brother

He Did it Again

by UnknownMami on December 29, 2011

He left his family (wife and 5 year old son) to go to rehab and get better.

He came back after 6 months. I knew he was back, but honestly had no desire to talk to him.

Why? Because even after 6 months of rehab, I felt skeptical.

When I finally did speak to him, I still felt skeptical.

It’s always the same. He talks too fast and I feel like he’s trying to sell me a used car. Everything is just great and nothing is going to get in his way even though everything in his way is just the same as it was before he left. Same people, same problems, same everything. Sure, it’s doable when you are hundreds of miles away in the middle of Mexico rehabbing on a farm, but then you come back to the same crap marriage, the same crap neighborhood, and the same crap has a tendency to happen.

He’s been back for maybe a month…maybe…and today I find out he’s in jail. CRAP! For stealing I don’t know what, it doesn’t matter.

Same old crap.

I tell myself it no longer hurts and that I’m numb, but that numbness is a feeling in itself. So I write and share because I know I am not alone. I know that so many people have brothers or sisters or mothers or fathers that are addicts or maybe they themselves are the addict. Doesn’t matter, it’s just CRAP!

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My Brother…same old story

by UnknownMami on May 31, 2011

My brother is a drug addict.

He isn’t much of anything else.

He isn’t much of a man.

He isn’t much of a father.

He isn’t much of a husband.

He is an excellent liar.

He has been a drug addict for more than half of his almost 32 years.

None of it comes as a surprise anymore. None of it. And yet sometimes, I’m still caught off guard.

It is all so very ugly.

About a month ago he started having seizures or convulsions or who knows what. I can never believe anything he says.

A week ago he was admitted to the hospital because he had another convulsion and cut his head open on his kitchen floor.

He was released, we were relieved.

He went home and at 2 in the morning his wife woke up to a bed missing a husband.

She went looking for him and found him high on heroin.

He denied it.

She couldn’t find any drugs or paraphernalia, but she didn’t believe him.

She couldn’t find any incriminating evidence because he had shoved it up his ass.

Do you see how ugly this is?

Who does something like that?

A drug addict does.

My brother is a drug addict.

He’s gone now, supposedly getting help.

He’s gone to get help before.

He might be gone for a whole year.

He has a stay-at-home wife and a 5 year old son that no longer have an income.

This is the part where I lose it…

imagine every curse word in the universe and then add some that haven’t even been invented

This story sucks.

There are a few possible endings.

Most of them are not good, but I am still hoping for a happy ending.

Why?

Because the drug addict is my brother.

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I Love my Brother

by UnknownMami on January 4, 2011

Do you remember the first time you fell in love? I’m not talking about romantic love, I’m talking about falling in love with someone you meet just because of who they are and what they make you feel.

The first time I remember falling in love is when I was 8 years old and my brother was born. Sure I knew what love was. I loved my mother, but I didn’t remember falling in love with her, it was just a given. When I first laid eyes on the chubby bundle of wonder that was my brother, I fell hard.

My brother holds a special place in my heart that is reserved just for him. No one else can touch that spot. I wouldn’t be me if it weren’t for him coming into my life and loving me back.

I don’t write about my brother often because it hurts too much. You see at some point that beautiful little boy grew up and developed an addiction to drugs. This addiction to drugs gets in the way of everything and there is nothing that I can do to make it go away, it’s up to him.

At some point, I had to come to terms with the fact that he would end up in jail or dead or both. He did end up in jail (twice) and I saw him close to death.

I was as involved as I could be until I just couldn’t be. I told him that he was welcome in my life when he was sober and if he was using I didn’t want anything to do with him. One year on Thanksgiving I called my mother’s house to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. My brother was there and asked to talk to me. I said no and I heard the whimpering sound of a wounded animal coming out of him. I felt wounded myself.

Life went on for the both of us and he went from worse to better. He cleaned up, got a job, got married, and had a son. It was so nice to look into his eyes again and see the person I fell in love with, not the cagey, lying addict I’d come to expect.

I love my brother. I have never stopped loving him and I will love him forever.

In my dreams he is always a little boy. Always. I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream about him as a man. The other night I dreamt he was enrolled in a school called, “School for Problem Children”. In the dream, I yelled at my mother for enrolling him in a school with such a horrid name. The next morning I woke up and called my mother just to talk. It turns out my brother had a relapse and is not doing well.

No matter how I try to distance myself, that place in my heart that is reserved only for him will not let me. I love my brother. I hate his fucking addiction. I am so tired of this emotional roller coaster. I’m sick of what it does to him and everyone that cares about him. I want to make myself hard as a rock, but the tears that stream down my face have carved canyons of despair.

So I sit and cry. I hope for the best and brace myself for the worst and through it all, I love my brother.

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Art

by UnknownMami on May 8, 2009

Art is amazing! It has made my life so much better. Let me explain.

My younger brother is visiting with his son and my mother. My brother was the first love of my life. He has brought me so much joy and he has also brought me immeasurable pain. He is a recovering heroin addict. My brother can have long conversations with you about anything drug or prison related, but when it comes to the “arts” he doesn’t have much to say.

This visit has been wonderful because my brother has been clean for some time and he is now a devoted father. I work at a museum and he asked me to take him and his son.

The exhibit we saw is “Warhol Live”. Now you don’t have to know much about art to know who Andy Warhol is, but my brother had never heard of Andy Warhol. Until today.

For us to be able to walk through a museum together and enjoy each other’s company and share an experience that isn’t about “our” past is amazing. We get to know each other in a different way and find out what appeals to us. I love how open minded he is about what he sees and I love to hear how he interprets what he sees.

We’ve had so many moments like this. I act and he started going to plays because I was in them, but now he can sit through a play without thinking it’s weird or feeling uncomfortable.

One of the nicest things my brother has ever said to me is, “If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have art in my life.”

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