How to deal with alcoholic father calling/visiting?

My dad is an alcoholic. Once he starts drinking, it's hard for him to stop. And when he gets drunk, he gets loud and starts rambling. I've seen him get violent on the rare occasion. He's tried to quit a number of times without success. In the past year or two, he's done well drinking out - only ordering 2 beers and calling it a day. It's when he's home that he can't control himself.

He visited us this last weekend. We hid the beers, but he asked for something to help him sleep. In hindsight, we shouldn't have agreed to that. But I'd seen him control himself and wanted to him the chance. When he got up for his third drink, I reminded him he was at his limit. He agreed but later got up for a forth. He was into his loud rambling stage, and I asked him to stop. He said this would be his last one. Then he got up for his fifth. When my husband and I both insisted he was not going to have that glass, he got angry. He insisted he never wanted to see or hear from either of us ever again. He went to the guest room and gathered all his things. When he went out to the car, I told him I'd call the cops if he left. That pissed him off but got him to come back inside. He insisted he was leaving first thing the morning and went to bed.

In the morning, he apologized and agreed not to drink while he was with us. In the future I think we'll just box up all the alcohol. He's not going to be happy knowing we put it away because of him, but I'm not going through that again.

His own home is another story. I've always thought if he got drunk while I was visiting him, I'd pack up my stuff and leave. And I don't think I'd come back the morning after. Sometimes I think that's too harsh. Other times, I think there needs to be some consequences to his actions. He can't just wake up the morning after and think an apology is enough to sweep it all under the rug. My mom put up with him until the day she died, and I swore I wouldn't.

Phone calls can be the worst. I try not to call or pick up the phone from him late in the evening. When I do hear him drinking on the other end, I'm not good about ending the conversation. Once I asked him out right if he was drinking, and he said it was a coke. But I can always tell when he's had alcohol because he gets loud and rambly. I usually just set the phone to the side and let him continue. I don't want to piss him off by hanging up, but I'm really getting tired of it.

When I was I kid, I believed he blacked out when he got drunk. Lately, I've been thinking he remembers all of it but prefers to pretend like nothing happened.

Advice/viewpoints on how to handle the situation would be appreciated.