Sunshine1

So I told you a couple of weeks ago that my SIL called to tell us my bro is an alcoholic. Well, we've been keeping in close contact with her and things have been really going in a downward spiral for them but hopefully things are going to turn around.

Last Friday she called my Dad and told him that my brother was asking for a seperation. Remember my brother has no idea we know he has a drinking problem or that we are even talking with his wife. She's always been really reserved and has never reached out to us much or warmed much to having more than a cordial relationship until she revealed all of these problems to us. She desperately does not want to seperate. She feels all of their problems are tied to his drinking and wants that to stop and hopefully their problems will go away. I've been really concerned about keeping this secret and what it's going to do to our relationship with my brother when he eventually finds out we know all of this stuff without him telling us.

Anyways, he's been doing some really mean stuff. It's the drinking, my brother is not like that. She called my Dad today to tell him what happened this weekend. My brother was really pushing for the seperation and wanted her to get out of the house. Why the hell he thinks he's the one entitled to stay in the house is beyond me, but again, he's doing so me really crappy things that are unlike him. I've been sick to my stomach all weekend about them seperating b/c if they do, we will never know if he is ok. She is our only link to knowing if he is physically ok, or even alive at times since we live in different states. We were talking a lot for awhile there but he won't even reply to my emails I've been sending him over the past few months.
She told him that if they were going to seperate someone else needed to know about his problem b/c she was scared he would not be ok. The she dropped the bomb and told him that she told us and we know everything....the drinking, the mean things he's said to her when drunk, the talk of seperation.
I guess he lost it. He reacted like she never expected. They talked, he admitted he had a problem, he read a bunch of stuff about alcoholism she had printed off of the internet. Then he poured all of the alcohol out and is detoxing. He bought sleeping pills b/c he can't sleep at night if he's not drinking . She said he has the shakes terribly, dry mouth, all of the detox symptoms.
Having us know made the difference for him to take that first step. I'm so relieved!!!!!!!!!!!! By no means is this going to be easy and who knows if it will even be the end of drinking for him but it's an incredible first step and at least we can talk to him about it now. When he's ready that is. We are not even going to bring it up for awhile. We want to let him get through his whole detoxifying etc... and see if he will come to us. He wants to do it all on his own which is not good but we'll see what comes. She offered to take him to a detox center so he could come off if it medically but he said he could do it on his own. We'll see.
Turns out he admitted had a drinking problem for a very very long time. It started in his teens and the daily drinking thing has been going on since his mid twenties. He's 37 now.
She didn't tell us this before but he asked for her help in quiting drinking not long after they started dating b/c he was blacking out a lot but eventually went back to it. They have probably been together for 6 years.

So here are my questions:

1.) Do we bring it up to him or let him come to us.
2.) If he does not come to us, should we bring it up and if we do, what do we say?
3.) What is the best way to help him now that he has admitted his problem?
4.) What do we do if this doesn't work and he begins drinking agian?