Expert: Rebos - 11/11/2006

Question
"Hello
I am dealing with an alcoholic brother who is in deep trouble.  He is 45 and and has been in and out of trouble for years.  No matter how many times we tell him we are done he get's in trouble and calls and calls in the middle of the night, ranting and raving, etc.  I thought I was done until this past week.
We received a call that he was in a hit and run and now has 2 broken legs/a wired jaw and of course no resources.  He won't accept that he is indigent and I know in my heart we can't help him and I admit I am scared to help him, but at the same time my heart is breaking as he is going into a homeless shelter in a wheel chair. I have been calling to get him into rehab but totally agree without him taking the first step I am probalby throwing my money out the window. I don't feel ok turning my back on him, yet with his violent temper, any lack of humility, etc I am not sure I can help him.  Any suggestions.  When do you truly stop enabling him and help, I know he is feeling sooo alone.


Answer
Good morning K:

Thank you for your question. I understand what you are going thru in your present situation with your brother.

However there is an answer to your problem, but you will have to do some work on yourself to achieve any peace of mind, (without any guilt). First off; you have to accept the fact that you are totally powerless over your brother’s addiction to alcohol. He is an alcoholic and there is little that you can do to get him do seek help for it. I know the frustration that you are experiencing with trying to control what you can’t control. The more that you get involved with trying to control anything to do with your brother’s life (even if you don’t want to) the more your frustrated and anxious you will become. You are faced with a “no win” situation. Although you may have thought, during all these years that you were getting him out of jams and thinking that you were doing your brother a favor, you were really just delaying him to hit his bottom. As you can now see a bottom can be as low as an alcoholic can go…plus 6 feet! By you continually accepting his unacceptable behavior you have been, in a way, giving him permission to continue drinking! For your well being I would recommend that you go to Alanon. (If you need any information on getting in touch with Alanon, let me know). You may not be able to do anything about your brother’s drinking but you can do something about the problem that has developed in your life by having an alcoholic in it. At Alanon you will find out what you can do to help him by first learning to help yourself, and learn how to detach yourself from him …with love. Until you are armed with the right kind of information and knowledge of the disease, your efforts to help him will be for nothing. Alcoholism is deadly and it destroys everything and everyone who comes into contact with it. Your brother should never be rewarded for his irresponsible actions. He must be held responsible for them. Your brother knows that he will get a free ride from you because you will never make him pay the price for his actions! HE REALLY THINKS THAT HE HAS NOTHING TO LOSE BY CONTINUING TO DRINK! You can be sure that if he does nothing about his drinking that “your life” will get worse as time goes by.

Stopping drinking is not a matter of willpower. Although alcoholism is a disease it is self inflicted. There is a way out from his active alcoholism if he is capable of being honest about what alcohol is doing to him. He has to reach the point of being sick and tired of being sick and tired. Drinking alcoholically is but a symptom of a deeper underlying problem that your brother must face up to in order for him to recover. Without him learning what that problem is, trying to stay away from a drink is known as “white knuckle sobriety”. It isn’t very long before he will have to drink again. FOR THE ALCOHOLIC THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CUTTING DOWN, drinking only on weekends, changing what they drink, or even switching to “near beer” with 0.05% alcohol. For an alcoholic nothing will work short of total and complete abstinence from any thing that contains alcohol or other mind-altering substances (drugs). Of course the exception is a medical doctor’s prescription as long as the doctor understands that he/she is dealing with an addicted person. As long as you are willing to accept his phone calls and as long as you stay willing to pay his medical bills…it is obvious as to why he refuses to claim to be indigent! You only have YOU to blame for your present situation.

If you don’t stop your enabling him “now”, or when he recovers from his injuries or when he’s released (possibly) from jail, … you can be sure that he will come to you crying that he needs more money to pay off his lawyer’s and paying for damages caused in the hit and run. He may also lose his right to drive and if you are prepared to be his chauffer and/or have him as a permanent house guest…it will become harder to refuse him help as time goes by, because if you think he is bad off now you haven’t seen anything yet. Alcoholism never gets better it always gets worse.

I can’t make any decision for you, after all he’s your blood, and yes it will hurt to do what you have to do to save his life. The question boils down to “what are you willing to do to save his life”? I hope that I have helped you by my response, thank you Rebos