from the brother of an addict

If you haven’t read the first post I did, please read “Hi my name is….let’s talk about addiction” so you understand why I’m publishing these posts.

 

At first I was going to publish all of these essays as “anonymous”.  But this one was written by one of my brothers (obviously not the addict brother) and it would be hard to mask who he was based on some of the similarities of the story.   I also thought it would be interesting and hopefully helpful for people to see differing views within the same family.

My brother and I fundamentally disagree on some key parts of how to handle an addict.  We reacted differently in different situations.  We responded in different ways.  We felt different.  Our experiences and viewpoints were different.  We were involved in different degrees.  Neither of us was necessarily right or wrong.  Each member of a family who loves an addict has to respond in whatever way is best for that person.  And it will be different for each member of the family (based on SO many different factors).  It can get very complicated.

 

No choice ever feels exactly right.  Most choices feel “less” wrong than others.  Because the whole situation is just wrong. Feels wrong.  Feels hopeless.  Like there IS no right answer.  So we all do the best we can with the varying life situations we live in and make decisions accordingly.

His account is different than mine would be, in the past and present.  Which also makes addiction so interesting.  Two people can talk about the same addict and the story looks SO different.  It’s all about perspective.

 

And for the record, even though we don’t always agree on how we will handle different situations, our relationship is still just fine.  🙂

So with his permission to disclose his identity,  this essay was written by my oldest brother about our brother who is a currently sober alcoholic/addict.   It is honest and real and I am incredibly grateful my brother agreed to do it.  He didn’t want to.  Most people don’t really want to write about this stuff.  But it needs to be written about.  It needs to be talked about.  Thanks C!!

 

“I am the brother of an alcohol and drug addict who started drinking in the second grade.  Since that time, his addictive behavior has caused untold grief, anger and frustration within my family.  Over the last 20 or so years, I have not had to deal directly with many of the consequences of his behavior since I have started my own family and we don’t live in day-to-day proximity to the center of the action.   However, I can still feel the effects of choices made and lament the corrosive effect those choices have had on our family.

It’s hard to articulate the way I feel about this situation.  I have mixed emotions about it all.  Part of me feels real compassion toward my brother and the demons he must face day after day.  I know addiction is a disease that involves overwhelming compulsion to engage in self-destructive behavior, and treatment has to involve a lot of patience and understanding.  But I do not believe addiction is in the same class as other diseases like cancer or lupus.  To be sure, sometimes those diseases are the result of choices made.  A lifelong chain smoker shouldn’t be surprised to be diagnosed with lung cancer at some point.  But an alcohol and drug addict has to make a choice to consume, and it is that choice — and more importantly the attitude behind it — that makes addiction a different disease, in my view.  While I still feel compassion for the addict and the difficulties in dealing with the compulsive behavior it creates, for the most part I believe it can be managed and ultimately overcome with the proper attitude and support structure.  If the attitude is not there, and the addict wilfully chooses to consume alcohol and other drugs in defiance of his support network and the opportunity to make a different and better choice, there should be consequences.

I am a firm believer in personal responsibility.  I am not a cold-hearted, die-hard, far-right-wing conservative who sings the praises of rugged individualism at every turn and feels everybody should fend for himself.  I do believe in safety nets and that society at large should provide a basic one for all of us.  But we all have to do what we can to live responsible, productive, independent lives, and when somebody chooses one way or the other to live irresponsibly and unproductively to the point he becomes utterly dependent on others for his existence, I say “let the consequence follow.”

I have come to realize, however, that this is often easier said than done.  The one thing I have observed about my brother’s addiction is that his choices over the years have forced his loved ones — my parents, in particular, and to a lesser extent some of my siblings who are closer to the situation than I am — to make some very hard choices in response.

My father’s youngest brother was an alcoholic.  I do not know many details here, but I do know that my uncle did not have the best relationship with my grandparents because of the choices he made, choices that were contrary to the lifestyle of a conservative, religious family.  On the cusp of adulthood, my uncle more or less decided to leave the family.  Physically and emotionally he distanced himself from his loved ones.  Over the years he’d pop up here and there for family gatherings.  There would be an occasional phone call.  But after my grandparents passed away, those encounters were fewer and further between.  He ultimately died of a heart attack in a pool of his own vomit after a night of heavy drinking.  He was 51 years old at the time of his death.  I personally never saw or heard from him the last 14 years of his life.

