A worried brother asking for help

[ngmucker]

Thank you very much for that post Jeff. He is currently seeing a therapist once a week and is going to start routinely going to GA. And I WILL not enable him. I assure you. I'm just goin to be as supportive as I can. He has been "clan" now for almost two weeks. Lets hope it continues.

Greetings chesspain,

BTW, nice screen name ;-) To answer your question, I am not sure if my father was an alcoholic. We had an unusual family situation whereby my father became a quadrepeligic (hit by a drunk on the job) when I was 1 and my brother was 4 years of age. I am told my father used to patronize the bars and gamble before his accident. Afterwards, he didn't drink alcohol because of health problems and pentecostal religious convictions.

However, interestingly enough, neither one of my mom's parents were alcoholic or drug dependent (or any known addiction problems). However, if we go back to my father's side we have a minor mess. I don't know if any of the following is consistent with the recent literature, but I included it anyway (below).

History on father's side:

Father (unknown)
Father's dad: none
Father's mother: schizoaffective
Father's sister: severe alcoholic, and bipolar disorder
requiring lithium
Father's grandmother: alcoholic


JeffreyREBT "Wherein I don't promise to make you rich without trying, or even trying very hard; I do promise to say things that will make you FEEL rich."

Greetings ngmucker,

Thanks for reading my post and the kind comment. It sounds like your brother has a lot more insight then mine based on his willingness to attend therapy and GA. It sounds like you have a reasonable approach and it's good to hear he's already making some progress.

And I'm happy you aren't giving up on him. It's neat that you have invested the time here to get feedback. There were many times I was having a crisis and wished I had a brother looking out for my best interest. Your brother is quite fortunate in this respect.

JeffreyREBT "Wherein I don't promise to make you rich without trying, or even trying very hard; I do promise to say things that will make you FEEL rich."

[thehotspur]

ngmucker I'm sorry to hear that your brother is a pathological gambler, it is excellent that he is in therapy, the biggest help you can give him is to make sure he continues to seek help until he is on top of the problem. If he thinks his current therapist is bad then there are organisations you can contact who specialise in problem gambling who can recommend a gambling addiction specialist almost anywhere in America. For more information about this issue and to help you to understand it better here are some links:
http://www.ncpgambling.org/about_problem/
http://www.responsiblegambling.org/
http://www.gamblingtherapy.org/
and an online self help quitting guide for gambling created by Harvard Uni:
http://www.basisonline.org/toolkits/...pSite/main.htm

GA is not to everyone's liking however so it may not be a sign of non-committment to quitting by him if he attends and then chooses not to continue with them.

I hope he gets the help he needs, that kind of compulsion to gamble almost always belies a psychological difficulty or way of being which is more fundamental than the gambling problem. I wish you both well.

[tonypaladino]

[ QUOTE ]

I'd like to know how he is 5K in debt to various sites? They don't extend credit. This line alone makes me doubt the story.

[/ QUOTE ]

This post makes me doubt you know what you're talking about.