I have a brother-in-law that needs rehab and a sister that is severely depressed. I know the principles of MB backwards and forwards, but I haven't ever had any experience in what to do. I don't know at this stage if they can begin to work on the marriage until they seek treatment for their own issues. Any suggestions or advice on how to proceed?

And for those of you that know me, yes Tgrace and I are doing fantastic!

Hill

The first step is for him to get treatment for his drinking and stop all drinking. Your sister can also get treatment for her depression, but I suspect it stems from his alcoholism.

She needs to use some tough love and demand that he quit drinking. She might locate a list of local AA meetings and escort him to them. Additionally, If he is a chronic alcoholic he will need medical help quitting because withdrawal from alcohol can be very dangerous.

Glad to hear you and grace are doing well!

HillTopper,

If it helps I thought I'd share.

I found myself in a similar situation some years ago and came here to ask for help as well. My W�s sister is married to an alcoholic. However her sister seems to manage his drinking as best she can so no signs of depression. I know firsthand what happens to a person with depression. Medications help a lot. My SIL is still unhappy with him but she manages. She does what she feels she has to to manage it short of demanding he stop drinking or else. I wish she�d change that but it is her choice. That's what I've learned ... they make their own choices.

He�s getting progressively worse from what I gather. Recently he missed a turn at a T and smashed up his pickup doing about $7,000 in damages. He got his license back a year or so ago from his 2nd DWI. We are all concerned of where his drinking is going to take him and what he�s going to do to either himself or others.

For me he�s 100 miles away so I don�t have to deal with this every day like SIL has to. I, too, wanted to help those few years ago. I�d still like to but I�m not in the proper position to help. He isn�t going to listen to me. And she doesn�t seem to care what I have to say either.

I was encouraged to get SIL involved in AlAnon and I was encouraged to go to. I was concerned about the situation because SIL was needing to borrow a pretty large sum of cash. I didn�t want to be doing anything to enable his drinking. When he�s out of money he�s out of money and relies on her to pick up the slack. So in a way I thought borrowing her money was enabling the drinking.

SIL never did attend any of those AlAnon classes. I went to a local chapter in my area for about 6 or 7 weeks. It was helpful . The people there were very helpful and gave me some good direction on how to handle the situation. In the end I basically decided to just distance myself from the situation as much as possible without being rude. Today I try not to get involved. With my wife who likes to talk about their sich I usually just affirm my stance and say SIL needs to go to Al Anon for her and he needs to get in AA.

My direction back then was to try to be the guide for SIL. Those attempts failed. I realized his drinking was having an effect on my life and I decided they will need to live with their choices. So I try to think less on what I could do to help and just keep hope that one day someone over there will see there�s a better way.

Her sister is very responsible and she paid us back prompt so there were no repercussions from our choice to lend her money. Unfortunately she is still living in what I would call a nightmare. Shame too because they are both good people � they both just have this one big problem � his drinking problem.

Hey Hill you got some great advice from the previous 2 posters. .. The addictions have to be nipped at the butt in order for them to get the ball rolling with MB.

Have you read the articles about dealing with an alcoholic spouse?

ALso .. glad to hear you and your wife are doing good. Maybe an update on your thread to tell us how its going?

MNG

Here you go.

What to do With an Alcoholic Spouse #1
Alcohol, Abuse and Infidelity