People often ask me how many siblings I have, I tell them I have three sisters; even though have a brother too. It is hard to say what I really remember about you before you became an addict. I was too young to even understand the fights you had with mom and dad, I was too nave to understand that once you left you would never come back.
You were not my brother, you were a stranger who came around once and a while, during your sober days, however few there were. I saw your personality change faster than a light switch. You were explosive, you were violent, but sometimes you were collected and sometimes I remembered you as my brother. Society allowed me to believe this was the drugs not you. Blaming the drugs is a coping method, a misunderstanding; that most addicts have a certain personalities which do not allow them to stop an addictive habit once started. So, I blamed the drugs, not you. My brother would have never done this, right? I never truly understood what made you choose this path or who made you choose. You had so much to live for and such a promising future, how does a drug make you give everything away? I guess that is the question everyone wonders about addicts. What really surprised me is that no matter how much you had allowed yourself to change; you somehow were able to live a seemingly normal life.
Although you mastered playing house and pretending to be a productive member of society I still came to feel that if you didnt care about being a part of my life, I was not going to waste my time trying to be a part of yours. That is until I was 10 and for once in your adult life you seemed okay. You were married, you had my first niece, and I had seen you more than once in a year. If I could thank you for anything positive you ever did for me it was to bring me her. Life seemed to be giving you another chance. Life seemed to have given you many of these before today and many since then. Life constantly had a way of giving you more and more, no matter how much you didnt deserve it. But as an addict, you kept taking and abusing each and every one. You gave your family away, you gave your life away! People always tell me that it was the drugs, not my brother. I never accepted that. It wasnt the drugs that made you leave, that made you try to take your life or that made you continue to use; it was you. At the end of the day I will always have more questions than answers about you, but most of all I wonder why you gave so much up so easily.
Your addictive behavior and the way you hurt everyone around you made it easy for me to distance myself and become emotionally detached. The constant phone calls saying you were in jail or in the hospital became just another part of our lives. The older I get the more I see how often you actually end up in the hospital and by now I feel it is no longer just your stupidity, but your conscience. Maybe you feel the only way to end it is how it all started. I have lost so many young people around me because of drugs; they seemed to only have one chance, although you get endless amounts. I will never understand why somebody who has ruined every chance continues to get more. You dont deserve it. I choose not to talk to you anymore; I choose not to see you because I know the person that used to be my brother is not my brother anymore. I wonder if you had ever wished things were different, I hope you know I will always wish for you.
I wish that you, my brother, had the opportunity to see your children grow up and thrive. Make the right choices where you made the wrong ones, succeed where you failed, and love like you never did. I wish you took every chance and did something positive. I hope someday that whatever made you start no longer burdens you. I wish you peace. I wish you could see how much blame mom and dad place on themselves and I hope you cry just as much as they do for you. Most of all I wish you understood what you have done, who you have hurt and how our family will never truly heal from all the pain you have caused. But, I guess I will continue to blame the drugs, because my brother, this stranger, he would never have done this.
Kristine Hutchinson 2015
Kristine:
When the lives/problems/addictions of others cause my life to become unduly upset them I have to accept responsibilty.
I have lost the ability to understand and apply The Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
My life has become "unmanageable" ... and I need a new manager.
Millions of family & friends of alcoholics/addicts find serenity and direction in the programs of Al-Anon & Nar-Anon. They get their lives back.
I wish you the best.
Bob R
When the lives/problems/addictions of others cause my life to become unduly upset them I have to accept responsibilty.
I have lost the ability to understand and apply The Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
My life has become "unmanageable" ... and I need a new manager.
Millions of family & friends of alcoholics/addicts find serenity and direction in the programs of Al-Anon & Nar-Anon. They get their lives back.
I wish you the best.
Bob R
