Advice for a Mini Intervention?

[Perdition]

I am in serious need of advice.

For a long time I have suspected that one or both of my parents are alcoholics. Not obviously so, but subtly so. They both are holding down jobs and they aren't exactly failing as parents (although in some ways I suppose they have been neglectful). However, nearly every night there's a happy hour, there's always beer bottles and empty vodka bottles in the recycle bins each week, and sometimes my parents get noticeably toasted. After half a 1.75L bottle of rum I bought for myself vanished, I started to seriously question whether or not they were alcoholics (especially since my dad claims to not even like rum after a bad experience with it in college). I have been checking their liquor cabinet daily now, and over the past five days they have drained two and a half 1.75L bottles of vodka. For two people, that is ten shots of vodka per person every day for five days straight. There has always been excessive alcohol use in my family, but I guess I never really wanted to pay attention to it. Now I can't help but notice.

Out of a place of concern, I called my older brother about this matter, and by golly, he thinks they have a problem with alcohol too! I think part of the reason why my parents don't totally fly off the handle is that I currently live with them. However, for about a year I lived out of state. My older brother told me that a couple times on Sundays while I lived away when my parents invited him and his fiancee over for dinner that by the time they got over there the parents were flat on their ass on the floor drunk and my brother and his fiancee would just leave. He also told me that he had a memory while he was younger of dad getting so completely wasted that he passed out and my mom brought him to the hospital. Before I called him I suspected that my brother thought that my parents have an alcohol problem but I didn't think that he had so much evidence to substantiate such a claim.

As horribly awkward as this is going to make things while I am living here, I am thinking of staging a mini intervention consisting of myself and my two brothers to talk to the parents about this. However, I am horribly ill-equipped to talk about this with them. I have no idea what to say or how to go about saying it. I am also afraid that they will think I am a hypocrite. I have been known to enjoy a drink every now and then, though I certainly won't have more than two at a time (most times it is just one) and not more than a few times per week. I have told them that I really enjoy the character that alcohol can add to a drink (though I have told them repeatedly that I dislike the feeling of intoxication), and I am afraid that they are going to turn this around and claim that as a person who enjoys alcohol, I cannot tell them when they are having too much despite the fact that I literally have never been drunk once in my life.

So, advice? Is there anything I should read before I stage this mini intervention? What things should I bring up, what things should I say, and how should I prepare my two brothers (and possibly my older brother's fiancee) for an event like this? I'm thinking that this is going to go down after my younger brother is done with finals, so I need to plan and prepare this thing to happen probably a little over two weeks from now.

Thank you in advance for your help.

[Willybluedog]

Hello Perdition,

Welcome to you, I am so glad you found us!

Before you do anything else, I would suggest that you attend an Al-anon meeting, and if they have one in your area an ACA meeting or ACA focused Al-anon meeting, and maybe some counseling.

My mother has been an alcoholic for over 40 years, there is nothing anyone can do to make her stop.

What you will hear often here is that you can only fix YOU, you cannot make anyone else do anything.

Take care,

Bill