Expert: Rebos - 10/17/2006

Question
Thanks for your response. My kids are older 21 and 26.  My 26 year old is the one who would help out with the kids. I feel she is grieving for the person/relationship they used to have.  She is angry at him. She is also concerned about the Christmas holiday coming up as she feels it will be a farce, everyone pretending all is ok. I am concerned about my 75 dad as this has caused him a lot of stress in his life.  I also believe that he has been giving him money which he can't afford to do as he is still working himself!  I do appreciate your words of comfort and wisdom.  
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I'm not sure how long my brother has been an alcoholic. Shortly after my brother's third marriage, the problem came to the surface.  He has two siblings; myself (oldest) and my sister (middle). My brother is 10-13 yrs younger than his sisters.  Our mother died 13 years ago and our 75 year old Dad is still living.  My brother has two step-children with his wife.  He has a son from his second marriage with whom he has no contact.  I love my brother and am worried sick about him.  He has been through an in-patient treatment program and had attended AA randomly. This past year he lost a job due to stealing from the company (he used the company credit card but he says he was going to pay it back) and recently had a car accident driving under the influence (thank God he was alone and didn't hit another person) and has lost his license to drive. I don't think he drinks while he's working but drinks on weekends.  I'm concerned about his wife and kids but don't know what to do. I'm not sure if his wife goes to any support meetings. His alcoholism has slowly been tearing our family apart. When he first started drinking, he would talk bad about our middle sister and her husband (he would say she was a wannabe therapist, giving him unwanted advice and that her husband was a know-it-all who tries to tell people what to do as his way is the only way). I'm sure that my husband and I have done something to him too but most recently, my Dad told me he said that I told him he was worthless, which I never have. A couple of months ago, he told Dad that he never spent enough time with him when he small, didn't show him how to do things, etc which hurt our Dad deeply and now he thinks he is partly the reason why our brother drinks. My daughter has always been close to my brother, has helped care for his step-kids, etc but the last year or so has slowly been pushed away. When he drinks, he talks about our Mother, saying he can't get over her death, etc.  This diseaseis tearing our family apart. My sister and I can't talk about the issue, as she has her opinion and I have mine. I'm too blunt about it. My Dad feels in the middle of it all, protecting my brother and trying not to upet the rest of us. My kids don't understand why he has shut them out of his life when he was so involved before. What can I do?  I feel like my brother is trying to kill himself. I love him so much but I don't know what to do for him. I'm just tired of all the blaming going on, which just takes the attention off him.  Thanks for listening

Answer -
Good morning Barb:

Thank you for your question. Yes, alcoholism is a terminal and deadly disease, and it is contagious to all of your brother’s friends, family and society as a whole. Not that it is catchy like the flu, but its effect on the family, friends and society is devastating.

First off; your alcoholic brother is trying to shift his unacceptable behavior and blame everyone else for his problems, and from your e-mail it appears as though he has succeeded in doing so! You have to realize that you are dealing with a mentally disturbed person, and as much as you would not go into a mental institution and ask one of the patients as to how you should act, feel, and decide your problems for the day (which you would not do), but that’s what you and your family are allowing your brother to do. One of the first things that you should do is to realize that you are totally and completely powerless over your brother’s drinking! The best place for you to learn and practice that is at Al-Anon meetings. I have to assume that you know what Al-Alanon is all about. However, please don’t just say that “I know, I know”, go to some meetings! You, your sister and your daughter (if she is over 16 or 17) should all go to Al-Anon. Your brother-in-law, the wannabe therapist, might also want to go to Al-Anon or keep his thoughts to himself! No one, especially a drunk wants to be told what to do. Your brother really envies his brother-in-law’s life and is the last one who should be giving him advice. Your brother is not the one who is tearing your family apart…you all are allowing HIM to tear the family apart! You all should be going to Al-Anon, the sick one is being allowed to run the family.

I hope that you have spoken to your kids and told them about the disease of alcoholism, and that their uncle is not a bad person, but a very sick person. That he is an addict and that his drinking has become more important to him than anything else. That’s what all addicts are like, and it is nothing personal toward them.

