Know Your Rights

I was recently chagrined to read comments on another related blog by someone who is obviously going through a great deal of financial hardship due to her husband's end stage alcoholism and death. It is prompting me to expand my comments to her here. Depending on where you live and your employment and financial status, this may help you. This is certainly not certified advice from a professional - it is simply what I experienced when I went through this. A lot of this advice is very cold-hearted but these things must be said.

1. The minute you know that your spouse is going down the tubes you need to spring into financial action. Don't lie to yourself - you know full well that your spouse is not going to ever recover no matter how much you must wish and pray and now it is "every man and woman for him/herself" before the ship sinks. I "comforted" my guilt feelings about this by reminding myself that I was doing my darnedest to preserve a good life for my sons. You must do this too - do not let your alcoholic ruin your children's lives or your life. Yes - you DO deserve a good life after all the hell you have been through. So start circling the wagons and prepare for the future.

2. Once you have accepted the fate of your alcoholic immediately start laying aside financial reserves. You must get a checking account in your name only OR make sure that your existing joint checking account with your alcoholic is in your name with the alcoholic as only a co-signer. Because once they die, your assets will be frozen by the bank if it is a joint account and it is a big pain in the butt to have to open an account in the name of the estate executor. If money is going into the joint checking account, move as much as you can into your own bank account each month. Since by this time you are probably paying all the bills anyway because your alcoholic just can't be bothered, they will never notice. Just leave enough so they can have their "allowance" with their debit card and not feel any financial pinch. You start paying all the bills from your own checking account instead. Really - they will never know.

3. If you all don't have wills - get them! Make sure your alcoholic has a will. Make sure your alcoholic has a living will and/or "do or do not resusitate" order. Because more than likely your alcoholic will slip into a coma and you will have to make the decision whether or not to keep them on life support after considerable brain damage. Make sure that you are clear on your alcoholic's wishes regarding organ donation because if your alcoholic is in a coma, those organ donor folks are going to come calling. A patient in a coma is their best chance of getting good organs. Hubby had both a living will and a "please donate everything possible" order so when the hospital staff came to me about both issues, they had a legal document telling them exactly what to do. And as for the organ donation - it will make YOU feel SO MUCH BETTER if they donate their organs! Because out of tragedy for you has come a miracle for someone else. Amazingly, Hubby's kidneys saved two lives. And his retinas gave eyesight to two folks who were blind and his cartilage assisted someone who needed surgery so they could walk. Every letter I got from the organ donation folks was like a little blessing - made me and my sons feel so much better. (by the way - have a "hospital bag" packed and ready to go - the bag should have the will, the living will and the organ directive in it; also already know what funeral home you want your alcoholic to go to. You MUST have answers to all these questions at the hospital and you will be so upset and grief-stricken that you will want those docs well in hand so you can give them to the right folks and just go and have a good cry in the bathroom).

4. Take out a big life insurance policy on your alcoholic and make sure that there is no "no pay if it is alcohol-related" clause. It must be "no fault life insurance." You are going to need that money and that is the money that your alcoholic would have made for you had he or she not been a victim of this terrible disease and thus could not make it. Dying from alcoholism is like dying from incurable cancer - they are diseases. At the very least, make sure that you get one of those little $5000 policies that are usually for burials etc. They will go far in alleviating considerable death expenses you will incur. Those little policies usually come free of charge from your employer or your bank or your credit cards. Check on that. Also - get a mortgage insurance policy if you own a home that pays for the home outright in the case of the death of a spouse if your spouse is the alcoholic in your life. Remember that life insurance benefits are not taxable income.

5. You probably don't owe as much money to creditors as you think you do. A lot of it depends on how your family finances are set up and also on the community property laws in your state. In the case of a death of a spouse, community property laws can help you. It means that they cannot come rushing in and take your house for example. It also means that you may not have to pay all of any credit card bills that were run up. If a credit card was in your alcoholic's name, you are usually not responsible for any of it (depending on the law and if your bank wants to be jerks - I was fortunate that Hubby's bank did not want to be jerks. Be careful though - make sure that they do not do the debt forgiveness as a "charge off" - get a letter from them officially stating that the debt is forgiven. Because it may show up as a charge off in your alcoholic's credit record which could hurt if you are applying for a mortgage in the future.)

At the very least, you would only be responsible for 50 percent of an alcoholic's credit card bill because community property means everything is split 50/50 even debt. You may even be able to negotiate with your bank on how much you owe on your mortgage. A good estate attorney will help you with all of this - they know the law.

Then you get an estate attorney (see wills above). If your alcoholic died with a ton of medical bills like mine did, all those hospitals are going to come gunning for you for their payments. Well, the estate attorney and you (or whoever is the executor of the will - probably YOU) make an inventory of your alcoholic's estate. YOUR HOUSE IS NOT PART OF YOUR ALCOHOLIC'S ESTATE!!!! It CANNOT be used to fulfill estate credit obligations! Neither can CARS!!!!!! If your alcoholic is like mine and died without a job or income - basically penniless - their estate is only their personal property that can be sold for a significant price. In the case of Hubby - the only thing he had of value that was his alone and not turned over to me as community property right of survivorship - was his gun collection. I had to have those appraised and then turn in that value as his "estate." Then the guns were sold and that pot of money was all the money that the creditors (hospitals) could claim against. It ended up that Hubby owed about $20,000 worth of med bills but his "estate" was only worth $3,000. So the estate attorney then writes a letter to each creditor and states, "This is your claim; this is how much the estate was and this is how much we are going to pay you. You have 4 months to protest." Now, sometimes they do protest and they could sue you technically, but seriously, they won't. Hospitals have this stuff happen to them all the time because people die in them all the time. They take huge losses on their bills - that is one reason why medical bills are so high. They have to recoup those losses from the living. That is why credit card interest rates are so high - they have to pay for all the "deadbeats" (in the case of Hubby - literally DEAD beat...). That is why credit card debt is called "unsecured debt."

Please don't fool yourself that things will get better and thus you do not prepare financially for life without your alcoholic especially if that alcoholic is your spouse. Sadly, though there are all sorts of happy endings, you will know at some point whether yours is NOT going to be one of those happy endings. And then you must protect yourself. Yes - it is cold-hearted in some ways; yes - it is calculating in some ways; but remember, the alcoholic no longer cares about you (they simply cannot ... it is a symptom and effect of their illness); they only care about alcohol. YOU must care about you (and mitigate the financial fallout for any other survivors like your kids).

Grace and Peace.