Alcoholic in recovery, but brother is an addict
Hi all, it's been a long time since I was a poster, mostly on the Friends/Family board. I'm not an alcoholic but my boyfriend has been for at least a decade. He finally found AA and has seven months sober and is doing great. I'm really proud of him!
We have a question and if you guys have any advice/experience to share, I'd be grateful. My boyfriend's only sibling, his brother, is an alcoholic, marijuana addict, and porn addict. He's also a very angry/violent guy. These days since getting into recovery, my boyfriend avoids spending time with his brother except at family dinners and holidays.
His brother sometimes makes angry remarks about wanting my boyfriend to come over to his house and hang out with him, that he never sees him anymore. In the past, my boyfriend and his brother would get wasted regularly at his brother's house. Since he's been sober, my boyfriend has been to his brother's only once to hang out and left by 9 PM before things could potentially get bad. His brother, surprisingly, did not use alcohol or drugs that time (his wife told him not to because my boyfriend was newly sober and she supports his sobriety), but my boyfriend thinks it's only a matter of time if he goes over there to hang out that his brother will use in front of him.
So my boyfriend has suggested that they go to the movies/out to dinner. But his brother only wants to hang out at his place and watch movie clips and listen to music. He's not interested in actually going places and doing activities with my boyfriend.
Right now, he hasn't asked my boyfriend over to hang out lately, but I'm really anxious about it happening and my boyfriend is dreading having to tell him that he doesn't want to be at his house if there's going to be substance use. I talked to my own counselor about it and she said my boyfriend should not go hang out at his brother's house because it's a place he used, just like the bars he used to go to.
My boyfriend is avoiding seeing his brother because he doesn't like his anger and addiction issues. But at some point, his brother will probably blow up in a rage and insist that they hang out at his place. What does a recovering alcoholic do when they have family members who are still heavily addicted?