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I don't mean to bother anyone with a long backstory, but I'm a first time poster and not sure where to start. I'm 22 and my older brother (25) is completely tearing my family apart with his drinking. He has thyroid and ADHD problems, but started drinking in 7th grade and then smoking marijuana almost daily along with his thyroid and ADHD medications. He first got into trouble in high school when he stole someone's credit card and used it to buy sporting equipment. My parents stepped in and helped him get out of his legal troubles, no record. In college he was constantly in trouble for being drunk, fighting, being abusive towards his ex-girlfirend, and growing marijuana. Once again, no legal consequences. Now, he got a DUI (felony level, refused to take a breathalyzer test) and lost his license. However, his lifestyle and attitude haven't changed at all. Despite not having a license, he still holds down a good job and goes out drinking on the weekends. My DAD is the one that ended up with the interlock system on his car so that my brother could start the process of getting his license back. He has threatened suicide in the past (even walking on a highway after getting out of a cab drunk) and terrorizes my parents (especially my mother) with fear. She knows that she enables him, but doesn't know what else to do. He comes home on the weekends and still has his room perfectly made up and a fridge full of food that she slaved over.
My brother continues to verbally abuse my mother and his girlfriend, storm in and out whenever he wants, and then cries and threatens suicide because he hates himself so much and doesn't know what else to do. My parents have tried to get him into rehab and therapy repeatedly, but he goes once and decides that the Dr. is a jerk and then leaves. He is a binge drinker and, although he's obsessed with his health in every other regard, can't stop drinking once he's stopped. An issue is that he's amazingly high-functioning when he's not drunk (smart, focused, great at work, no one would ever suspect that he's an alcoholic) so he feels like he doesn't have a problem because he doesn't drink every day. Having my brother constantly messing up has put an incredible strain on my family. My parents are constantly blaming one another for what's happened with my brother (mom is too involved, dad is not involved enough) and my sister will barely speak to him. My mom feels like the weight of the world is on her shoulders and that she's responsible. She feels like "her family is falling apart" after working at it for 31 years even though myself and my two other siblings are happy and healthy and successful.
My fear is that my brother will never face any serious consequences and will eventually end up dead or in jail (the fear of everyone with an alcoholic family member, i suppose), ruining my mother and leaving a hole in our family. Today, I told my parents that I wasn't going to come home anymore so long as my brother continued to live here with no consequences. I wanted my parents to finally follow through and tell him that he can't live here unless he stops drinking. My mom was heartbroken, and told him that she was going to follow through this time. He said he would move out ASAP and now she's even more heartbroken and I feel like I did the wrong thing.
I just want my brother to stop drinking or be responsible for his own behavior so that my mom isn't completely consumed with him and fighting with my dad constantly.
(((((Molly O))))) welcome to the board and the MIP family. Most of us don't come up with other than what has worked for us...really worked; that we were told would really work and then investigated and followed up on. What worked for me was finding the hotline number for Al-Anon in the white pages of the local telephone book in the area I was in at the time and calling that number. At that time I got a real live person to talk to that stayed with me on the phone and when I got afraid that my alcoholic/addict wife would discover what I was talking about and was ready to hang up, she told me, "Do not hang up this phone, your very life may depend on it". Wow!! how right on and I didn't and I got the time and place for the next Al-Anon face to face meeting and my sanity, serenity and life back in the process. I learned I was powerless and that my life had become unmanageable and that to get my sanity back it would take a power greater than myself who wasn't alcohol, drugs and my alcoholic/addict wife. That is what I did...some of it and of course there was more but then you didn't get to where you are right now over night...it took time and so you won't get away from it over night either. What and who are you powerless over?...drugs, alcohol, police, duis, mother, father OH!! and yes brother.
Get the hot line number for the white pages of you local telephone book and call that number...find the times and places we get together in your area and come sit with us. There is a chair waiting for you plus tons of literature...much free and move. There is understanding and compassion because we've been where you are now and had to be rescue also and we come back for more and the opportunity to help the newcomers who are like we were. That's my suggestion...more is coming and then you have a part to do also. Welcome to the board...keep coming back. ((((hugs))))
Hello and welcome, I can relate to your post on many levels, I had a brother like yours, a mother like yours and I was the sister like you, I asked all the same questions felt all the same feelings and now I am a mother to a son like my brother, and I married a man like my brother too, the irony is I did the same things my mother did over and over, still do at times but am learning other ways to cope and love my family without trying to control them, This mother son thing is a killer, I have just got to get past my own ego with this, there is my thinking and an alchoholics thinking, they are not the same or coming from the same place, the addict wants what it wants, regardless or our love for them, I needed to stop taking this personly, you won't be abandoning your mother if you leave they possibly will ridicule you for this but actually your doing the right thing, your protecting yourself and I do belive you have a better chance of changing once you remove yourself from the problem for a time, sooner or later we get to apoint where the penny drops and we realise we need to do something diffrent to get a diffrent outcome, there are many ways to show a person you love them, bailing them out and not allowing them to face their own consequences is not one of them, it's not easy by any means, they have trained us well, the emotional blackmail the threats my brother did follow through, and I am ok with that now, before it used to go like this they did that so I did this, and now? they did that so I think before I act and I know what will happen if I did this so I try something different, you have to be very brave and strong to break the mould, it does got worse before it gets better, but it will get better with practice, I am so glad you came here, keep coming back.
