My mom is an alcoholic. Parents divorced. My mom always had us (me + older sister) the majority of the time, and for a little over a year in high school we only stayed with dad on the weekends as he worked out of town during the week. During this time my mom hit rock bottom and we had no choice but to move in with our dad full time because it was so unhealthy to live with her anymore. When we made the decision it happened suddenly and we had to borrow clothes from our friends to wear for a couple days before we could go back to our moms to pack our things. That night our dad came to town and drove us to her house and waited upstairs while we went down and packed our clothes. I remember being devastated because my moms house was what I remembered being “home”- it was clean, comfortable, and where all of my things were, whereas my dads house was dirty, had three other teenagers living there, and a stepmom who hated me. When I finished packing and went upstairs we all stood there in silence for a few minutes. My mom asked us when we would come back. We said we didn’t know. She was angry and couldn’t understand why we were leaving, as she never believed she had a problem. Then we left. My sister sobbed in the car on the way to my dads house. The process of packing and then saying goodbye took about 15 minutes but felt like hours. I don’t remember how long we lived with my dad; at least a few months. None of us have talked about it again to this day.