[IGotThroughIt]

Man, I'm so sorry you went through this with your brother.

It's better to lay off the booze completely or until one can gain control - if that's even possible for you. I find that it makes a bad situation worse.

For anyone going through this, my experience and general advice is as follows:

You need to feel the pain that you're going through instead of masking it with alcohol. Pain lets you know something's gone awry and that you need to address it asap.

I don't know if anyone has any literary references that alcohol enhances anxiety and depression - because I'd like to see it - but it was my experience.

[pfdietz]

I think in his case, he had just given up, and decided he was going to die relatively young. In that scenario, why not run up big debts? He must have been planning his exit for a while.

The slightest silver lining was that no one in the family felt any need to step up and go through the traumatic experience of administering his estate: it had negative value, so what would have been the point? I'm not sure whatever happened to his car, which was left parked on the street somewhere. I also felt sorry for the people he had rented his house from, as he left it in a state that required considerable repair. They tried to get the family to pay for that, but of course they had no legal leg to stand on. I told the court I'd have no objection to them, as debtors, handling the estate, if they wished to do so, but they never did.