We alert you today to a father caring for his five children due to his wife’s devastating addiction to alcohol. If you have read our Need Alerts in the past, you know that I try to keep to the facts and typically do not elaborate. We trust that you read between the lines and understand we are giving facts, but there is always much more to the story. Typically, unfortunate events surround the needs. Today, I feel it is essential to provide more backstory details as we address this need.

The couple has been separated for two years while living in the same home in separate rooms. This past Valentine’s Day, the husband returned home from work to discover his wife home with the children, intoxicated and unconscious. She was rushed to the hospital, where doctors induced her into a coma to save her life. She remained in a coma for six weeks. When she awoke in April, she had to relearn the basic functions of her daily life. Over the next few months, she relapsed several times. The husband sent her to a 30-day rehab program. He learned that she had met another man in the rehabilitation program when she returned home and asked him for a divorce. He agreed, and they began that process. He wanted her to have access to their children, so he agreed to a 50/50 time agreement. He would work daily as he always had but stay with a close friend half the days so that she could be with the children. One evening after work, while he was staying with his friend, he received a call from his neighbor. His wife had crashed her car into their home and stumbled to the front door. She physically abused and injured two of her children as they tried to intervene. The police came, and she maxed out the breathalyzer. She was charged, but police advised him to allow her to sleep at that home and that they could not take her to jail in that shape. He, again, doing the best he could for the family, agreed. They went to court in late September, and he was awarded 100% custody, and she is allowed to have supervised visits if she passes a breathalizer first. She has not visited the children since.

Thank you for taking the time to read these sad details, but I feel they give you the best picture of the man the father is and how hard he has worked to hold things together this year. Please pray for him and the children. Please also pray for the mother to be healed of her addiction before it takes her life.

As you can imagine, all this turmoil has come with tremendous financial pressure. His monthly bills total $3,800. He has done all he can to keep bills current but needs help. We want to provide him with two months of bills (Nov and Dec = $7,600) to allow him space to build some financial margin back into his life as he recovers from the turmoil and adjusts to caring for the children independently.

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