The material presented
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I'm new here and new to any addiction board. I'm here to get some advice on dealing with my brother. My brother is 33 and is an alcoholic in denial. We haven't actually had a major talk about his drinking but I'm wondering if we should. He actually wrecked his truck on Jan. 5 of this year and thank God he didn't hit anyone else. He ran his truck into a ditch across from one of his neighbors' house. He spent about 5 days in jail, his license was taken away for 1 yr, and he has to do 120 hrs of community service which he has yet to start. He will not tell our mom & stepdad, dad, or me that he will stop drinking. I think he just got scared about drinking and driving. He called me tonight about going to mom's tomorrow. We, me & my husband, will be taking him to mom's and he had been drinking quite a bit. He was extremely chatty, which is not normally him. I feel completely helpless but also wonder if we should have a serious discussion. Can anyone give me advice as to whether or not we should talk to him, who should be there, what should be said...if anything? Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Glad you are here at MIP. As we say you are at the right place. If you read other post on the board, you will see the three C's mentioned a lot. They stand for: You didn't cause it, You can't control it, and You can't cure it. No one by any means has ever been able to stop someone elses drinking. When I finally came to the realization that my Wife was an Alcoholic, I sat out to find a way to stop her. I called 800#'s, talked to close friends, counted empty cans, marked bottles to see how much she drank from morning until I returned from work, and numerous other insane thinks. Did that do any good? Did it stop my A from drinking? the answer is NO. I could have talked to her about her drinking, but I never did. I found out later at my first Al-Anon meeting that was the only thing I actually did do right. Why was that, because we have no control over someone elses drinking. Think about it, if there were a magic secret, there would be no alocholic's. What you will come to understand is that alcoholism is a disease, and you have no more control over it that if your brother had any other incurable disease. He is the only one who has any control over his drinking, and the only one that can make a decision to get help. The suggestion I would make to you ,would be to look up Al-Anon meetings in your area. The numbers for meeting schedules are in the phone book, or maybe even in your local paper. You can get the help you need at a Face to Face Al-Anon meeting. There will be people there who have gone through simular situations as you are dealing with now. They will care about you just as you will find the members of MIP care. I can't stress that enough. Also try search at the top of this page, and check out previous questions asked on the same subject. All this will help. Keep coming back and posting on MIP. I promise you will find the help you need. RLC
You could give it a try. It works better if you're caring and compassionate as if you were talking to a person with a life threatening disease...which he has. You could give it a try without any expectations on your part about what will happen next...cause unmet expectations are a large part of the insanity of this disease. You could just tell him what you opinions you have about his drinking and keep it short and then don't discuss it. The discussions are pure hell and the disease wins everyone of them. There's some self esteem and self empowerment that comes from saying, "It seems to me that you are having a problem with alcohol" and then only add to that if he invites you to elaborate on what you have witnessed. The chance of that happening are rare and if they do...it has to be with humble honesty and short on words. Discussions about alcoholism are rarely neat expecially if one of the participants shows signs of qualifying as an alcoholic. (Has life problems as a consequence of drinking...period).
So keep and open mind...learn as much as you can about alcoholism. Face to face Al-Anon meetings in my experience are the very best places to get the education. Look up the hotline number for the area you are in in the white pages of your phone book and call.
Keep coming back here for support also. (((((hugs)))))
