CAZZA1982.
The best I remember he went to a 30-day treatment facility. He was facing a jail sentence and chose treatment instead. He would go to jail, get out, go to my mother's; go to my father's, back to jail, get out, got back to his ex-wife; go to treatment, get out, go to my mother's. At one time he had quite a long period of sobriety, but it had nothing to do with what we as his family did or did not do. He was at the mercy of society the last few years of his life and it was sad and painful to stand by helplessly and watch him destroy himself, but that's path he chose and that's the way he wanted to live, lying, cheating, stealing. It's not as if he didn't know any better, he did. He just refused to accept the help the treatment centers and jail programs offered him. He didn't want any treatment because what he was doing kept working for him, living off of everybody else. His thinking was his life turned out to be S--- and, by damn, it was everybody else's fault. My brother also went through hundreds of thousands of dollars, mostly his wife's family's money, anybody's money, he didn't care. He had quite a large drug dealing business out of the country, but you know how that is, easy come, easy go. The only thing it bought him was a 9 year prison sentence.
My brother and my father both had been successful businessmen, held in high regard in the community. They both died in a hopeless state of mind and body, both drunk and high, dying at 53 and 54 years old, my brother in a car wreck and my dad in a hospital begging for a beer on his deathbed.
I cannot stress strongly enough to you to get into AlAnon. I beg of you to get some help for yourself. You cannot help your brother or your father. As long as they're drinking and using, they're going to use you up and you're going to end up like they are, drained and not being able to properly take care of your children.
And I say this with all due respect, your children will suffer because of what you're not doing, not what your brother and father are doing.
Maybe if you sit and write this out and look at the pattern you'll see in black and white that nothing you've done, said, paid for, or arranged has had any effect on your father or your brother. It's affected you, but not them. You can break this cycle by saying no this time.
If we ourselves want to get well, because we're as sick as they are, we have to learn how to react differently to someone else's demands. The kicker is when we do finally learn how we can get out of the problem and into the solution, then we have to do it. If we don't, it's the same as the alcoholic/addict going to treatment, learning what they can do to arrest their disease, and then they don't follow up.
Change is hard. There is fear associated with any change. If you decide to get into recovery for yourself you are not abandoning your father and brother. My husband, who's been sober for 25 years, says when we do what's right for ourselves it's always what's right for the other person.
We get addicted to taking care of addicts and alcoholics. We waste years of our lives taking care of people who won't take care of themselves because we're doing it for them, and all the time we're doing it for them we're just resenting the hell out of.
Again, I beg of you to seek some outside help for you, whether it be AlAnon or whatever program you choose, just do it. You know what? By you stepping out there and taking some action, there is hope that your children won't do what you're doing, spending your entire day, afraid that you're not doing enough, because when you're involved with practicing alcoholics and addicts no matter what you do, it isn't good enough. It's like pouring everything your soul into a big black hole.
Find an AlAnon meeting, go, and be a mother to those little children and not a mother to your father and brother. They'll be alright. Let them figure it out.
I continue to pray for you and your family.