't, at the last minute, lose their strength.  We love him; all of us do, and I well know that there is help there whould he take it.  But I don't think he will, to be honest; I think that he hasn't gone low enough yet.  It takes what it takes, and I don't know if this will help any.  However, what we have been doing hasn't helped either, and we each have to come to our own place of being willing to let him go if we can't help him.  Nobody wants to see it, but they are his consequences, not ours.

Kepp us in your thoughts today; for those of us who love him to be able to be firm and follow through, for him to be willing.