Unfortunately your brother did not stick with going to AA. From what you described in your question you brother set him self up for failure when he went to AA “randomly”. Recovery in AA is his only chance at getting well, but it will require an acceptance of his illness, and makes a commitment to doing something about it. God himself won't knock the drink out of a drunk’s hand if he wants to drink bad enough. It’s known as self will run riot. The addiction for him to drink is so strong that he will destroy himself to get his next drink. Again, “unfortunately” AA does not always work for those who need it, but always works for those who want it.  

Your pain will be determined by how much effort that you put into trying to control a situation that you have no control over. Your attempt to control this situation appears to have spread to your children. They must see how you are reacting to their uncle’s drinking and are handling it very poorly.

I hope that I have helped you in some way, and I would be interested in your progress. If you have any further questions feel free to contact me again. I would wish you good luck, but good luck will have nothing to do with the resolution of your problem. It will require a lot of hard work and discipline on your behalf. Thank you, Rebos.


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Good morning Barb:

There was no follow-up question in your e-mail. Please resend it again if you intended to do so. Thank you Rebos.

Answer
Good afternoon Barb:

Thank you for your follow-up question.

It is important for your daughter (and anyone else in your family) to not be angry at your brother. She should learn to hate the disease and not her uncle. The best place for all of you to go to (including your 75 year old father) is Alanon. It seems as though your father has become an “enabler”, (and I hope not you) and as long as your father or anyone else in your family supports his addiction to alcohol he will continue on drinking. You and your family have to learn that every time one of you lets him get away with his unacceptable behavior, or gives him money…you are in fact giving him permission to continue drinking! As for Christmas; it may be a good idea for you to have no alcohol at the festivties, that is, if you are going to be the hostess. If so and the subject arises with your brother you can tell him that there will be no liquor served in your house that day. You may hurt his feelings...but he has to be told the truth about how you and the family feel about his alcoholism.

If you don’t already know, it is generally believed, by many in the field of alcoholism, that it is a three-fold disease. Mental, Physical and Spiritual.

The “mental” part of the illness refers to the mental obsession to drink that precedes the first drink... a pre-occupation with thinking about drinking which is so powerful that the alcoholic must drink. The “physical” aspect of the disease is that once the first drink is downed a physical compulsion takes over in the form of a deep incessant craving that the alcoholic must continue to drink until some outside incident stops them or they pass out. The “spiritual” part of the illness (not spiritual in a religious way) is in the loss of an alcoholic’s values, and a willingness to settle for less and less as the drinking continues. It becomes difficult for the alcoholic to determine the difference between right and wrong or good and bad. The alcoholic develops a change in priorities where drinking becomes more important than health, family, job and friends.

Stopping drinking is not a matter of willpower. Alcoholism is a disease. Drinking alcoholically is but a symptom of a deeper underlying problem that must be faced up to in order for an alcoholic to recover. Without learning what that problem is, trying to stay away from a drink is known as “white knuckle sobriety”. It isn’t very long before the alcoholic has to drink again. FOR THE ALCOHOLIC THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CUTTING DOWN, drinking only on weekends, changing what they drink, smoking pot or taking other mind altering drugs or even switching to “near beer” with 0.05% alcohol. For the 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 is dealing with an addicted person.

Unfortunately, all alcoholics must hit their own bottom before they do anything about stopping. I am sorry to say that hitting a bottom for some many may mean going as low as a person can go...plus six feet! No one can scare an alcoholic into stopping drinking. Threatening, begging and even putting him away against his wishes will not get him to stop doing what he has not made up his own mind to do. Don’t think that he does not want to stop drinking. He can’t stop when left to his own devices. Also, don’t be lulled into thinking that he will stop drinking just because he says that he will. It’s not that he will purposely lie to you… but he will lie to himself because down deep he is afraid to stop. Alcoholism is powerful, cunning, baffling and insidious. Rarely have I seen an alcoholic stop drinking on willpower alone. The disease is too powerful.

Unfortunately, short of having an intervention, there is little that you can do to stop your brother’s spiral downward. If you decide to have an intervention just make sure that you hire a professional who has had lots of experience in dealing with alcoholic interventions. They don't always work. Never the less, it is very important for you and all members of your immediate family to attend Alanon meetings. I wish there was an easy way to have your brother stop drinking, but there isn’t. I wish you and your family the very best, and hope that your brother has that “moment of truth” to want to get well. I would be interested in hearing from you again on your progress. Thank you, Rebos