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Brotherly Woes
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Bear with me guys. This is gonna be a long post. (4 Parts)
As the title suggests I am worried about my bro. He is a year yonger than me (30) and has been a herion addict for around 12 of them years. I have known about this for around 7 years. For about the first 3 of them years I tried to help him. I sat up with him all night while he rattled. I paid off some big black drug dealer who was threatening to shoot him. And this wasn't a £100 debt either. 4 figure sum.
It was hard but we got through it. Then his evil fucking girlfriend (Also on the stuff) got her hooks back into him and dragged him back onto it. Things were worse than ever. He started injecting again. He was skiving off his work more and more. Rumours starting spreading around our town and I felt that he had to tell my folks before they found out from someone else.
(tbc)
As the title suggests I am worried about my bro. He is a year yonger than me (30) and has been a herion addict for around 12 of them years. I have known about this for around 7 years. For about the first 3 of them years I tried to help him. I sat up with him all night while he rattled. I paid off some big black drug dealer who was threatening to shoot him. And this wasn't a £100 debt either. 4 figure sum.
It was hard but we got through it. Then his evil fucking girlfriend (Also on the stuff) got her hooks back into him and dragged him back onto it. Things were worse than ever. He started injecting again. He was skiving off his work more and more. Rumours starting spreading around our town and I felt that he had to tell my folks before they found out from someone else.
(tbc)
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Comments
After a really tough year he pulled through. He was off the drugs and getting his life back together. The g/f family moved to another town (Her Dad's work forced the move) which was around 50 miles or so away. He went to South Africa with his work for 6 weeks and when he came back he looked the best I have ever seen him in 8 or so years.
BUT while he was away the g/f had a relapse. Within 2 months of my bro being back he was on the stuff again. He lost his job and then his flat. He moved back hom ewith my folks. So over the last couple of years he's been on and off it but more on than off.
(tbc)
So one night (About 6 weeks ago) he came stumbling in at a little past midnight (He was supposed to be starting the night shift at 10PM) . My folks went mental and kicked him out. Now I can understand why they did it and I don't blame them for one second. I would have done the same. And I haven't seen or heard from him since.
(tbc)
I have his mobile number but am very unsure if I should phone him. Am I being totally selfish by not. I'm not sure if I want to be bringing all these problems back into my house. It's previously caused fights between me and the missus because I've ran around looking for him sometimes all day or night.
Help!!
He's had offers to go to Glasgow and stuff to get away from it but the g/f hooks in.
I wake every morning and wonder if he's OK. It's totally tearing me up. And I have to hide it from the wife and the kids cause I don't want us to start fighting about it again.
First off *hugs*, it sounds like you and your family have really been having a time of it. It also sounds like you could do with some support and I realise you've probably talked to professionals about this but it might be useful for you to contact Family and Friends an organisation offering counselling, support and information for family and friends of drug users, you can call them on 0808 800 2000. You can also find online support at AdFam.
Both of these organisations will be able to help you work out what you want to do next about the situation and would also be able to offer support, advice and info to other members of your family who might need/want it.
*more hugs*
Hope this helps some,
CB
www.release.org.uk
As for your brother, its a situation where although you want to help him there really is only so much you can do. He is an adult and makes adult choices. Of course thats no comfort to you at all.
What I mean is that he has to decide to give up and give up for good. He has to come to the choice by himself. Treatment very rarely works when it is forced.
There is a school of thought that suggest that you shouldnt bail out drug using siblings. In that when they know you will always pay their debts then they know they always have a safety net and are more liable to run up those debts. Of course this isnt easy when they are being physically threatened.
It just makes me so angry that his selfish acts have come to my folks having to sell not their house but their and my childhood home.
And then I feel guilty that I feel anger towards him.
Both myself individually and the family as a whole have been to counselling but I fear that he's beyond help.
I might just use this medium as a sounding off point as don't want to upset the wife.
Its escapism, pointless and non-sensicle in the long term, but works in the short term.
I wiped my hands with him and basically didn't want nothing to do with him, and still don't really for that matter. That was my way of dealing with it but I know it wouldn't work for everyone.
He has to want to come off it to start with, as bong said, treatment won't work if forced. Although what my bro got in the end was some kind of implant where if he took heroin it had no effect on him, this is when my bro turned to crack, mum n dad bailed him out again with guys with guns waiting outside my family home for him. He sorted that out but started dealing smack and crack, he has just being sent down for 3yrs (best place for him if you ask me), through all this though he had then substituted it all and became an alcoholic.
I don't know really what to suggest as I said I wiped my hands with him, my mum n dad stuck by him giving him random drug tests just before he got sent down to make sure he wasn't taking anything still.
Hope it all goes well for you
And although prison might be the best place for some people it will still be awash with drugs.
So yesterday evening whilst down at my Mum's she gets a call from him. The guy he is staying with has been over at his parents house since Xmas Eve and he has been on his own since then could he come over. So my Mum goes to pick him up.
He's split up with the g/f and to put it bluntely looks like shite. I said hi to him and that was pretty much it. I'm not sure if he wants to talk and I'm too scared to bring it up with him incase it upsets him and he goes off on one.
This is fucking shite.