My brother is an alcoholic. I guess you could call him a functioning alcoholic. He goes to work Monday through Friday. He pays his bills. He likes football and porn, fixing cars and Superman. Like any blue collared guy in this country. But over the weekend, he becomes an alcoholic, drinking himself damn near into a coma. As of writing this entry, he has woken me up with his vomiting in the bathroom and stumbling around the house before passing out cold on the couch, pants halfway down snoring like a saw because he could not find the way to his bed.I took pictures, and I intend to utilize them at some point in the future, to help him realize how far he's gone into this.

This has been a growing problem ever since we moved back home to help out our mother with her bills and the houses that we have been trying to take care of. Ever since he moved back, and broke up with his emotionally abusive girlfriend, Jessica, he's seemed a bit....off. But he never talked to anyone about it, and we never brought it up, due to thinking that it was too soon to talk to him about it. But he started to act strangely. He would come into my room at night and just sit at my computer, watching me sleep. He wouldn't DO or SAY anything. Just sit there, staring at me. He apparently did the same thing to my grandmother as well. This made me feel very uncomfortable, and unsafe. I don't like people watching me sleep. It's creepy. And I could smell the alcohol on his clothes, everywhere in my room when he was there.

The worst part of it is, he tries to hide it. Whenever we (meaning myself and my other brother Eddie) are around or awake and he is trying to bring alcohol in, he always tries to hide it behind his back or in a bag, which is pathetic to me. It's sad, really. I honestly want to say to him, "Are you fucking stupid? I see that bottle in your hand. Quit doing that, we know you are drinking." He also tries to play it off the next day. He puked in the downstairs bathroom once and my mother and I had to clean it up. The next day, he denied that it was him, even accusing Eddie of being sick. (This past evening, I had to clean it up as well) But I don't confront him, and I'm not sure I would unless he tried to harm me or my mother, grandmother or Eddie. I'm not sure HOW to approach the subject, because I do not know how he would react. After 26 years of living with my brother, I feel like I do not KNOW him. I do not know how he would react to his younger brother telling him he has a drinking problem.

Truth of the matter is, I do not feel safe while he is drunk and stumbling around. I refuse to live in a place with that type of alcoholic. Trust me, this is not a bash against drinking; I have been know to knock back a few after a stressful day or week. But the key word is FEW. I know my limits, and unless I'm around people I trust, I'm not going to go past that limit. Around family, I prefer to not drink at all. I respect my family members enough to not get trashed around them, albeit how rare I drink already. I would drink when I had my apartment, sure. I was in college, and dating, doing all sorts of stuff (nothing illegal, of course) But I calmed down, got myself into a good rhythm of work and school, and have had a pretty great life so far. But my brother seems to be stuck in this loop, and I do not know how to help him. At this point, I'm not even sure attempting to talk with him would do anything.

But what if I wait? What if that's the wrong thing to do, and he ends up hurting someone, or himself in the process? Will I feel the need to act then? Or will I be so full of anger at him that I won't be able to fathom that he does have a problem?

I have no idea what to do. But I needed to get this out. It was consuming me.

Henry