My younger brother is an alcoholic - he's 31 and relatively high functioning in the sense he's not on a park bench drinking at 10am. He's a lovely guy, but his alcoholism makes him irresponsible and selfish.
He has a job (although zero hours - often only works a couple of days per week) but drinks every day in the pub, he does this by borrowing money from friends.
He has never had a social life outside of the local pub, a girlfriend or the things that one might expect somebody of his age to have. He's had his job for about a year - before that, he'd never really worked.
He lived with our other brother until about six months ago, when he (other brother) got so fed up with him, he chucked him out and now he's in my spare room. He's lived with me before and it was problematic, but I felt I had to take him in, due to feeling sorry for him and pressure from my family as we have space for him.
He doesn't do any housework (though to be fair, he doesn't make much mess) and he pays us seventy quid per week housekeeping - this includes all bills and food. I usually make him dinner, otherwise he doesn't eat. He's painfully skinny, he doesn't shower often and is quite dirty and unkempt. Our spare room smells awful now. As you can imagine, my partner is not very keen on him.
He's sometimes drunk around my kids (age 12 and 15). Tonight my daughter (12) is having a sleepover with a friend. They were being quite noisy so I went downstairs to tell them to quieten down and found him back from the pub, drunk and running around the front room with them.
The fact that he doesn't get that this is really inappropriate has worried me.
I think I've honestly done all I can for him and it's getting to a point where I can't have him here any more. He can't afford his own place, I don't think the council would house him - he would be a homeless alcoholic and I'm worried he would go down hill.
My partner is in AA and says he needs to hit bottom before he will get better - we both know deep down that him living here with us is just allowing him to continue drinking for longer.
To complicate matters further, our dad (who lived here with us too) recently died and we're all struggling with our grief. It's early days still and I don't want to be heartless.
Should I hang on for a few more months? Should I try to just love and support and guide him through this? Should I start putting his house keeping away until it's enough for a deposit on a flat? (Although I don't think he'll cope with bilks etc) Should I just chuck him out and let him hit bottom?
I genuinely don't know what to do for the best.