Alcohol - a Bier for Contact?

Ian Waite, Family Court Advisor and Community Mental Health Practitioner. A matter recently before a county court involved an applicant father who had had no contact with his two young children for some 2 years. The applicant father had a significant problem with alcohol addiction and could binge drink for periods lasting a number of weeks. He was, however, able to sustain lengthy periods of sobriety. The decision was taken to require the father to remain sober for a period of approximately a year before consideration would be given to the inception of any direct contact. The article explores the impact a parent's alcoholic dependency can have on a child. Ian Waite comments that pragmatism would allow sufficient flexibility in the arrangements to sustain a meaningful contact schedule for the children and parties, simply by exploiting the times of stability. See November [2005] Fam Law 902 for the full article.

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