ajnaT

It's hard to not take this personally but my Alky brother is a flake and a total air-head who also smokes a lot of dope. He seldom shows up when he says he will and if he does I think it is only because his five year old daughter needs a 'stop'. Also, so he can smoke a couple of joints. I smoke as well but not everyday and only if it comes my way. I feel like if I didn't live here he wouldn't bother stopping in and I feel like I am nothing but a convenience. I am housebound and I feel like he is taking this for granted.

Since his divorce (over a year ago), he has obsessively been making up for lost time in the girls department. Last night he texted me to say he was dropping in. He didn't. I texted him, gently asking why and he said he simply forgot and was with some 'rocking chicks, man!'. I am now getting the impression that since he cannot sleep with me, then I am not worth the trouble. Once when he was drunk on the phone, he told me how to live my life. For example I should go to uni and do some world travel, neither of which I am interested in doing. All of his friends are so cool (I say that tongue in cheek, they are actually all really screwed up). I think he is really shallow.

Before I quit drinking I had been (still am) going through marathon amounts of therapy as a survivor of a cruel and demanding N mother who I cut out of my life five years ago. Until my last birthday she was sending me checks for 50 and 100 dollars at Xmas while giving my brother $20,000 and that is so she can have a hold on him, since she has lost me. He suspects that now and is in a bind but then again, they are just the same as each other. On my last birthday I sent her a card saying that I do not want any more fiscal trickles. They made me feel cheap.

I am sick of being used. I am sick of feeling dispensible. Always there and always presumably reliable. My brother is important to me as I have no other family worth knowing and I am starting to realize that he is the same as the rest of them. He drinks when he can and starts the day smoking dope before breakfast. He has a foul temper and God help anyone who unwittingly gets in the way of his plans, be it cooking dinner or going to an arty-farty club (with girls to make his ex jealous). Or to pick up.

A few weeks ago he asked if he could stay in my spare room three days a week while he has a building job in town. Every week it will be 'next week'. The spare room is on hold and I really don't want him to be here anyway. He will only pay me with pot and I want money but I wouldn't dare ask. He has a quiet rage that scares me. It feels like he is controlling me. I hate staying at his place and I have to be Oh so intelligent and interesting if his friends are there. It is as if I am an embarassment to him. It makes me sick. I feel like a doormat. Is it just the substance abuse or am I really not worth it? I have a life too, small and uninteresting as it appears to be.

Pelican

You can choose whom you will allow in your life.

You have the right to remove toxic people from your life. Even if they are your sibling.
I did.

ajnaT

Pelican, I feel that way. I changed my phone number last week in an effort to ditch a 'friend' who won't stop drinking but had great pleasure in calling me when she was drunk. I actually thought I had cleared my life of losers until this but clearly I need to get rid of my brother. Blood is not always thicker than water but I will miss his kids.