Ironic, about an hour after my last post here I got the mail and my brother had sent me a letter.
Three pages of how he is now clean for the first time and he is changed, that he was trying for months to get clean but couldn't get past day 3, how he is stuck in jail proving to no one he can stay clean and be useful in society again, how he will do anything and everything to get his case down and stay out of prison, which of course means staying clean, etc etc. Oh, and a mention that he needed some family to stay with when he got out.
He also called 3 or 4 times yesterday and I just didn't pick up, must have been a non lockdown day...woohoo.
He had court this morning, a prelim for the felonies where he was just going to waive his right to a prelim, so nothing spectacular there. Its 2.5 hours round trip for me to drive there, so I opted to skip it.
I am feeling pretty overwhelmed at the moment. My mind is all over the place, and while I am not taking any outward actions that are enabling, my mind is still just a battle ground.
I also am staying firm with the family, giving some advice but mostly keeping them at a distance since some of them are active addicts in varying ways. Because I have been the only one taking an active role in my brother and learning about addiction, they default to me on what 'we' should do, which I guess is good in some ways (in that no one is bailing his arse out), but it also just aids in my own issues.
Yay codependency fun. I have come to realize in the last couple months my role in the entire family, and I am now peeling back those layers bit by bit, but my brother's issue is the one front and center at the moment.
I found a na anon meeting for tonight and told my husband I was going. I am not religious, but I am spiritual, so I am going to keep the 'higher power' concept in mind and go into the meeting with an open mind.
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By the way, my brother only calls me and the obvious reason for that is I am the only one in the family financially stable. There are some more distant relatives, but I think he knows they would never help him with money, so he doesn't even bother. SO, he hasn't called his mother, or his brother, or anyone else...just me. Guess that gives more weight to the statements above:
No Cashflow = No contact
He whined in his letter about how alone he is, and I have to laugh because I know when he addressed the envelope to me two days ago, he had to look at the address sheet I gave him with 10 more family contacts all open to at least talking with him.