[sak9645]

There are so many components to the international adoption process, that you have to leap over a lot of hurdles, not just one, in order to get approval when there are issues in your background.

First off, you need to get homestudy approval. Alcoholism is generally a big barrier to approval, since homestudy social workers know that alcoholics do not make very good parents. Still, some homestudy providers are more liberal than others about the issue. In the case of your friend's husband, since all of the DUIs were more than ten years ago, and your husband has been sober for 15 years, it is quite possible that he could be approved on an international homestudy by some, though not all, social workers.

You also need USCIS approval, and I've got to tell you that the USCIS is really, really picky about two things -- criminal records and substance abuse. The homestudy report will need to give lots of information about the DUIs, the alcohol abuse, the period of sobriety, and so on in order to satisfy the USCIS that your friend's husband will be OK to adopt. That being said, some people HAVE been approved with ten or more years of sobriety, but a lot will depend on how the DUIs and the alcohol abuse are presented. There are no hard and fast rules.

Third, you need to get a placement agency to accept you. A lot of placement agencies are very picky in accepting clients. They don't want their clients' dossiers to be rejected. They also don't want the foreign country to take away their permission to place children, on the grounds that they are submitting dossiers of unqualified families. When there's doubt, they say no. Of course, there ARE agencies that are more willing to look at individual circumstances, and to try to advocate for families that seem qualified despite some "negative" material, and it's possible that your friend can find one.

And, finally, some countries are more liberal than others in looking at issues such as a history of alcohol abuse and minor criminal offenses, such as DUIs. China is not going to accept your friend's husband, and Russia probably won't either; possibly because alcoholism is such a huge social problem in Russia, the courts look with extreme disfavor on prospective parents with a history of alcohol issues. It is "possible" that your friend can find a country that is willing to work with a person who has been in recovery from substance abuse for about 15 years and who has not had any other criminal offenses.

In short, your friend and her husband will need to convince an awful lot of authorities that they are qualified to adopt. It is not totally impossible that they will succeed, but there are no guarantees, either.

Sharon