What do I do?
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Connecticut
Posts: 63
What do I do?
Brother has cirrhosis of the liver. He was admitted to the hospital yesterday for a gall stone problem. Brother's friend called last night not knowing it was a gall stone problem and started to tell me the problems my brother is having with alcohol and how he set up an intervention for tonight at my brother's relative's house and how he talked to my brother's ex wife, etc. I kinda lit into this guy about stuff he knows very little, for instance, my brother's relative that he contacted is most of the problem. We don't speak to this relative and the friend didn't know this. That really p***** me off. He said he wants to intervene because he would feel guilty if something happens to my brother.
Anyway, I am going to the hospital this afternoon. You can all hate me but I don't believe in that whole "family intervention crap with everyone telling everyone else how much they love each other." I told my brother what his friend was up to so it's not like he doesn't know we are all concerned. So what do I do next? Just sit back and watch him poison himself to death or go up there when he has had a sober night and talk to him and his doctor? He has no health insurance so this intervention thing sending him away for 30 days is going to get paid by whom?
Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
Nancy
Anyway, I am going to the hospital this afternoon. You can all hate me but I don't believe in that whole "family intervention crap with everyone telling everyone else how much they love each other." I told my brother what his friend was up to so it's not like he doesn't know we are all concerned. So what do I do next? Just sit back and watch him poison himself to death or go up there when he has had a sober night and talk to him and his doctor? He has no health insurance so this intervention thing sending him away for 30 days is going to get paid by whom?
Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
Nancy
Old and in the Way
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: High and Dry
Posts: 789
NancyEllen - Sorry I haven't said hello before. Wanted to welcome you here. Given what's at stake, I'm just wondering what's wrong with "that whole family intervention crap with everyone telling everyone else how much they love each other"? Sounds like under the circumstances it's worth a try.
Good luck to you and your brother. I hope you keep coming back.
Best,
Joe
Good luck to you and your brother. I hope you keep coming back.
Best,
Joe
Last edited by Brookie; 09-08-2004 at 11:15 AM. Reason: grammar
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Connecticut
Posts: 63
Hi Joe and Live, yeah I just came back from the hospital. He is having a platelette transfusion. He looks awful. He told me the State came into his room this morning and told him if he stayed any longer he would have to come up with $15,000. Great way to be treated when you are sick. He was pretty much incoherent so I'm not going to be aggressive with him until he is off whatever they are giving him. I have a message in to his doctor to call me asap.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: cadyville,Ny
Posts: 26
Hi there just signed on today but from my experience sometimes no matter how many times a family intervenes there is no answer to help. until he finds hope inside himself all you really can do is love and prayer for him. something i read might help
a Prayer in its simpiliest definition is a Wish turned Godward. so Wish he could see his problem but give it to God and pray.
hope this helps
Brandy
a Prayer in its simpiliest definition is a Wish turned Godward. so Wish he could see his problem but give it to God and pray.
hope this helps
Brandy
Member
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southern NewJersey
Posts: 10
Hi Nancy... It sounds like you were a little hard on your brothers friend. You may not like the whole intervention crap but it sounds like he's really concerned and really cares about your brother. Do you have an alternative? If you want to intervene in the intervention you need something better than "sit back and watch him die". I don't think you should be pissed off at a friend who was only trying to help. Good luck and let everyone know what happens.
Member
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Northern CA
Posts: 1,432
Hi, Nancy,
I can't imagine what good would come out of a confrontational intervention. If someone isn't motivated to quit drinking, you're not going to provide that motivation externally. Ideally, a person will find a way to come to that decision, so that the choice to quit or reduce drinking doesn't arise from threats, guilt, or implied coercion, but instead arises from the goal of a better life.
Many people reduce or quit drinking after their doctor carefully, fully explains the present and future consequences of their behavior. Many find it helpful to meet with a counselor, and studies have found that these can be among the most effective treatments for alcohol abuse.
The two simplest techniques are called brief intervention, and motivational enhancement (or motivational interviewing). In both cases the patient arrives at mutual goals about life, behavior, and specifically about drinking with the counselor. Then they meet again for followup. I'd ask his doctor if he's familiar with these approaches, and can refer your brother to a health care worker or counselor. Followup visits with the doctor, liver function tests, etc. are part of the process, because they are a reminder of the health consequences of continued drinking.
Low-key positive affirmation from you and other family members can probably help; that depends, I imagine, on the dynamics of your family. If you have the kind of relationship where he'd be open to input about the negative consequences of drinking, I have lots of links on that subject . It can be useful to understand what alcohol is doing to your brain, and to understand the physiology of substance abuse, just to realize why it can be difficult to quit.
I share your skepticism about interventions. But I'd also avoid getting too emotionally invested in his sobriety. He may indeed poison himself to death in spite of your concern, and in full awareness of what alcohol is doing to him. What you're doing, though, is very admirable.
Thanks for posting, and please keep us updated.
Don S
I can't imagine what good would come out of a confrontational intervention. If someone isn't motivated to quit drinking, you're not going to provide that motivation externally. Ideally, a person will find a way to come to that decision, so that the choice to quit or reduce drinking doesn't arise from threats, guilt, or implied coercion, but instead arises from the goal of a better life.
Many people reduce or quit drinking after their doctor carefully, fully explains the present and future consequences of their behavior. Many find it helpful to meet with a counselor, and studies have found that these can be among the most effective treatments for alcohol abuse.
