I totally understand that, it took me a long time to get to that place and I felt like the worst person in the world doing it when I had to take him to the salvation army. The whole thing of “how can I do this to my Dad, I literally have a roof he could live under” but from doing a lot of work on myself and with the support group I had got to a place where I knew that he would not get better if I then took him in and the pros of making him ‘homeless’ outweighed the cons.
For me I have stopped challenging his behaviour as it just leads to arguments as he will always lie and deny it as he unfortunately doesn’t want to get better. However at the start you need to do that to be able to get to a place where you can feel like there is nothing else I can do, it’s up to him to get better etc. etc. (I hope that all makes sense!?)
In one of our support group sessions we had a talk from a man who has been clean from drugs for 4 years now and he said something that really made me think. He said nothing was enough for him to stop, not even the birth of his new daughter, she wasn’t enough. He had to get to the place himself, which did help me as I would always get the feeling of “how can he not do this for us”. The same man also said though he had to get to his rock bottom though for that to happen.
I completely understand your worry about your brother taking his own life though etc. and there is so much guilt for us on this side of it all with everything involved with the loved one with addiction. What I will say though, and I don’t want this to sound heartless or awful but your brother is already killing himself by doing this.
I really think it would be good for you and your mum to speak to someone for support if you haven’t already. I didn’t start coping with it properly until then.
Another thing I have done since joining the group is I learnt properly about boundaries (and making sure they are boundaries I will stick to) for instance if I turn up to my Nana’s and my dad is drunk, I now just leave. Rather than challenging him and asking him if he’s drunk etc. I just leave. he knows that is something I now do so he can’t question it.
I have recently got some workbooks which I am also finding helpful by SMART recovery. They are called “Uk SMART recovery. Family and Friends Handbook” and also “SMART Recovery Handbook” (that one is for the addict) they are a very good charity.
Sorry I feel like that’s all a bit of a ramble, I hope it makes sense