Has anyone had the experience of knowing someone who fully understands his disease and yet will not, without any reasoning, stop his drinking?

Hello, I am pattiec and I am going to discuss my feelings about my brother's disease of alcoholism.

I know why my brother drinks.  It is because he is depressed and has anxiety, and has been that way for several years.  I understand his disease profoundly as well as intimately because I too suffer from depression and anxiety.

My brother is the kind of man who would give his last dollars to someone who he felt needed it more than he did.  I have witnessed his offering to a stranger as well as to his little sister, me, without thought of his own needs and desires.  This man almost always lends a hand to people who need it and will give without question.  He is a wonderful, caring, sensitive person with a lot of pride and self-protection.

My brother, M, has been drinking since he was 14 years old, when our uncle gave him his first 6-pack of beer for a birthday present.  I say, some gift.  He is now 45.

M cannot eat almost at all anymore due to the alcohol telling his mind that he is nauseated and / or doesn't have an appetite.  His typical food patterns in the past week have been maybe a piece of french bread for the day, or about a 1/3 of a can of corn for the day, or maybe a couple of bites of a burrito for that day.  

He has tried rehab and it didn't work, and he is bitter about losing the money for that place as he didn't have insurance (not working) so he had to pay a lot of money for detox and he stayed there 6 out of 28 days. 

He justifies the reasons for his drinking, the reasons for not being able to stop, and gets really angry if anyone, including myself, suggests therapy, 12 step meetings, any kind of help or any suggestion that would take him out of his routine.  It's like the pavlovian dog syndrome.  He hates it but he only knows that which brings him back to his routine.

He feels that he has nothing in his life to go to if he lets the drinking go.  He makes excuses for not being able to work, saying there is no work out there, and my suggestion of learning new skills is met with anger and denial.

I enable him, that's the word that AA uses, by making a beer run for him or by taking him to the store.  I have tried to not do this, but I cave because when I don't give to him or go to the store for him, he finds money and goes anyway.  I am not strong enough to turn my back on him.  This is how he would see it, and I think it would help to kill him more quickly.

I have come to the point in this relationship where I understand that I am one of the few if not the only centerpoint of support that he has, and I feel that if I abandon him and his disease, he will surely die more quickly than he is now.

I have told myself that there really is nothing that I can say, do or make happen to M to make an impression on him about the detrimental effects of his drinking.  He doesn't want to hear it, and I don't blame him.  I would tell anyone who tries to tell me how to live to jump off of a short pier.

All that I can do is support him where he is at, and that includes supporting his alcoholism.  No one agrees with me about how I support his whole self by accepting his choices fully and completely, as much as I can, but I feel that this is the best thing that I can do as he will not change. 

He's gone through numerous hospital visits for tumbles and falls that he has taken, he has disappointed me by saying but not doing, and he has upset a lot of relatives in his family.  He has been threatened by our grandmother to be kicked out of her house if he didn't stop, but she like me caves and can't make the threat stick for fear of what would happen to him.  I don't live in the house as I have my own apartment about 15 minutes away.  Our nuclear family included only him, me and my Mom.  He lived in my grandmother's house with my mother.  Our Mom passed away on 7/31/08, and although I'm grieving too, he took it harder, and I know it's because the alcohol keeps him in mourning. 

I am human and I love my brother and I don't want him to die.  No one can reach him because he will act defiantly and at all costs, protect his alcohol and his choice to drink.  He will walk away from everyone and everything who tries to come in between his intimate friend and him, and it won't work.  I must, for my own health, accept him as he is and accept the fact that I may lose him too.  This is hard, and I feel not like a failure, but powerless to help him.  He needs me and if I abandon him or put a wedge in between us by not supporting him fully, it will be too hard for us both, and I know it, because I have tried more than once.

Why give something up when it truly appears that there is nothing out there to look forward to, and no matter what anyone says or does, the depression and despair win out.  I know how he feels because I feel it, too.  I don't drink at all but I have the same despair, and I only keep going because I have cats who need to be cared for and I don't know what else to do.  Work used to stay my anxiety and depression but lately, although it still does a bit, the two evils have been creeping in to join me there, too.  No therapy or drugs have helped me and I have had this depression for a very long time.  I understand because we have come from the same womb and we are more alike than some understand.  We may not be twins, but we have similar depression.   We grew up in an environment of screwed up parents and grandparents who passes their garbage, hostility and chaos down to us.

After enough time and trials, you finally ask yourself why you are trying to change this person's life when they don't want you to do so?  After a while, you get too tired to keep trying, and after enough time passes, you don't have anymore reasons to try to change and make life better.

The saddest part of this is that I know in my heart that he doesn't want to die, but he can't think of a reason to live.  I have lost my faith in humanity and I think that he has no hope.  He is so alive when he is with people, and I know he would like a better life.  There is just seemingly nothing out there to look forward to, and that's the hardest part of it all.  Why go on when the world feels so empty?

Thanks for listening, and take care.

pattiec