The two simplest techniques are called brief intervention, and motivational enhancement (or motivational interviewing). In both cases the patient arrives at mutual goals about life, behavior, and specifically about drinking with the counselor. Then they meet again for followup. I'd ask his doctor if he's familiar with these approaches, and can refer your brother to a health care worker or counselor. Followup visits with the doctor, liver function tests, etc. are part of the process, because they are a reminder of the health consequences of continued drinking.
Low-key positive affirmation from you and other family members can probably help; that depends, I imagine, on the dynamics of your family. If you have the kind of relationship where he'd be open to input about the negative consequences of drinking, I have lots of links on that subject . It can be useful to understand what alcohol is doing to your brain, and to understand the physiology of substance abuse, just to realize why it can be difficult to quit.
I share your skepticism about interventions. But I'd also avoid getting too emotionally invested in his sobriety. He may indeed poison himself to death in spite of your concern, and in full awareness of what alcohol is doing to him. What you're doing, though, is very admirable.
Thanks for posting, and please keep us updated.
Don S
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Connecticut
Posts: 63
Wanted to bring this post back to life...
Wow, I sounded pretty harsh and angry back then. I don't like that at all!!
Anyway, my brother recovered from the terrible damage he did to his body and has been doing really well. We both have always been supportive of each other and our recovery. Today, we were doing some things for my mother at her house and I walked by him and smelled alcohol. I am really sensitive to the smell so my mind perked right up. I said to myself, No Way!!! About a half hour later he was talking to my mother and I noticed his speech was funny. That's when I really got upset. As we walked out together, the alcohol smell was there again. I wasn't going to let it go so I said, hey have you been drinking? He just kept walking straight and said no. I barely heard him. That's not how you act when you are sober!! You say, No way, never and brag about it!! I said again, are you drinking because I can smell it!! He turned around and said absolutely not in this quiet voice. Well I can tell you he absolutely is drinking. I thought this was all fixed and now I am afraid he will die. I am extremely upset. Do I just leave it and let him be. Let him find his way?
Anyway, my brother recovered from the terrible damage he did to his body and has been doing really well. We both have always been supportive of each other and our recovery. Today, we were doing some things for my mother at her house and I walked by him and smelled alcohol. I am really sensitive to the smell so my mind perked right up. I said to myself, No Way!!! About a half hour later he was talking to my mother and I noticed his speech was funny. That's when I really got upset. As we walked out together, the alcohol smell was there again. I wasn't going to let it go so I said, hey have you been drinking? He just kept walking straight and said no. I barely heard him. That's not how you act when you are sober!! You say, No way, never and brag about it!! I said again, are you drinking because I can smell it!! He turned around and said absolutely not in this quiet voice. Well I can tell you he absolutely is drinking. I thought this was all fixed and now I am afraid he will die. I am extremely upset. Do I just leave it and let him be. Let him find his way?
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,444
I'm sorry if your brothers gone back to drinking. It's a relentless disease.
I think you'd probably know what to do and how to handle it anyway, but if you've been supportive of each other and of your recovery for years now, can you sit him down and talk it out? At least find out what's going on?
D
I think you'd probably know what to do and how to handle it anyway, but if you've been supportive of each other and of your recovery for years now, can you sit him down and talk it out? At least find out what's going on?
D
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: NC
Posts: 1,737
Nancy,
Tough call. From reading your earlier posts I see that your brother apparently has had several years of sobriety. Our disease doesn't do "open and honest", and it's altogether too easy for expressions of concern to come across as judgment, which feeds the shame/guilt/secrecy which we try to bury with another bout of drinking. But you know all this.
All you can do is express your concern and make yourself available to him when and if he decides to stop drinking or asks for assistance in doing so. I don't know what else to say, but I've been in both places: my mother was an alcoholic and I had to make the decision to remove her from life support due to complications related to the diesease. I was also a heavy drinker at the time, and despite all I saw (we tried interventions twice, to no avail) and all the pain I experienced being raised by someone clearly in the clutches of alcoholism (and in the medical profession to boot but my mother was fond of sayign that they make the worst patients) - I paid absolutely no heed. Ten years later, I sought help. That was Dec 2009.
I think all you can do is reinforce that you think there is a problem, and make your brother know that you are there for him when he gets tired of adding to his story and is ready to quit.
In the meantime, be good to yourself. This is not worth drinking/using over.
Tough call. From reading your earlier posts I see that your brother apparently has had several years of sobriety. Our disease doesn't do "open and honest", and it's altogether too easy for expressions of concern to come across as judgment, which feeds the shame/guilt/secrecy which we try to bury with another bout of drinking. But you know all this.
All you can do is express your concern and make yourself available to him when and if he decides to stop drinking or asks for assistance in doing so. I don't know what else to say, but I've been in both places: my mother was an alcoholic and I had to make the decision to remove her from life support due to complications related to the diesease. I was also a heavy drinker at the time, and despite all I saw (we tried interventions twice, to no avail) and all the pain I experienced being raised by someone clearly in the clutches of alcoholism (and in the medical profession to boot but my mother was fond of sayign that they make the worst patients) - I paid absolutely no heed. Ten years later, I sought help. That was Dec 2009.
I think all you can do is reinforce that you think there is a problem, and make your brother know that you are there for him when he gets tired of adding to his story and is ready to quit.
In the meantime, be good to yourself. This is not worth drinking/using over.
I love this place.
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: USA
Posts: 329
teen challenge (also for adults) is only 2500 for 12-15 residential program (some free, some take payments, depending on which one, they are all over US)....I didn't like it myself, it wasn't for me...but it has worked for many, stats show they have great success. Maybe at least look into it. Just an idea. Keep praying..it has to come from him.
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