TeresaBelle
<font color=magenta>Still sleeps with a security b
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2005
My younger brother is an alcoholic and I am ashamed of and embarrassed by and so angry at him. I know it’s a disease, but I can’t even wrap my head around the way it makes him act.
I know that there is nothing I can do to make him stop drinking. That he has to hit rock bottom and want to stop. But I feel so guilty about not wanting to be around him or talk to him. Last week, after some horrible fb comments and texts, I finally told him, by text, to please leave me alone, until he’s ready to get help. If he called me to tell me he wants to go to an AA meeting or rehab, I would totally support him.
I guess I just need to vent. I know about al-anon and that kind of help. But I can’t talk about this in a group/public setting, or even one-on-one really, without sobbing to the point of being unintelligible. It makes me so upset. I guess I could go to a meeting and just listen. I do have a best friend that I talk to some. I don’t like to talk my mom about it, because I hate to upset her. She knows he’s an alcoholic, but she doesn't know the extent of the stuff he says on fb, I would hate for her to see that.
These most recent fb comments and texts were about our dad. I had posted on 9/10 (Suicide Awareness day) that I lost my dad in 1988 to suicide, and that 9/11 would be his 65th birthday, and that if you or someone you know was struggling, to please call the hotline. Well, he’s always been angry about our dad’s death (I assume that’s why he drinks??) but to say the awful and hurtful things he said, I can’t forgive him. Most are too vulgar to repeat here, but things like what a loser and a piece of crap he was and that he didn’t care about us or he wouldn’t have done what he did, and I am extremely sugarcoating his words. Then texting me directly saying even worse stuff. He posted and texted more nasty stuff on Sunday and I finally suspended his cell phone service (he’s on my plan). He has a separate cell phone for work, but I hope he wouldn’t use that to harass people. Scratch that, he started texting me from his work phone last night! Nothing too vulgar, just that I was making it harder for Mama to reach him, and to disconnect it, he doesn’t want it, he’s found something better. Then he added that he hadn’t had a beer in 20 days. Which I cannot believe.
He’s 41 years old. He’s been an alcoholic since about his mid-twenties. For the last year or so, he’s been getting worse. Alienating family members one by one. I guess it's my turn. When he’s drunk, he has absolutely no filter and says (or types) the meanest vilest things you’ve ever heard! We’ve asked him to go to AA. He said those meetings just make him want to drink more. My nephew, his 22 year old son, had to move out early this year, because he just couldn’t take it anymore.
My brother works, I don’t know how. As I believe he drinks all night, based on the times he’s posting and commenting on fb. My worst fear is that he will commit suicide (not that he’s not already drinking himself to death), even though he HATES our father for doing the same. He told us, about 8 years ago, while drunk, that he wakes up every morning and has to decide between going to work or going in the bathroom and blowing his head off! It scares me to death, because I know he owns at least one handgun. I asked him about it the next morning, asked why he felt like that? He said he doesn’t know and changed the subject. He won’t listen to anyone. He won’t even consider therapy. Even when he’s sober.
He lives about 3 hours away from us, so we don’t see him very often. The last two times he visited for the weekend, he didn’t drink. I think he thinks if he can go two days without drinking, he’s not an alcoholic. We have a family gathering coming up in a couple of weeks and I almost don’t want him to come. I don’t think I could even look at him, after the things he said. Plus Thanksgiving and Christmas. I know a few of my aunts, uncles and cousins feel the same, like I said, it’s like he’s alienating his entire family. We had a memorial picnic for my aunt who passed away in April, and he got drunk and tried to pick fights with a couple of my cousin’s friends. My cousin who’d just lost her mother, who’s friends were there to support her, and he acts like that!
If anyone has experience with an alcoholic sibling, how do/did you cope? How can you love your brother, but not like him?? I told my mom on Sunday, that I was done with him! But I can’t be done with my brother. Can I?
I know that there is nothing I can do to make him stop drinking. That he has to hit rock bottom and want to stop. But I feel so guilty about not wanting to be around him or talk to him. Last week, after some horrible fb comments and texts, I finally told him, by text, to please leave me alone, until he’s ready to get help. If he called me to tell me he wants to go to an AA meeting or rehab, I would totally support him.
I guess I just need to vent. I know about al-anon and that kind of help. But I can’t talk about this in a group/public setting, or even one-on-one really, without sobbing to the point of being unintelligible. It makes me so upset. I guess I could go to a meeting and just listen. I do have a best friend that I talk to some. I don’t like to talk my mom about it, because I hate to upset her. She knows he’s an alcoholic, but she doesn't know the extent of the stuff he says on fb, I would hate for her to see that.
These most recent fb comments and texts were about our dad. I had posted on 9/10 (Suicide Awareness day) that I lost my dad in 1988 to suicide, and that 9/11 would be his 65th birthday, and that if you or someone you know was struggling, to please call the hotline. Well, he’s always been angry about our dad’s death (I assume that’s why he drinks??) but to say the awful and hurtful things he said, I can’t forgive him. Most are too vulgar to repeat here, but things like what a loser and a piece of crap he was and that he didn’t care about us or he wouldn’t have done what he did, and I am extremely sugarcoating his words. Then texting me directly saying even worse stuff. He posted and texted more nasty stuff on Sunday and I finally suspended his cell phone service (he’s on my plan). He has a separate cell phone for work, but I hope he wouldn’t use that to harass people. Scratch that, he started texting me from his work phone last night! Nothing too vulgar, just that I was making it harder for Mama to reach him, and to disconnect it, he doesn’t want it, he’s found something better. Then he added that he hadn’t had a beer in 20 days. Which I cannot believe.
He’s 41 years old. He’s been an alcoholic since about his mid-twenties. For the last year or so, he’s been getting worse. Alienating family members one by one. I guess it's my turn. When he’s drunk, he has absolutely no filter and says (or types) the meanest vilest things you’ve ever heard! We’ve asked him to go to AA. He said those meetings just make him want to drink more. My nephew, his 22 year old son, had to move out early this year, because he just couldn’t take it anymore.
My brother works, I don’t know how. As I believe he drinks all night, based on the times he’s posting and commenting on fb. My worst fear is that he will commit suicide (not that he’s not already drinking himself to death), even though he HATES our father for doing the same. He told us, about 8 years ago, while drunk, that he wakes up every morning and has to decide between going to work or going in the bathroom and blowing his head off! It scares me to death, because I know he owns at least one handgun. I asked him about it the next morning, asked why he felt like that? He said he doesn’t know and changed the subject. He won’t listen to anyone. He won’t even consider therapy. Even when he’s sober.
He lives about 3 hours away from us, so we don’t see him very often. The last two times he visited for the weekend, he didn’t drink. I think he thinks if he can go two days without drinking, he’s not an alcoholic. We have a family gathering coming up in a couple of weeks and I almost don’t want him to come. I don’t think I could even look at him, after the things he said. Plus Thanksgiving and Christmas. I know a few of my aunts, uncles and cousins feel the same, like I said, it’s like he’s alienating his entire family. We had a memorial picnic for my aunt who passed away in April, and he got drunk and tried to pick fights with a couple of my cousin’s friends. My cousin who’d just lost her mother, who’s friends were there to support her, and he acts like that!
If anyone has experience with an alcoholic sibling, how do/did you cope? How can you love your brother, but not like him?? I told my mom on Sunday, that I was done with him! But I can’t be done with my brother. Can I?