I believe my uncle’s life and ultimate demise had a profound effect on my dad and the decisions he has made with regard to my brother.  My dad has decided that it’s better to do what’s necessary to keep my brother within the family and safe at home than to let him drift away and suffer the full weight of the consequences behind his choices.  He does not want what happened to his brother to happen to his son.  Sure, there have been times over the last 25 years when the consequences were inevitable.  My brother has been in and out of jail countless times.  He’s been a frequent guest at the homeless shelter.  But he has always come back, knowing full well that my dad will give him another chance sooner or later and that he won’t be allowed to fall too far.

  My mother has done her best to defer to my father, but she has had an indescribably difficult experience dealing with my brother’s rude, immature and manipulative behavior on an almost daily basis.  As such, she generally seems to lean the other way: Let him go and make his own choices with whatever consequences come as a result.  I know she and my dad have gone to battle over this many times.  I don’t know bad the damage really is, but I do know their marriage has suffered greatly.

Some of my siblings have leaned more toward my dad’s approach and have engaged in a lot of “enabling” behavior over the years — giving my brother a place to stay, a place to work, or a ride to or from the homeless shelter.  I will readily admit that I have done similar things as well, but because of my physical and emotional distance from the family center it has been occasional and limited.  For the most part I have profoundly disagreed with that course of action over the years.  As you might expect, this has sparked some heated arguments at times.  Several years ago at a family gathering, my sister and I were having what I thought was a casual discussion about my brother and his situation, but for reasons I still don’t understand it quickly heated up to the point we were screaming at each other.  I stormed out of the house and drove away to avoid going into kill mode, leaving my wife and kids behind (my parents later drove them back out to my house and we had a short, tense conversation to cap off a lovely evening).

Fast forward to the present.  As I write this, my brother is now 40 years old and continues to live with Mom and Dad, with no sign of ever becoming an independent, productive member of society.  He works maybe 20 hours a week at a local thrift store, then spends the rest of his time popping pain meds (which, for reasons I won’t get into here, have largely taken the place of alcohol and illegal drugs) and lying on the couch in the basement watching Law & Order re-runs.  For now, it is a dreadful, pathetic situation.  My parents should be enjoying their twilight years.  Instead, they are babysitting a stunted adult child and using precious physical, emotional and financial resources to do so.

One the one hand, I feel a small sense of vindication.  I have felt that this approach was going to have less-than-optimal outcomes to say the least, and that clearly has been the case.  On the other hand, as I’ve aged — now well into my 40s — my hard-line disagreement with the way my dad has dealt with my brother has softened somewhat.  I am starting to see and understand that there really wasn’t — and isn’t — any good choice to deal with my brother’s addiction.  If you let him go like my wayward uncle, it’s likely a death spiral.  While in some cases you could argue that might actually be best for all involved, death permanently closes the window of opportunity to live a productive, meaningful life that impacts the world for the better.  But by the same token, if you do whatever is necessary to keep him in the fold and effectively shield him from the consequences of his bad choices, you accept the likelihood  he lives a miserable, aimless life with little or no redeeming value to anybody and which drains those around him physically, mentally, and financially.  It’s a shit sandwich no matter how you slice it.

My dad is the most patient and compassionate person I’ve ever known.   I didn’t feel that way growing up — especially in my clueless teenage years — but it is crystal clear to me now.  He will do anything he can for anybody, loved one or complete stranger.  He is a true disciple of Christ.  In an age when most pay lip service to what really means, I am both humbled and touched by the exemplary life he has led.

I see that Christ-like compassion on display with my brother, and I know it’s being tested more profoundly than ever.  But my brother is alive today because my dad — my parents — made the hard choice to provide him with daily living support and to accept the consequences of that choice.

I suppose there is always that hope — however faint it may be at times — that he will right the ship and become the person we all want him to be.  I am not terribly optimistic that will end up being the case, but it’s possible.  I may have made a different choice to deal with my brother’s addiction and the attitude undergirding it.  But I have come to realize that addiction usually presents no easy, clear choice.  Because of that, it’s not for me to say that my parents made the wrong one.  All I can do is accept the choices that have been made and express my love and support as best I can, however imperfectly that may be.”

If you love someone who is an addict, please feel free to post your experiences, feelings, comments below.  You can put “anonymous” for the name if you’d rather people not know your real name.  Starting conversations is how we start to dispel the shame.