No, Dotty, drunks don’t have all the rights.
Jails are full of us as we speak. A drunk gets popped every night somewhere.
I went years without ever getting a DUI. I was just lucky.

Your brother may get pulled over tonight, or he may never get pulled over. Your brother may stop drinking, or he may never stop.

Most of us never get sober, we die of this disease. Sometimes we kill ourselves behind the wheel of a car, sometimes in a barroom fight, sometimes our liver or pancreas, or heart or stomach just gives out. And sometimes we just pull out a gun and blow our brains out. Jails, institutions or death. Nor a rosy picture.

You, his daughter, no one can get him sober. It’s not in your power to change his mind. Your niece should in all probability not get into his car if he has been drinking. That is something you and her indeed can do something about.

As to turning him in, the rules are that a person has to have committed a crime to be held accountable for it. Someone else can’t just order his incarceration on their word alone. If you think about it, not a bad idea.

I’m not up on all the statistics, but I believe that alcohol related accidents are actually down now that drunks are no longer given a slap on the wrist. DUI arrests actually result in jail time where I come from. If not the first one, for sure the second.

It seems you and your niece have joined the legions of people who have watched a loved one sink into the mire that is active alcoholism.

Keep yourselves safe, and accept that you can’t change the path your brother walks. Pain, deep and unrelenting spiritual pain might do the trick, and then again, it might not.

Your friend
Richard