:Just lost my post. Wanted to say hi and thank you to Sober Leigh, Tinkerbell, and kittycat. We are rockin' Tink. Kaned my brother is toxic too and has verbally abused and ridiculed me from the earliest days of my childhood. It was so troubling I spoke to my psychiatrist about it and he said we were bound to bump into each other some time some place but until that time have as little as possible to do with him. Too easy. Like you I felt sorry for him (he's very bright to boot making him better at his job) thinking he must have have low-self esteem given the way he ridicules and despises people. He has zero insight into his behaviour towards others. Sobriety has opened the doors for me to be no longer abused by a person who not in a million years would put up with it himself. Assertion not anger. Come back Neo and nogoingback we need you.