How do you divorce an alcoholic wife?

[Anonymous]

OP, imo your question starts from the wrong place. Your brother wants to get away from living in this hell, and wants the kids away from it, too. So perhaps he can make that happen without involving a judge.

Can he have his wife move nearby? Can he and the kids move nearby? Maybe move out into a house, nearby, then have the kids over and have that get into the kids always being with him, or supervised with him when they are with the DW? (like they all come home for the weekend or something?)

[Anonymous]

Addiction = divorce. She has torn-up her parent & spouse card. He owes her nothing. I do understand his concern for oversight. That's a practical, serious concern. He should be talking to lawyers. He can be doing that without making a decision yet.

[Anonymous]

I am married to an alcoholic who has been in and out of rehab, multiple relapses, and hospitalizations. I feel your brother’s pain. A few things, some mentioned by others:

Re meds: she should look for a psychopharmacologist with a sub specialty in addiction disorders. DH has been sober for a year now, after relapsing 24 hours after coming out of inpatient rehab, and I attribute it to this dr. 12-step programs are terrible at dealing with mental health/dual diagnosis, so he came out and his anxiety hit him like a ton of bricks. The specialist started with heavy meds to deal with depression and anxiety as well as cravings, and gave him vivitrol to boot. It wasnt ideal, he was a bit dopey, but we’ve tweaked and ratcheted it back over the year and it was definitely better given his relapse history to go at it hard with meds.

Re AA: PPs are right, tons of atheists in AA, and some meetings are more religious than others. Sounds like she is making excuses. Smart Recovery is also an option, but either way, she needs a regular program and people to keep her accountable.

Assuming she is trying to get sober, your brother should see a lawyer and get a post nuptial agreement with her. He can basically ask her to commit, as a condition of him staying with her for the time being, to certain protections for the kids in the event they separate (things like using an intoxilock ignition kill switch on her car, sending breathalyzers before seeing the kids, etc). A lawyer with experience with addiction can help him. Courts are likely to give her partial custody, but if he gets her to agree now to these conditions, the courts will enforce them.

Most of all, he’s not alone. It’s hell. Best of luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Addiction = divorce. She has torn-up her parent & spouse card. He owes her nothing. I do understand his concern for oversight. That's a practical, serious concern. He should be talking to lawyers. He can be doing that without making a decision yet.

For better or for worse?

Addiction is a disease, you bitter harpy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Addiction = divorce. She has torn-up her parent & spouse card. He owes her nothing. I do understand his concern for oversight. That's a practical, serious concern. He should be talking to lawyers. He can be doing that without making a decision yet.

For better or for worse?

Addiction is a disease, you bitter harpy.

Judgy much?

[Anonymous]

A disease to me is something that you are afflicted with -
Something that you cannot get rid of at all.

Cancer, diabetes, etc. are authentic diseases as one cannot escape them.

Alcoholism can be eradicated if someone makes the CHOICE to not walk into a 7-11 & physically make a purchase of anything that includes alcohol.

Since alcohol is synthetic -
How can a person be afflicted with a disease that consists of something not physiological but man made...??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell him to go to al-anon for support.

Statistically when it’s the husband who is the alcoholic, the wife toughs it out. When it’s the woman, she usually gets dumped.

Addiction is a disease that very hard to treat because the person who needs to acknowledge there’s a problem and wants to change. Even when they’ve come to this point, they may still relapse. That’s why going to meetings is part of the program and enforced rehab doesn’t usually work.

He’s been listening to their podcasts as not a free minute in his day to go to meetings. She is an atheist and says she hates the AA meetings and the people there because of religious spin so won’t go anymore.

He needs to have the grandparents watch the children so he can go to an Alanon meeting locally.

The kids are probably old enough for Alateen. He can check but in my town they start Alateen at age 10.

It sounds like she is choosing not to be in recovery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am married to an alcoholic who has been in and out of rehab, multiple relapses, and hospitalizations. I feel your brother’s pain. A few things, some mentioned by others:

Re meds: she should look for a psychopharmacologist with a sub specialty in addiction disorders. DH has been sober for a year now, after relapsing 24 hours after coming out of inpatient rehab, and I attribute it to this dr. 12-step programs are terrible at dealing with mental health/dual diagnosis, so he came out and his anxiety hit him like a ton of bricks. The specialist started with heavy meds to deal with depression and anxiety as well as cravings, and gave him vivitrol to boot. It wasnt ideal, he was a bit dopey, but we’ve tweaked and ratcheted it back over the year and it was definitely better given his relapse history to go at it hard with meds.

Re AA: PPs are right, tons of atheists in AA, and some meetings are more religious than others. Sounds like she is making excuses. Smart Recovery is also an option, but either way, she needs a regular program and people to keep her accountable.

Assuming she is trying to get sober, your brother should see a lawyer and get a post nuptial agreement with her. He can basically ask her to commit, as a condition of him staying with her for the time being, to certain protections for the kids in the event they separate (things like using an intoxilock ignition kill switch on her car, sending breathalyzers before seeing the kids, etc). A lawyer with experience with addiction can help him. Courts are likely to give her partial custody, but if he gets her to agree now to these conditions, the courts will enforce them.

Most of all, he’s not alone. It’s hell. Best of luck.

Your brother needs to consult a divorce lawyer that is experienced with alcoholism. He can require breathalyzers and interlock as a condition of his
ex wife seeing the kids.

