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Maybe ask him to come and visit you where you live. Sometimes a change of scenery and a new place gets people out of a rut. Besides that sadly theres not much you can do. I am from India too and more than one person in my joint family has withered over time due to almost identical circumstances.

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I have thought of doing that, but given that he seemed to be recovering recently and also just started working, I put it off. Also, I'm not sure how much a short visit would help.

I'm sorry to hear about your family; thanks for your help.

I was actually thinking of a slightly prolonged visit. I dont know what he does professionally but maybe he could come here and see if there are startups / companies / univs doing interesting things in his field. I was thinking along the lines of -he comes here, meets some people who are doing interesting stuff in his field, finds a footing and passion for the field and gets some direction - perhaps enrolls in a post grad univ. Sometimes the reason people turn to philosophy books is because they arent finding the intellectual challenge that they crave in their daily life. In India careers can often seem mundane and maybe putting him in contact with people who are close to how he wants to be would solve his anguish and make him feel that good things are possible.

You're spot on there.

He's a lawyer. In fact, he applied for a masters degree here and got into a couple of decent universities. But we were scared that his drinking would go completely out of control here, where drinking (especially binge drinking) is a lot more common than in India. So, he deferred his plans to come here and work for a while in India.

But perhaps a change of scene is really what he needs.

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