A few years ago, she and I had a good laugh about my naivete. Katherine is a family counselor  — not an addictions professional. This type of counseling was a nascent field when I first considered professional help, but since I believed my family’s addiction was not my problem, I never would have chosen an addiction professional anyway. Over the years, Katherine taught me a lot about addiction, lending me books, and sending me to the library and to Al-Anon and other groups. She started me on the path to self-awareness, and more recently on the journey to learn more about my brothers and me. To quote a line from the song Truckin’, “what a long, strange trip it’s been.” Three years ago, she suggested I write a book for siblings of alcoholics. Sober Siblings: How to Help Your Alcoholic Brother or Sister — And Not Lose Yourself, published in July 2008, is the result.

Several years earlier I had sought Katherine out to talk about my brothers. With my parents’ passing in the last two decades, I found I was focusing on my relationship with my siblings as never before. No longer concerned about my parents, I realized the importance of these other ties. Also, after a long stretch of relative equanimity, my brothers weren’t doing well, and I was smack dab in the middle of their relapses once again. My younger brother Ted’s downward spiral, at age 54, was particularly ominous. He had no job prospects, he couldn’t stop drinking and drugging, and he wouldn’t try rehab yet again. My older brother, Steve, was in and out of the hospital month after month because of his drinking. As for me, I was upset about Ted and feeling I had to give Steve money for his medications.

Katherine may have known that writing the book would not only be cathartic for me, it was a wonderful way for me to learn even more than she had taught me. “There are many ways to get a message,” she once said, “and it doesn’t matter which way you hear it.” In researching additional information that would be helpful to others, and in interviewing other sober siblings, I’d benefit, too, and she must have known that.

While writing the book, I realized that after three decades with Katherine, I had actually accumulated a few “If I knew then what I know now …” revelations. And in working with Dr. Petros Levounis, the addiction psychiatrist who became my co-
author, I learned even more. (I needed an addiction professional as co-author in order to sell the book idea to a publisher, and I’m glad it worked out that way.)  For the first time, I saw how a brother or sister might reach an alcoholic sibling, and what would undoubtedly not work. I also came to understand that brothers and sisters have choices about the type of relationship they have with an alcoholic sibling, that they can relate on different levels and that’s perfectly fine, and that what might be right for one person is not right for another. I even found out that siblings who are angry, judgmental and resentful can change — can actually choose to be less so. Or it might just happen naturally, with enough time and wisdom. And finally, I appreciated more fully the difference between the resources available when my brothers grew up and what’s available today.

I’ll be grateful if the book helps others. I often write about people in recovery and I wish I could have ended the book on a hopeful note about my own family situation. However, my younger brother died suddenly of alcohol-related causes while I was writing the book — a tragic ending to a tragic life — and my older brother lives a marginal existence in assisted living. Not every story has a happy ending, but both my brothers still deserve their dignity. Their stories are testament to the progress we’ve made since their early years and should provide hope to others today.

Katherine gave me a huge gift when she suggested I write a book for others (and for me). Whether she knows it or not, she has paid a kindness forward and allowed me to do so, too. Sometimes counselors have no idea of all that they do for their clients and of the extent of their reach.

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