It sounds like the alcoholism is pretty advanced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Addiction = divorce. She has torn-up her parent & spouse card. He owes her nothing. I do understand his concern for oversight. That's a practical, serious concern. He should be talking to lawyers. He can be doing that without making a decision yet.

People on this forum divorce over stupid reasons. Your brother has serious reasons to persue divorce. Addiction is one of the three "A"s that = divorce.
Addiction, Adultery and Abuse.

There is help out there for her if she wants it but she does not appear to want it.

It gets worse.

signed....child of an alcoholic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Addiction = divorce. She has torn-up her parent & spouse card. He owes her nothing. I do understand his concern for oversight. That's a practical, serious concern. He should be talking to lawyers. He can be doing that without making a decision yet.

For better or for worse?

Addiction is a disease, you bitter harpy.

Ignore this uneducated and nasty poster. IF the wife does not want to get treated for her disease there is nothing the spouse can do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell him to go to al-anon for support.

Statistically when it’s the husband who is the alcoholic, the wife toughs it out. When it’s the woman, she usually gets dumped.

Addiction is a disease that very hard to treat because the person who needs to acknowledge there’s a problem and wants to change. Even when they’ve come to this point, they may still relapse. That’s why going to meetings is part of the program and enforced rehab doesn’t usually work.

He’s been listening to their podcasts as not a free minute in his day to go to meetings. She is an atheist and says she hates the AA meetings and the people there because of religious spin so won’t go anymore.

This is really an excuse she is using to continue her addiction. AA is not religious. There are secular meetings out there and also Smart Recovery meetings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell him to go to al-anon for support.

Statistically when it’s the husband who is the alcoholic, the wife toughs it out. When it’s the woman, she usually gets dumped.

Addiction is a disease that very hard to treat because the person who needs to acknowledge there’s a problem and wants to change. Even when they’ve come to this point, they may still relapse. That’s why going to meetings is part of the program and enforced rehab doesn’t usually work.

He’s been listening to their podcasts as not a free minute in his day to go to meetings. She is an atheist and says she hates the AA meetings and the people there because of religious spin so won’t go anymore.

This is really an excuse she is using to continue her addiction. AA is not religious. There are secular meetings out there and also Smart Recovery meetings.

As an atheist, I must say, Al-Anon made me uncomfortable. AA is often religious. It takes some work to re-conceptualize it as non-religious and you can only do that for yourself, but if you are in a group others are often very religious. It was uncomfortable for me, an atheist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A disease to me is something that you are afflicted with -
Something that you cannot get rid of at all.

Cancer, diabetes, etc. are authentic diseases as one cannot escape them.

Alcoholism can be eradicated if someone makes the CHOICE to not walk into a 7-11 & physically make a purchase of anything that includes alcohol.

Since alcohol is synthetic -
How can a person be afflicted with a disease that consists of something not physiological but man made...??

It’s a mental illness like anorexia or depression.
I mean, it’s obviously heritable and it can/does cause organ damage and even death in people who have it. It’s pretty hard to argue that it isn’t an illness. And telling people with a mental illness that they should just act like they don’t have it is pretty terrible advice. They need treatment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am married to an alcoholic who has been in and out of rehab, multiple relapses, and hospitalizations. I feel your brother’s pain. A few things, some mentioned by others:

Re meds: she should look for a psychopharmacologist with a sub specialty in addiction disorders. DH has been sober for a year now, after relapsing 24 hours after coming out of inpatient rehab, and I attribute it to this dr. 12-step programs are terrible at dealing with mental health/dual diagnosis, so he came out and his anxiety hit him like a ton of bricks. The specialist started with heavy meds to deal with depression and anxiety as well as cravings, and gave him vivitrol to boot. It wasnt ideal, he was a bit dopey, but we’ve tweaked and ratcheted it back over the year and it was definitely better given his relapse history to go at it hard with meds.

Re AA: PPs are right, tons of atheists in AA, and some meetings are more religious than others. Sounds like she is making excuses. Smart Recovery is also an option, but either way, she needs a regular program and people to keep her accountable.

Assuming she is trying to get sober, your brother should see a lawyer and get a post nuptial agreement with her. He can basically ask her to commit, as a condition of him staying with her for the time being, to certain protections for the kids in the event they separate (things like using an intoxilock ignition kill switch on her car, sending breathalyzers before seeing the kids, etc). A lawyer with experience with addiction can help him. Courts are likely to give her partial custody, but if he gets her to agree now to these conditions, the courts will enforce them.

Most of all, he’s not alone. It’s hell. Best of luck.

Your brother needs to consult a divorce lawyer that is experienced with alcoholism. He can require breathalyzers and interlock as a condition of his
ex wife seeing the kids.

It sounds like the alcoholism is pretty advanced.

Yes she's not going to stop and he's wasting his time. Who wants to spend their time going to meetings especially if she keeps drinking.

All he can do is divorce and have supervised visitation. There's plenty of documentation showing she's not fit. The only other alternative is to give her a ultimatum. One more slip up and he files.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A disease to me is something that you are afflicted with -
Something that you cannot get rid of at all.

Cancer, diabetes, etc. are authentic diseases as one cannot escape them.

Alcoholism can be eradicated if someone makes the CHOICE to not walk into a 7-11 & physically make a purchase of anything that includes alcohol.

Since alcohol is synthetic -
How can a person be afflicted with a disease that consists of something not physiological but man made...??

+1

I agree. People get colds, they get the flu, they get cancer. You don't get alcoholic, you become alcoholic. Big difference.