WIBTA for going no contact with my brother for getting sober?
Hi all, please read the whole story before judging. There is a lot more to it than meets the eye. All names have been changed. Apologies for the long post
I (28F) have 2 younger siblings, James (25M) and Becca (22F) and my husband of 10 years Tom (30M).
Growing up James, Becca and I were close but when I moved in with my now husband at 21 it was only ever Becca that would make an effort to keep in touch and I put that down to James being 18 and out with his friends whereas Becca at the time was 15 and like most 15 year olds spent most of the time in her room on her phone. James and Becca are incredibly close.
James very quickly became a problem child. He failed his GCSEs, dropped out of college and got in with the wrong crowd, and quickly went down the drugs and alcohol route.
My dad told him he needed to do something with his life as he was 18 now so he got him a part time job at the store he worked at. For about 6 months he seemed great but then he slowly started going out more again, hanging out with the wrong crown as all his "good friends" had gone to university or had full time mon-fri jobs and my brother worked weekend shifts.
He started calling in sick frequently and the staff at the store would make comments to my dad about him losing his job if he continued to miss work or show up hungover which obviously embarrassed my dad who was a long serving very well respected employee.
The day after James's 24th birthday I got a call from my dad early in the morning saying James never came home the night before and he wasn't answering his phone and he had a shift in 8 hours. We immediately feared the worst and I repeatedly called him until he finally answered sounding like he was still on whatever he had taken. I asked where he was and he said he was at a stranger's house 2 towns over where he had gone to take drugs.
I yelled at him to get home and get to bed as he had a shift and needed to sleep this off.
After his shift I picked him up from work and yelled at him for a solid half hour about how whenever he doesn't come home we all believe he's died and the stress he's putting on my parents and his sisters is not fair and he needs to get help.
After this rant we started to see genuine improvements. He stopped going out during the week, he went to his GP for help with addiction and we genuinely thought things were finally looking up. So my husband offered him a full time job at the carpentry company he worked at as we knew he hated his store job and this would provide him a more stable income and mon-fri jobs freeing up his weekends to see his "good friends".
My husband told him that the conditions of this job was it was early starts (6am) and sometimes late finishes (6pm) and James would have to be sober. He agreed to all the terms and 2 weeks later he started as Tom's assistant.
Fast forward to 6 months later and we are all in the pub with my parents on Friday evening. We have a little friday ritual of all meeting on a Friday after work for 1 drink and a catch up then me and Tom go to our house and James, Becca and my parents go back to their house (both siblings still live at home).
James sits down with a non alcoholic beer and says he has sonething to tell us. He says he has lied to us for the last 6 months and he hasn't been sober, just hiding it better and that his "good friends" had told him this was his final chance or they would cut him off for good. They had taken him to an AA and NA meeting and he was as of that day 3 days sober. We were all obviously fuming that he had lied to us for 6 months about being sover when he wasn't but told him we were proud of his steps to make amends now and we would support his journey to get sober. This was 4 months ago now.
James never went to another NA or AA meeting. He continues to drink non alcoholic beer and goes to the gym with a good friend 4 times a week and looks a lot better in himself. However, and this is where i think IATA, he has become absolutely insufferable to be around sober.
His moods are horrendous, he never stops complaining, never has anything to smile about and he has been winding Tom up to no end at work, complaining about the jobs being "too long" or "too far away" or "too much work" and complaining about "the government taking all of his money in taxes" and spouting a lot of conspiracy theory bull shit. He would also refuse to work sometimes and my husband would end up having to do a lot of the job himself.
My husband is autistic and struggles a great deal with confrontation so he would ask James to please get back to work but he wouldn't take him on again when he refused.
For the last couple of months we have been having words with my parents asking them to have a word with him as he won't listen to my husband and if the boss at Tom's firm get wind of this they would fire him. They would talk to him and James would tell my parents that Tom was the problem and he was provoking my James and dragging the days out longer than they had to so he could get more money (I don't drive and finish work at 5pm so my husband likes to be home for 4pm so he can get changed then pick me up from work so this just wasn't true at all).
We have told James he should go back to meetings or get therapy for his addiction and anger issues but he claims he doesn't need help and he isn't going to meetings as he's always the youngest one there.
Then yesterday happened. A large job had been scheduled for that day and James was stomping around being his now usual insufferable self loudly complaining in a customer's house instead of doing his job and my husband snapped, told him to shut up and work or go home. James threw his tools down, yelled "I quit" then left leaving my husband to do the job by himself.
About half an hour later Tom gets a call from the office staff saying James had called and told them they were all pathetic and he quit because he was sick of working for capitalist scum or something to that effect.
Luckily for Tom his boss loves him and doesn't hold this against him at all but my husband has been spiraling all night as he was the one that got my brother the job and he feels like it's been thrown back in his face and that the company will hold it against him and is upset that James is spreading lies about him (again my husband is autistic and struggles a lot with emotion which means he tends to get in his own head and raise his anxiety levels)
My parents, my sister and I are all furious with James and honestly i'm sick and tired of his lies when he isn't sober and his attitude and mood when he is sober. Either way he is hurting the people around me and refuses to get the help he so desperately needs. I'm tired of watching him hurt the people I love the most.
WIBTA if I went no contact with him until he gets help and truly makes amends for the absolute shit show he's put our family through for the last 7 years?
ETA : it was Feb this year when he told us he was sober meaning as of currently he claims to have been sober for 4 months. His shitty behaviour started around a week or two after he claims he got sober