Talking to my brother about his alcohol problem

[IrnBruAddict]

To cut a very long story short, my DB is an alcoholic with not an awful lot of time left before his body quits on him. His wife has left him, he has no job, and, as I say, his health is really not good. He's 33.

He has opened up slightly to a couple of people, one of whom is a family member. She thinks that I might be the chink in his armour, so to speak, as apparently the only time he got emotional when talking to her recently was when she told him how his drinking affects me.

We live hundreds of miles apart and so can't talk in person but I was planning to try and talk to him on the phone later today and tell him how I feel. I've tried talking to him in person before to no avail, by the way. I just have no idea where to start!

Any bright ideas?! Somehow it feels like make or break time and I'm not arrogant enough to assume I'm going to fix it all today but if I'm going to try again to talk to him I want it to have as much chance of success as possible...

Sorry, no bright ideas, just wanted to wish you luck. I hope if you tell him how much his drinking upsets you and that you love him and that you want to support him to stop drinking he will listen to you. I hope he's ready to listen to you. Good luck.

Thanks bagel. I just tried there with no success so I'll need to get my hard hat on and try again in a few days' time

I think the problem with alcoholism is that the sufferer needs to admit they have a problem themselves before they can accept help and start to do something about it. If he doesn't see it as a problem yet, he won't be ready to listen. When he is ready, he will need something or someone left in his life to change for.
:(

Yes, that's the first big hurdle. He has actually spoken to an aunt of ours but not to his immediate family. There's still a looooong way to go - as long as the drink doesn't take him first

Thanks for your replies, bagel.

You have my sympathy. My elder brother drinks far too much, but I don't know if he's an alcoholic. I have talked to him a bit about it, but it's quite hard to broach the subject.

He has a very difficult job, is praised to the skies at work and spends most of his time there. He lives alone. He gets home from work lateish with a couple of bottles of wine, drinks at least one and then crashes out, getting again at 5 am, when he reads until it's time to go to work.

I live 150 miles away from him but he comes up at Xmas and a few other times a year. He has been having a particularly difficult time for the last 2 years as our younger brother died unexpectedly, so Big Bro now has no family close to him.

I do know that I find it much easier to broach the subject face to face with him. Have you tried phoning Al-Anon? They help the families of alcoholics, and may be able to suggest something.