Thanks jerry and Katy for the replies... Katy it sounds like you've been in a similar situation. Two questions I have are:
1) was it the wrong thing to try to force my parents into enforcing rules with my brother? Maybe him living here is better even if he's still drinking since he's so dangerous on his own
2) my mother keeps saying that she can't shoulder all this burden alone and getting angry that she is (understandable, she's the only one my brother will really talk to. Codependent, blah). But how do we help her? I feel like her rushing in to scold and save him only makes things worse, but she's angry that she's the only one "doing anything"
There are as many answers as questions and it all takes time to understand how we get to where we are and how to do things differently, we can't force anyone to do anything as frustrating as it is we just can't. the experience strength and hope you will find on these boards and in the rooms of alanon gave me the answers I was looking for, there is so much insanity doing the same things over and over and expecting different results, the fear of chucking our dangerous kids out is very real and yet it can often be the straw that breaks the camels back, we all have our own rock bottom which we can hit when times are tough, it just can take one member of the family to seek recovery to encourage change, it's sometimes not even about being right it's about being happy, you are young and sensible you have the gift of alanon in your life to make things better for all of you, it's a different approach is all and it does work if you work it, I have worn my mouth out nagging when I start nagging people dissapear, when I am quiet they ask me whats wrong? I can respond accordingly but I have to be careful not to re-play old tapes, my son is always waiting for me to read the riot act, and so when I don't he asks me why I am not, it's very hard not to react out of habit so I try to be a bigger person and leave it with him, in that way I am handing back some of his responsibility to him and he doesn't know it! keep coming back asking questions and reading and educating yourself there is wonderful hope here.
I think the first thing that will help is to get to an Alanon meeting and meet people who are going through the things you are. Maybe later you can encourage mom to attend a meeting with you. Being in Alanon is where you learn to detach from the A. You will learn to set boundaries as you seem to already have done with telling mom you will not come over if A brother is there. Of course your mom does not want to be the only one taking care of brother but Alanon will teach you not to feel that guilt and to not let mom pull you in to her misery...and that's when you are constantly, as a mother, trying to do whatever you can to fix your child. Sadly, it can't be done. The A has to hit rock bottom and sometimes as parents we are taken down with them. My son has had 3 duis. The first 2 I helped him with lawyer fees etc. The third time I literally left town so I would not be involved in his mess. I was tired and I was just waiting for the 3rd dui or something that was going to make him hit bottom. That was his bottom...he got sober and has been in AA since July, 2011. This did not happen overnight as my son was 40 years old when this happened and he had been drinking since at least 10th grade. The moral of this story is that this time he did it without his mother helping him and for today he is sober.
I hope your mom will eventually get to an Alanon meeting and talk with others like herself. I hope you can set those boundaries and stick with them because you will certainly be taking care of yourself while doing so.
In al anon we adopt the message of the three C's, we didn't cause it, we can't cure it and we can't control it. With that in mind no one forces anyone to do anything. If your mother mentioned something to your brother it isn't your fault or your problem he over reacted.
I would highly recommend the book Getting them Sober. Toby Rice Drew has some great reflections on the kind of chaos, upheaval and craziness an alcoholic can cause.
I have definitely been there with trying to set limits, galvanize everyone and make the alcoholic the pet project. I know where that got me.
I was like your mother, I felt, the only one who did anything about the now ex A's problems. The issue was that wasn't actually the case. His mother had been dealing with it for decades. She just wasn't dealing with it my way!
I can definitely relate to the upheaval, problems, resentment, rage and frustration of being around an alcoholic. There are solutions and none of them involve him stopping drinking. He may do that and he may not. Whatever he does you can learn to live without being consumed by guilt, anger, resentment, grief and fear.
I hope you will give al anon a shot. What you have to deal with is a big undertaking and there is help out there.
