I’m worried about my brother’s drinking

Linda Higgens' "Life Lesssions" column, Evening Herald, 22 January 2008

Dilemma

“I’m worried about my brother’s drinking. He stayed with us recently for a week and drank to excess every night.

I like a social drink myself, but I’m starting to worry that he is developing a problem with alcohol.

He spent the whole week coming up with all sorts of excuses to go the pub (to watch football), or reasons to break out the drink at home (if someone came to visit).

He’s a very sociable happy-go-lucky type of drunk, and there weren’t any rows or aggression. But I didn’t like my kids seeing their uncle in a couple of situations. He staggered in the door early one evening and was clearly pie-eyed. And he dropped a casserole dish another night on the kitchen floor – waking my youngest.

I did gently question him one morning, but he dismissed me straight away. He said that he was on a week’s holidays and that he needs the odd drink to de-stress from his busy job. He insisted that all his mates drink just as much as he does. I’m 10 years older, by the way. My husband thinks my brother is just a jack-the-lad who behaves like a lot of twenty-something men, but I’m worried that there’s more to it than that.

He’s gone back to Dublin now and I’ve since discovered three empty whiskey bottles in the bin, so it looks like he was drinking in secret too. Am I right to worry about him? And what can I do to help?”

Expert
Catherine Keers (MIACP, MIAHIP) offers counselling adn psychotherapy services at her Dun Laoghaire clinic. Contact Catherine on 01 284 3297 or www.catherinekeers.com.

Whether or not you are right to worry about him is irrelevant, you clearly are worried. Your brother is 10 years younger than you so I guess you may have a pattern of feeling responsible for him that goes way back to childhood. I wonder what support you have from others in the family, your mother, father, brothers or sisters and why you feel like this responsibility lies on your shoulders.

I agree that the secretiveness regarding the extent of his drinking is worrying, beyond that I can’t say whether or not your brother is an alcoholic. This can only be determined by your brother choosing to evaluate for himself if his drinking is having a negative impact on his life, work, relationships and health and to what extent. He can then decide what he wants to do about this, if anything. I understand that if you feel that it is affecting him badly it’s hard to stand back and do nothing but realistically the only thing that you can do is talk to him. When talking to him I suggest that you do so openly and honestly, coming purely from the point of view of how you are feeling i.e. how difficult his drinking is for you and how concerned you are rather than being critical and accusatory of him which will only make him defensive. You can also ask him if he feels it is affecting his life or having a negative impact on his health. A list of questions for individuals who think they may have a drinking problem can be found on the Alcoholics Anonymous website (http://www.blogger.com/www.alcoholicsanonymous.ie) if you feel it’s appropriate you could pass this on to him and it may give him something to think about and focus on. You can also suggest that he talks to someone and/or gets a health check with his GP, if you feel able to be there for him to support him then let him know this, but listen to yourself and only do as much as you feel able to in this regard.

Most of all do not take on the problem as if it was yours to fix as this won’t help either of you. In the meantime its important for you to turn your attention to yourself and acknowledge how difficult and upsetting this is for you and look for support from your family and friends, if you need to talk to people in similar situations, you could look up AL-ANON (http://www.al-anon-ireland.org/), have a look at the information on their website as they have been set up to support family members of alcoholics and help them to deal with the feelings around responsibility and helplessness that you are experiencing.