Originally Posted by
bookwyrm 
Why do you worry about being the 'bad guy'? Why do you have to placate a brother who is using you to keep his addiction going? He's a grown up, able to look after himself. Why do you need to be nice? He's an active alcoholic. He will be very, very good at blame shifting. Being 'nice' gives him a way of keeping you where he wants you. No matter how 'nice' you are, he's always going to blame you. Accept this and you might find it easier to ask him to leave than you think.
I just hate being the "bad guy".
My sister told me last night that she already sees me waffling on this.
One minute I'm set in my mind that he needs to go; the next minute I'm thinking about how bad the economy is, and it's probably going to get worse, and families are going to have to "bunk up" together, and here I am, sending my brother out into that, when he could very well need to end up right back here with us if things do get a lot worse in the economy.
His line of work is in remodeling, repair, painting, stuff like that. He gets laid off in the winter for awhile, and there were some "bare spots" in the work available earlier this year.
I know it's not my fault that he doesn't save any money to get prepared for those times, but it doesn't help me feel any less guilty.
If I think about this too much, I get angry that I was even put in this position in the first place. He'd burned his bridges with everyone else in the family already by overstaying his welcome with them, but he knew we had empty space in our house. When he asked if he could stay "temporarily" and "for just a few months" until he "got back on his feet", I felt bad for him and let him in. How can you turn down your brother?
At the time, everyone else in the family thought this was a good idea, and encouraged us to let him stay with us. Now *I* am the guy that has to deal with the fall out.
