My family is encouraging my brother's alcohol abuse

[bleedingheart]

Yesterday was the last straw for me and I am not sure what to do.

My brother has an addictive personality and he has suffered from depression for many years. To make a long story short...

- In college as he came to terms with his homosexuality, he tried to kill himself....not realizing we preferred a live gay brother to a dead one..

- Again in college as a result of trying to find himself he tried again to kill himself and he was committed against his will to a mental hospital.

- He got into therapy, moved home with mom, finished college and seemed to do better with the anti-depressants.

- Then he bought a home, got involved with a fellow he had known for years...and they were together for seven years...

- About a year ago, his companion told him that he was cheating on him and he moved out...my brother was devastated...

Since the breakup with "Joe" he has been living on the edge...very much on the edge. I am sincerely worried and yesterday he showed up at a family wedding with my sister and he was drunk.

I hate to say this but it is almost like my sister is treating him like her own personal court jester...he is a lively guy when drunk and she finds him so entertaining...but I find it really sad. This is not the first time either...almost every time he is around my family, my sister, cousins...anyone...they encourage him to drink like a fish...

So my mom and I sat there feeling sad about it but not knowing what to do since my brother has harbored resentment towards my mom and me for many years..(mostly because I was the one who kept him locked in the mental hospital until he agreed to be treated instead of fighting it)...

[Bossy Monkey]

1. I also committed a brother. Do your best, know you did your best,

and give yourself a break. Know that your best is all you can do.

[bleedingheart]

4. I am getting ready to go out and garden to release some of the stress

my hubby and I are both worried about him...it is just upsetting...

[lateo]

2. Alcohol is very dangerous...

In my later years I have discovered the devastating effect that alcohol has on the body...both physically and mentally.

Has your brother thought of joining a program to get control of the drinking?

Me personally, I found Buddhism helped me understand my addiction problems.

[bleedingheart]

3. At this point he is still on his "high"...he is the life of the party

so he is so far from coming to terms with the fact that he is just depressed about the loss of his relationship with his partner....so he is living large, partying with his friends, and being the funny drunk...

I just briefly brought it up and he said I was jealous that he was enjoying his life...

When he ends up in a coma like Prince Ernst ...then everyone will say.."how did it happen"..

[bertha katzenengel]

5. BH

All I can do is give you :hug::hug::hug::hug:. I know you love your brother. Just make sure he knows it, too. :hug: I'm sorry.

[shesemsmom]

6. Alcohol and anti depressants dont mix.

Maybe you should call his doctor and see about another commitment. He sounds like he's back on the track to disaster

[sportndandy]

7. You sound like the one who needs help.

Try minding your own business. I would never ever ever ever forgive someone who put me away against my will.

Why do you feel so compelled to mess with your brother? Sounds like he is having a tough life. Let him find his own way, be their if he needs you. Tell him you love him as he is, and however he wants to be. And then mind your own business.

[lateo]

8. Interesting thought....

You sound rather angry though when you talk about this subject. However, I disagree with you...families in general rarely mind their own business... And when you have someone you love that makes it even more difficult. Imagine the guilt that would come if you minded your business and the loved one self-destructed...

Of course, a person who is self-destructive will rarely listen to someone who loves them so...it is an unenviable situation. For my peace of mind I would at least like to know that I tried to help.

[bleedingheart]

12. Since you feel like judging me, let me give you some more detail

wanna know why I had him committed against his will...

While we were both in college my brother, who was attending a neighboring school, decided to go on a drinking and drug binge...he was so absolutely out of his mind that he ended up tripping out and getting a head injury...his "friends" dropped him off at a local hospital and then ran away where he then proceeded to try and kill himself in the Emergency Room.

The doctors in the ER committed him against his will, he was put in a straight jacket, they took care of his concussion and he was shipped to a mental hospital.

For three days he wouldn't tell him his name...he didn't want anyone to know...

He then called my older sibling..the one that thinks he is such a cute drunk... and she didn't do shit...

But there was a committment hearing and no one in the family wanted to go because they were either to depressed or disgusted with him...SO...ME...the one that should mind her own business went.

