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Old 10-07-2010, 02:08 PM
  # 11 (permalink)  
oshobabi
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Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 8
Thanks again everbody. I probably didn't make it clear but currently my brother isn't drinking. He is sober because he is with me so he has almost 4 months of sobriety this time around. If he was still actively drinking he would not be living with me. As long as he doesn't drink I am in it for the long-haul. But because he has so much permanent damage, abstinence is not going to change any of his conditions, but will prolong his life. So that's why I titled it "Am I Just Watching my Brother Die?" He will eventually begin to deteriorate despite what any doctor can do and that's what scares me; despite abstinence I worry everyday that I will wake up and he will be dead. There have been days when I don't see him and I go and check on him. I haven't mentioned this but I am a recovering alcoholic as well. I quit 19 years ago July. I had hoped my brother would follow my footsteps (our mother was an alcoholic and died at age 53 from pancreatic/liver cancer). I am 53, my brother is 52. I've kicked him out of my house every time I caught him drinking or cooking up his herion, man until then I had no idea what it smelled liked! My son and I just couldn't figure out the smell for a few days. I looked into his room and there were needles, and other pararpharnalia, methodone bottles, and empty beer cans piled everywhere. Out he went; he had a choice, I would call the cops and turn him in or he could just get out. And back to the streets he went. He has been homeless for so long now I can't count the years anymore. After I got him out my 16 year-old son helped me clean the mess. We wore gloves, cleaned the carpet, replaced the blinds and painted the entire room. A 16 year old having to help clean up that kind of mess from him his uncle? Today my son still has no respect for my brother. He's sorry he is in the shape he is in, but prefers to not be around him. I have lived in my current home for 10 years now and tried twice before to get him out here when he was clean, only to catch him using and drinking again. He burned a fist sized hole in his mattress! He melted buttons on the cell phone. Out he went again. As long as he remains sober he can stay here as long as he likes. However, if he decides to move out he will have to figure that out all on his own. I won't take him anywhere and he has no form of transportation. Obviously he doesn't have a license to drive and can no longer drive himself anyway. Well that was a long one. I hoping for the best, planning for the worse. Ironically I just got out of a relationship with an alcoholic. He seemed so great when I met him. He rarely drank and things seemed positive. Well I was not prepared at all for the binge he went on a few months after we started dating. True to my typical co-dependent, care-taking nature I tried to make that relationship work but I couldn't handle the binges. Nothing like being around a man so drunk that he can't even remember your name, even after a year, and would start calling me "girl." Man the stories I have learned from that relationship!!!!
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