How to deal with an alcoholic parent

[Arrow_Raider]

I need some advice on how to deal with my alcoholic father. For 2 years now, he has been drinking every day. In the past 6 months, weekday drinks have increased from 1-2 to 4-5. Weekend drinks may be as many as 10, often beginning before noon. Many of our relatives, my mother, myself, and my brother have expressed great concern to him. He responds to such statements with extreme anger, so it is not something we can easily approach him with, even if we do it before he has begun drinking. His heavy drinking has led to some terrible emotionally painful arguments. As of yet, his drinking hasn't led to any physical abuse on any of us, but he does sometimes throw things, breaking them. He recently broke a TV by throwing the dtv converter box that was attached to it, which broke the RF plug in the back of the TV.

He drinks because he is depressed. Almost 7 years ago, my other brother of 13 years old, passed away. He has never been able to cope with that in appropriate ways. He briefly attending counseling, but he hated his counselor and really hated the idea of counseling. He is currently on 200mg of zoloft for his depression, which is the maximum dose you can be prescribed. He had begun antidepressants before my brother's death, but I am not sure at what dosage level. I know it was less than 200mg though,

He also finds his job very stressful and it often makes him angry. He dislikes what he does, the people he works with, and business is down a lot because of the recession. He is 51 years old, only has an associates degree, and his current work experience is in a field that has pretty much died with the recession. So getting another job would not be an easy task to do. He has been employed at his current place of work for 19 years.

Also, his father was a terrible man. He regularly cause emotional distress and physically abused his children. The "belt" was commonly used for whipping, and I am sure his fists went flying too. He was very much a heavy drinker, more so than my dad. It is hard for him to see things as we do because he grew up with a much worse father.

Earlier in the Spring, I signed a lease for an apartment near my university campus and will be moving there in September. However, my brother and mom will still be living here with him. Hopefully I can manage to deal with the issues until then, but my brother and mom aren't so lucky as to be getting out. My brother is still in highschool and my mom doesn't seem to be willing to go through with something such as separation or divorce. Both of them will be able to stay at my apartment of course if they ever need to.

None of us know how we should approach this issue. Does anyone have any suggestions or have gone through something similar? There is no chance he will seek help himself because he refuses to see that he has a drinking problem. I filled out the answers to the AUDIT test as if I were him and obtained a score of 23, which is very high. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol...ification_Test


His drinks include whiskey, vodka, and margaritas. He doesn't do his drinking at bars; he does it at home. He ends up dropping several hundred dollars per month on his alcohol. So far, he hasn't encountered any run-ins with the law because of his drinking, but he has been known to drive while under the influence.