I went to the impromptu courtroom in the mental hospital and found my brother in a catatonic state...and the court appointed attorney he had wanted him to be released....but to WHO????? My mother wasn't ready to deal with it...my sister didn't want him...and I was a poor college student...

So I had his committment extended until he responded to therapy...and when they released him a month later he was in better shape than he was that day...and he was put on the anti-depressants and then given continuing therapy....

So I guess I should have let him out and let him wander about...until he killed himself????

[koopie57]

9. maybe there is interest in a forum here

either for those who want support to stop drinking or those who need support dealing with an addicted family member.

[readmylips]

10. You're a great brother....

You took charge of his life when he needed it, even if he hates you now. That's what real families with love do. I think that he hates himself more than hating you and your Mom.

We can only do so much without the other person becoming our ball and chain. I'm sure you'll know when to cut him lose. He needs to hit bottom before he can rise again on his own.

I hurt for your Mom. We suffer so much when we see our children hurt themselves and there's not much you can do. We went through a little drama like this in my family. I took charge of my mother and protected her from all the insane doings of my brother. I did not allow him to call her. Burned his whining letters when he wrote her. My Mom was old and she didn't need to suffer for restless behavior my brother indulged in. I made my Mom's surroundings happy. Every night she prayed for him and cried her eyes out. When she died and he came to the funeral, he was still the same sick selfish-self destructive jerk. We had to take him by the arm and throw him out. Later we learned that he had drained my mother's little savings account.

He died a cruel death and alone.

[MollyStark]

11. No one is responsible for his drinking but him.

Your sister doesn't cause it and she can't stop it. You have to realize you can't stop it either.
This is not your sisters fault and if you aren't willing to let him sink or swim how can you expect her to let him go either? She is accepting him as he is.
You love your brother, let him know that. But if he is working and living on his own it really is none of your business.

[Joe Chi Minh]

13. You know you're

ploughing the hardest furrow, out of love of your brother, bleedingheart, so don't listen to your critics in this matter. Even if they believed that what you are doing is both right and courageous, I wonder if, in your shoes, they would do as much. Rightly or wrongly, I suspect they may have addictive problems, themselves, so sympathise with your brother from a position of similar mutual anguish and frsutration. Though maybe not.

If it's alcohol, they may be just heavy drinkers, and if most of your your family are too, they may be what I believe experts in this field call "co-alcoholics". People close to the alcoholic, who, despite sometimes angry and/or self-pitying criticism of the person concerned, are actually pleased when they succumb, as it gives them power over them.

I knew a person in that particular circumstance. One of her brothers was an alcoholic, the other brother and her mother heavy drinkers. Her mother, while she lived, was a tremendous problem. When my friend succumbed to drink, she was the first to "drop" her, and indeed would bitterly, bitterly complain about her. Yet such a shocking co-alcoholic was she, that she even said to her on occasions, "There's nothing worse than a reformed alcoholic!" I mean that beggars belief, and had I not known her, I would have thought that it cried to Heaven for vengeance.

But there were many other ways in which she dragged her down. One such was that she used to phone her every evening giving her the latest news of who in her family was in good odour with her and who was the new devil's spawn, so to speak, and complaining bitterly about them; continually setting the other members of the family against each other. The relationship between mother and daughter was described with extraordinary accuracy in a play of Terence Rattigan, called "Separate Tables". (Her behaviour was the main reason, I think, why the rest of the family had taken to drink).

This was particularly upsetting for my friend as she loved all her family unconditionally, and does so still, even after being cheated out of her small inheritance.

But she attracted other people to her who were also heavy drinkers, and who also had no qualms about dragging her down with them, and it used to make me quite bitter. Then recently, I realised that she had such an angelic nature that some of them probably saught her company because she, in sense, would have validated them in their own eyes, increased their own self-esteem. "If such a sweet person can fall down in such a way, maybe I'm not necessarily so guilty and bad". Others were just sociopaths.

You're taking on a heavy cross, bleedingheart, but that's what a deep and genuine love is about. Love in spite of winning nothing but anger and rejection in return. If you reflect on the Gospels, you'll know what I mean.