I am new to this site and so glad I found it. I apologize in advance for the length of this but feel there is alot to process. I can really relate to most of these stories. I too have a mother that enables my brother. My mother is 73 and my brother is 44. They are both alcoholics.
My brother has been difficult for as long as I can remember but the last two decades have progressively gotten worse. I have spent the last many years trying to save my mother from him and save him from my mother- if that makes any sense. I feel like she has made him this way by her incessant enabling and the endless chances she gives him with empty threats and no consequenses. He is extremely irresponsible and emotionally & verbally abusive. In the last 10 years he has lost his marriage, lost custody of 2 of his kids (to me, his sister), his car, his drivers license (dwi's), 3 or 4 (i've lost count) more girlfriends he has lived with have kicked him out, he has walked off at least 5 jobs with no notice, and has rocky relationships with all people in his life. He has stolen from me in the past and has stolen and pawned things of my mother's. He has damaged her property when he gets mad (threw her laptop accross the room) and i am not sure that he hasn't even pushed her. (There was some vague talk abt it that got "swept under the rug."). Everytime his significant other throws him out he moves right back in with my mom. She too says, "well I just can't throw him out on the street!" She lives on only social security and is a widow. She can barely survive on her own and at one point when my brother wasn't living with her I moved her into our house that we don't live in, rent free, and asked her only to pay the electricity and water. I did this to help her save some money so that later when we would put our house up for sale she would have gotten caught up and be able to afford deposits and live more comfortably. She was only there about 3 weeks before my brother was thrown out of his girlfriends home and had nowhere to go. And it just so happened to be 2 days before Thanksgiving.
My mother asked if he could come to my home that she was living in. My husband and I lived out of town. Because this is a regular pattern with my brother I knew if I let him go there he would never move out unless I "threw him out on the street". Also our furniture and tools and things were still in my home and I worried he would steal stuff to pawn because he was an addict with no job. When I said No he couldnt, my relationship with my mother changed. She couldnt believe that I would do that to my own Brother and I became an enemy for a good while. The day after I told her no, she went out and rented a 2 bedroom apartment for her and my brother that cost only abt 100.00 less than her entire social security check (her entire income). He had no job, no car, no furniture, only the clothes on his back. He didn't get a job for months afterward and it almost killed me not to bail her out financially. I had done so many times and nothing ever got better. It seemed to only free up her very limited resources to help my brother more. (Enabling the enabler). I couldn't do it anymore and my husband was at his witts end with it all. My brother has lived with her and my dad (before he passed) more in the last 17 years than he hasn't. He is verbally abusive when he drinks and the last two times I came to visit my mom he got drunk and impossible to deal with. When he does finally get a job after mom nags him for months he gets some part time job and my mom has to drive him and pick him up all different hours. She cant see bc of old corneal transplant and cataracts and really cant see at night.
The latest issue is that he recently met a girl online who came and picked him up from 2 hrs away on his day off and he decided not to come back and just quit his job and move in with her. Thats good to get him out of moms house but he will be back like always. Because he was not there my husband and I decided to go do Thanksgiving at her house. His kids, who now live with their mother, wanted to go with us and see their grandma. When he found out we were bringing his kids he wanted to come (which he didnt before). I said i didnt think it was a good idea because he gets ugly after drinking and frankly my husband and I can't deal with it again just yet after the last two visits. My mom reluctantly agreed with us but my brother has turned it into that i was keeping his kids from seeing him. They are 16 and 17 and understood my reasons completely because he does the same to them everytime he is around them. Now my mom keeps telling me "we were wrong to not include him just because of past problems. We are still a family." When I try to explain my feelings to her she usually wants to quit talking about it. She keeps telling me its her last dying wish to get her kids to sit down and work out our difficulties with one another. (She's not dying) . Which i feel like I have till I am blue in the face and cannot reason with an addict.
I toggle from standing firm to feeling guilty and cant seem to concentrate on much because all this chaos seems to take over my mind much of the time. My mom is very depressed and all alone and its hard for me not to worry about her. Thank you for listening. Any input would be appreciated.