Another unwanted reason to maintain sobriety
 

I have a brother who has 2 primary school aged kids, lives on property with an awesome house and has not mortgage. He and his wife have a combined high income and he drinks.
When he heard I was off it he got quit offended and angry in my presence, even though I was discussing or talking about (I was just drinking soft drink whilst he and his mate drunk)
Last night, aged 40 he collapsed and was unconscious for 30 mins. Whilst being transported to hospital he goes into cardiac arrest. He's stable and improving now but suffered major blood loss - 4 litres (8.5 pints) from internal bleeding (alcohol damage to his liver and capillary veins I would suspect). Today I'm not advised I can't visit - I have no doubts that he thinks I'll mention alcohol to him which I wouldn't.
So their you go - everything going for a person but the filthy disease of alcohol annihilates you whilst making you believe their is not life without it.

Sorry, Chances, that is quite sad. I hope you are not hurt by his reaction to you not drinking. That is probably his mental defenses to the unwanted thought that he is destroying his life by drinking. The booze is a bastard.

I'm really sorry Chances - but I'm glad you're brother is in the best place for him right now.

Best wishes to you both :)

D

Well said. It is the problem that masquerades as the solution.

I hope your brother recovers.

Also keep in mind that your sobriety doesn't offend HIM. It threatens his addiction, which in turn provokes him to respond.

Keep doing your thing. :You_Rock_

I'm sorry to hear about this.

At the very least he can't drink if he's in the hospital. It might be the time he needs to get it out of his system and acknowledge his problem.

You didn't do anything wrong, it was probably just the booze talking when he got mad. I had a similar experience with my mom once when she confiscated a drink my underage little brother had at my sisters wedding. It was just baseless drunken anger from me because I felt it threatened my own drinking for whatever reason.

Some would say that it was his AV talking with you. AV wants the booze so as to maintain the alcohol level in the blood to avoid detox. Ironic in the sense that detox can be life threatening and the AV is desperately trying to preserve the "status quo". Trouble is of course that the "status quo" may likely become life terminating rather than life threatening. Treatment tries to break this vicious cycle. The longer the drinking and the greater the quantity of booze the harder things get. Irreversible liver damage or heart failure will terminate the struggle. But it's tough if the only way to sober up is in the grave. I've heard that the lucky ones get heart failure because liver failure is really horrendous.

W.

I'm very sorry to hear about your brother Chances!! :(

Glad though he's doing a bit better!!

Sorry about your brother