Divorce Support Forums: custody modification/drug abuse

Hi,
I have had joint custody with my daughter's dad since mid 2002. We had joint legal and physical with time split about 50/50. In the last two years he has had a bad problem with drugs...in 2006 he became addicted to oxycontin, among other things, but that was his main addiction. I was not aware the he was on this until he told me himself and voluntarily sent himself to rehab. I thought it was a good thing that he took it upon himself to get help. He went into rehab for a few months and when he came out he was doing great...looked healthy, almost like a different person. When he first came out he stayed with a family friend, and then he came to stay with me temporarily because we were going to help each other out financially until he could find a new apartment. Well it sounded good in theory, but he ended up back on drugs (pills, weed, coke, who knows what else). I suspected it for a few reasons but needed to find some kind of proof, so I cleaned the room he slept in (my living room) and found dozens or more of empty drug bags :o Right on the couch our daughter plays on and watches TV on (thank god they didn't have the actual drugs in them!). So the next day I made him leave and went to file for sole custody and requested that he take a drug test.

So we went to court last month. The way the judge worked it was she heard both sides, denied my request for sole, but only pending the results of his drug test. She would reconsider my motion if he failed. Well, he DID fail. So we were rescheduled to go back to court, which is in two days.

I know it is hard to get sole custody, but I at least want to have full physical with his visitations restricted and supervised, until he can go through some kind of drug counseling for a certain amount of time. I am concerned that if she is with only him by himself, he could 1) have drugs on him and get arrested with her there, which would not be a good experience for her; 2) he apparently is on more than one drug considering the bags I found, and I'm sure his drug test shows what he has been on - who knows if he could OD in her presence or pass out, etc.? 3) it affects his parenting and ability to provide care....the list really goes on I guess.

I am just curious of anyone's insight on how a judge might rule on this. She knows he has already been in rehab before, he admitted it in court. So it's not like he just went out one or two times with his friends on his own time and was using them 'recreationally' (not that it's really any better). I would like to hear of anyone's knowledge or experiences regarding a situation like this. I really do think it is best that I have sole custody while he gets some kind of treatment (again) and passes so many drug tests, then later we'd work on more visitation, etc. I would be ok with it though if the judge insisted on keeping joint legal and just restricting his visitation and making it supervised. As long as she is with me physically for the majority of the time she would be safe and not subjected to that environment.

Also, do you think if I allowed one overnight SUPERVISED visitation (with his mom present, who I trust on this issue) the judge would think that was too liberal? I was thinking of it but have not decided yet. Another question is - say I let our daughter go sleepover her Grandmother's for a night (his mom). Is her dad allowed to visit her there on his own time, or would that go against the order?

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