The Monday night dinner with my parents and little brother was....okay, I guess. Nothing big happened. Nothing terrible.
It's just discouraging, this path that he is headed down. Again.
He is 20 years old and has no plans and no goals for himself. Well, I take that back. He wants my parents to give him his college fund money (from our grandparents) while he is here. He is telling them he wants to go to a technical school in Georgia, but says he doesn't know what for. We know his track record. It is obvious he does not want the money for school. He has no job, no place to live, a girlfriend (yeah, they're back together now) with no job, and a drug and alcohol habit. He and the girlfriend have already had a pregnancy scare in their one month of being together. She has a 16-month-old child that is living with a relative in another state because she couldn't care for him. She is married. She says she's getting divorced, but who knows. My brother talked about fights they have been having - ridiculous, possessive, jealousy-fueled fights that people who have been in a relationship for a month should never have.
My brother told Dave that he couldn't pass a drug test to get a job test now (we knew that). But then he said that he has no interest in staying clean. That he doesn't see any reason to not use drugs. (Really? Are you serious? No reason at all? Not the fact that you have wrecked your life several times over with drug use? You've been to rehab. You've been arrested. Been on probation. Been kicked out multiple times. Totalled multiple cars. Discharged from the Army. Attempted suicide. Hurt your family so badly. Lost friends. You said you knew the drugs were the reason why. You said you were going to get your life straight this time.)
It's so hard to have hope for someone in this situation. I love him so much, I want all of these wonderful things for him, yet he wants nothing positive for himself.
Brooklyn remembers him. It had been four months since she'd seen him, and she reached for him the second she laid eyes on him.
Dave said he doesn't want my brother in and out of Brooklyn's life while he is living his life this way. "I don't want him coming around Brooklyn, around us, until he's clean. He's had chances. This is it," Dave said. He doesn't want our daughter exposed to the hurt that comes with loving someone who is an addict. I understand, but I don't want to take her from him. I know he loves her. No, I do not want him around us when he is high. But I also cannot bring myself to tell my husband that I will agree to this. I already have one brother who we have no contact with because he is a lying, manipulating, violent, hurtful drug addict. My baby brother is basically the only sibling I have now.
I don't want to lose him. But I'm afraid he may be lost no matter what I do. He is heading back down a dangerous road. If something were to happen, I couldn't deal with the guilt...(Could I have done more? I should have been there for him. Why didn't we let him come over? Why didn't we reach out? We shouldn't have bowed out of his life. He needed us and we weren't there....)
It's morbid, but these are the things I think about. The "what-ifs." Especially now that I know he has the capacity (and will?) to try to take his own life.
I don't want to be an only child.
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5 comments:
I am glad the dinner didn't bring any blowouts with it...I know you were so worried about it.
I think you have done all that you can for your brother...until he is ready to help himself there is nothing anyone can do. I think you have made to right decisions by not exposing Brooklyn to him...in her home. Addicts can make dangerous and desparate decisions.......I can't tell you to not feel guilty because you will...that's in your loving nature...but do try not to beat yourself up...he is 20 and an adult...he has to make his own life......
Hang in there.......sam
The rotten thing is, with addiction, that it hits rock bottom for you long before they hit it for themselves.
After a friend my sister got high with robbed my mother's house, my mother had to make the tough decision to kick her out at the age of 18, and she had to find her own way. I hope your brother finds his footing before his addition causes more destruction.
What a terrible position he has put you in. On the one side, of course you don't want him around Brooklyn, but like you said you also don't want to take that away from her.
I'm so sorry Amanda. I have a few family members we feel this way about too, although it's not r/t drugs. I'm with you though, you don't want to keep them from each other but you have to protect your daughter. Of course as her mother you will always do that and Dave knows you would never let your brother see her if he were messed up. I will keep you in my prayers.
Addiction is a horrible AWFUL thing to go through. Please know that I understand where you are at. Sometimes you have to just let them go and hope that they don't take out anyone else on their way to their bottom.
Once they get there, wherever that is, if they want it bad enough they can pull themselves out of it. Until then nothing anyone can say or do can make it better. They have to want help, and it sounds like he's not ready yet.
Hang in there.
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