vtsister

Hello...I'm new here, and posted in the Welcome Forum. Someone suggested my post might fit better here, so I'm copying it below.

I'm hoping that someone here might identify, and maybe even have some suggestions about our situation.

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Hi, everyone...This forum was suggested to me, as I am looking for help in how to handle a situation with my alcoholic brother who lives with us.

A little over a year ago, my brother was asked to leave where he was staying, which was with my other brother and his wife. He had no place to go, so my husband and I allowed him to move into the tiny apartment we have downstairs in our home. My brother assured me when he moved in that this was to be "temporary", just until he "got back on his feet", "saved a little money", etc.

As I said, this was about a year and a half ago, and he hasn't "gotten on his feet" yet. In fact, he got himself fired from his job. Instead of actively and regularly looking for a new job, he spends time sitting in the bars, or else he sits downstairs watching television. He is always either depressed or in a bad mood, and always declares that he can "never catch a break". This is very untrue, as our whole family constantly tries to help him in any way we can, especially financially.

He hasn't had any luck recently in finding a permanent job, but has found a couple of temporary jobs. The problem is, when he gets a check, he is not paying his rent first. He always has a reason for why he can't pay. Either he had a "short week", didn't get paid for sick days, child support "took all his money", etc.

We do not ask him for much at all. It isn't even really "rent". We just asked him to throw in a little bit each month to cover his share of water, electricity, heat, etc.

My husband and I live on a fixed income, and cannot afford to have somebody living here that isn't paying for their share of the expenses. I've mentioned this to my brother more than once, but it doesn't seem to sink in. He is now running a full month behind on paying us, and we do not have the money to carry him. I'm taking money from what we've set aside to pay property taxes to pay the bills while he hasn't had work.

We've found out that, even though he doesn't "have enough" to pay for his share of the expenses here, he DOES have money to drink in the bars, drink beer at home, and smoke pot. I am feeling very angry and used at this point, but love my brother and don't want to throw him out on the street. He doesn't have anywhere else to go at this point.

To top it all off, today he came home early and told me that he had gotten laid off from his temporary job, which means that he'll, once more, be up here telling me that he "can't catch a break" and is "short this week", but he'll "catch up soon" on what he owes us.

I don't want to be an angry older sister who reprimands him, and orders him to go out daily looking for work, but at the same time, we can't afford to keep paying for his share of the expenses. It wouldn't be so stressful if we made a lot of money, but we don't, and it is.

I've searching through the old posts on these forums, but haven't yet found any situations similar to ours.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to deal with this, I'd appreciate hearing them. I am not good at all with confrontation, and I dread having to put my foot down with my brother. I hate being the "bad guy", but I don't see many other choices at this point.

Thank you for reading...