sibling withserious alcohol problem

dSTAR wrote: »

PI may have been the way to go because you wont get many intelligent or understanding answers here unless the person has been personally affected by it. Such is the risk of posting to AH.

Alcoholism is a disease and unless that is recognized by the general public and the establishment it will be very hard to treat it accordingly. For whats it worth AA is a complete waste of time because it locks the person into an alcoholic paradigm for life and puts the power to change outside the person.

But thats just my opinion and am aware that it has worked for millions. Drugs like camporal don't have a very good success rate because of the desire to drink is so much stronger than the commitment to be on medication.

A counselor who deals with alcohol addiction is probably a good step because will offer practical advice to deal with the demon drink in the here and now.

The second paragraph steams in and the the third one changes it's mind.

The only time you will get any where with this is to let him do what he is going to do anyway and maybe he will realise what is happening to him. it's a very nasty business and takes no prisoners in it's almost uniquely destuctive path. There is probably a window in his sessions where life is indeed wonderful but it's probably no more than a couple of hours in each day. He is in fact unique in this situation as he is the only one who is unaware of the problem. It's the only disease you can have that tell you it doesn't exist, the more money he has the worse it tends to be, my childhood friend died last month having aquired Millions of Euros of assets through his mothers will some years ago. For you and the rest of the family there is Al Anon or other help and for him there is what ever he wants to do with himself, the possibility of him being able to relate to his problem while listening to the advice of others is remote. Conversing with him when he's drinking is the same as talking to a stranger, even if he is somewhat familiar. He may well even tell you all the things you want to hear after a session but madness in this case is defined as repeating the same behaviour while expecting a different outcome. The time to really help is when and if he chooses to stop or seek help of his own accord. Good luck with it, it's a huge subject which I could talk about all day long but it wouldn't help you to much getting information overload. There is no such thing as a truly hopeless case even though it may present itself as such. The people who are least well equipped to help are those who are closest to the scene as they are quite often easily manipulated by the man with the problem. The true indicator is how alcohol affects him and not whether he can drink everyone under the table. Some of the worst and most violent behaviour I have seen has been after two or three drinks where a genuine madness takes over what was a reasonable human being before entering the pub.