Logic doesn’t apply, common sense doesn’t mean a thing, losing everything is in his mind a small price to pay for continued access to alcohol. We are fully prepared to throw away everything, and I mean everything to get and stay drunk. I understand what he is going through very well. He is no stranger to me.

I would have told you that I loved my children more than I loved my arms. Maybe I did, but in the end, I loved alcohol more. There is a school of thought, one that I adhere to that states that your brother is suffering from a disease that he has no effect control over. When we commence to drinking like that, we have placed ourselves beyond human aid. We can’t stop.

Oh, any of us can stop for a day, maybe a week, a month tops, but it is the rare alcoholic that can go much longer than that. We can’t stand the way we feel without alcohol in our systems. The pain of sobriety eventually becomes intolerable. We literally have to drink to preserve our sanity.

I am sorry Dotty that I can’t offer you any more than this, but you are well to know what’s going on here. Alcoholism is very resistant to treatment, and it’s primary symptom is denial.

He will either tell you that he has it under control (he in all probability believes he does) or he will become angry. Or a little of both. You are a threat to his access to alcohol, and he either sees you as his enemy now or will soon if you continue push the issue.

My advise:
Cut him loose. Have nothing to do with him. Do what you can for the child, but let the full weight of his actions fall squarely on his shoulders. Don’t make his fall softer, let him hit bottom as hard as he sees fit. That alone may help.

As to your being at peace, that’s your own call. You can wear him around your neck as long as you feel you need to, stay close to the child, she needs a sane person in her life, but you need not bleed for him. It does no good in the end.

Richard