On My Way
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Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: East Coast USA
Posts: 5,700
I wouldn't go so far as to characterize what's to come as a rant, but the topic is something that is gnawing at me and I'm hoping the act of typing about it will be personally constructive.
One of my BIL's is an alcoholic. Almost three years ago he was fired from his place of employment for almost 20 years due to being drunk at work on numerous occasions and it was only last week that he found another job. He's also gotten numerous DWI's, including two on consecutive days. Due to drunk antics he has poisoned his relationship with some of his nieces and nephews as well as his own brother. The entire family has known about his issues for years and collectively and individually have done everything we could think of to help. Interventions with a trained counselor, paying many 1000's of dollars for him to have inpatient rehab, paying for private therapy sessions with an addiction counselor, hosting dry family parties, driving him to AA meetings, us going to Al Anon meetings. I could go on, but I think that's sufficient to get my point across.
He continues to drink so to date we have not achieved our family objective, but from what I can tell less than before so to the extent that's true it's a small positive. One big issue is that he attempts to hide the fact of his continued consumption, which at this point is about the worst kept secret on the planet as everyone in the family knows the truth. Which brings me to yesterday, by extension today, and the reason I'm typing this.
Yesterday we held our annual Mother's Day party and there was alcohol served. As I wrote earlier, some people consumed, others did not and all in the former camp were responsible, which is par for the course. All the alcohol was on our backyard deck, which proved problematic for said BIL since he's determined to carry on with the charade of his sobriety. About a hour ago I was redistributing some food items between our upstairs and downstairs refrigerators and when I opened up the downstairs one, where we had some beer just in case we needed more in the cooler, I noticed five empty beer bottles. ???? Damnit! I was in that refrigerator numerous times in the morning and even took cold beer from it to initially stock the cooler on the deck and I can state with 100% surety that those five bottles were not empty. To the best of my knowledge there was nobody in the basement during the party, but I did once see him coming upstairs and he volunteered that he was using the bathroom down there. Honestly, and maybe because I was consumed with my hosting responsibilities, I took his statement at face value because it was plausible. Since my discovery, I've given careful consideration to conclusions other than what I arrived at and none pass the threshold of “remotely likely.”
I'm disappointed, but absolutely not surprised. I'm also resentful because I've now been put in a position where I have to break the news to my wife and start another conversation about whether or not any future party we host that he's here for should be a dry one. What makes it worse, is after everyone left yesterday my wife was saying how proud she was of her brother because she didn't see him drinking. I'm confident her reaction will be like mine, disappointed yet not surprised.
Thank you for “listening”.
Lastly, I know I'm getting close to the point where the mods like to cap individual threads so my next personal post will be in a new thread.
One of my BIL's is an alcoholic. Almost three years ago he was fired from his place of employment for almost 20 years due to being drunk at work on numerous occasions and it was only last week that he found another job. He's also gotten numerous DWI's, including two on consecutive days. Due to drunk antics he has poisoned his relationship with some of his nieces and nephews as well as his own brother. The entire family has known about his issues for years and collectively and individually have done everything we could think of to help. Interventions with a trained counselor, paying many 1000's of dollars for him to have inpatient rehab, paying for private therapy sessions with an addiction counselor, hosting dry family parties, driving him to AA meetings, us going to Al Anon meetings. I could go on, but I think that's sufficient to get my point across.
He continues to drink so to date we have not achieved our family objective, but from what I can tell less than before so to the extent that's true it's a small positive. One big issue is that he attempts to hide the fact of his continued consumption, which at this point is about the worst kept secret on the planet as everyone in the family knows the truth. Which brings me to yesterday, by extension today, and the reason I'm typing this.
Yesterday we held our annual Mother's Day party and there was alcohol served. As I wrote earlier, some people consumed, others did not and all in the former camp were responsible, which is par for the course. All the alcohol was on our backyard deck, which proved problematic for said BIL since he's determined to carry on with the charade of his sobriety. About a hour ago I was redistributing some food items between our upstairs and downstairs refrigerators and when I opened up the downstairs one, where we had some beer just in case we needed more in the cooler, I noticed five empty beer bottles. ???? Damnit! I was in that refrigerator numerous times in the morning and even took cold beer from it to initially stock the cooler on the deck and I can state with 100% surety that those five bottles were not empty. To the best of my knowledge there was nobody in the basement during the party, but I did once see him coming upstairs and he volunteered that he was using the bathroom down there. Honestly, and maybe because I was consumed with my hosting responsibilities, I took his statement at face value because it was plausible. Since my discovery, I've given careful consideration to conclusions other than what I arrived at and none pass the threshold of “remotely likely.”
I'm disappointed, but absolutely not surprised. I'm also resentful because I've now been put in a position where I have to break the news to my wife and start another conversation about whether or not any future party we host that he's here for should be a dry one. What makes it worse, is after everyone left yesterday my wife was saying how proud she was of her brother because she didn't see him drinking. I'm confident her reaction will be like mine, disappointed yet not surprised.
Thank you for “listening”.
Lastly, I know I'm getting close to the point where the mods like to cap individual threads so my next personal post will be in a new thread.
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