White powder, aqua pipe?
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Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 59
White powder, aqua pipe?
My alchoholic/addict brother is currently away in post-surgical rehab. He has been living in a house I own and I went in to make dinner for him the day he injured himself. In the process of caring for him during the week before his surgery I began, with his permission, doing some cleaning up, which I have continued doing.
In his spice cabinet I found an aqua pipe (which had been used, still had water in the bottom) and some unlabled white powder. He had been wearing sunglasses all the time for several months, even indoors. I got a glimpse of his teeth behind his overgrown mustache a few months ago, and commented that he needed to see a dentist, and offered to pay for it, since he is on disability. He never took me up on it. I looked up "meth mouth" today online, and his mouth looks like the next-to-worst pictures; most teeth either missing or just short, blackened stubs. The teeth he has left are damaged.
Two of the bedrooms in the house smell like mouse urine or something similar. I found, in one of the bedrooms, a box of small CO2 cartridges. What else do I need to be looking for to know whether he was making meth for himself?
Oh, and the locks on the doors didn't work properly, so, for the first few days he was away, the house was unlocked, which was the way he kept it most of the time. The 2nd day after he was hospitalized, I went in to feed his cats and found that someone had gone in, eaten a plateful of food, and left the empty plate.
I already know I can not save him from himself, but I do not want to allow anyone else to spend time in that house if it is not safe.
In his spice cabinet I found an aqua pipe (which had been used, still had water in the bottom) and some unlabled white powder. He had been wearing sunglasses all the time for several months, even indoors. I got a glimpse of his teeth behind his overgrown mustache a few months ago, and commented that he needed to see a dentist, and offered to pay for it, since he is on disability. He never took me up on it. I looked up "meth mouth" today online, and his mouth looks like the next-to-worst pictures; most teeth either missing or just short, blackened stubs. The teeth he has left are damaged.
Two of the bedrooms in the house smell like mouse urine or something similar. I found, in one of the bedrooms, a box of small CO2 cartridges. What else do I need to be looking for to know whether he was making meth for himself?
Oh, and the locks on the doors didn't work properly, so, for the first few days he was away, the house was unlocked, which was the way he kept it most of the time. The 2nd day after he was hospitalized, I went in to feed his cats and found that someone had gone in, eaten a plateful of food, and left the empty plate.
I already know I can not save him from himself, but I do not want to allow anyone else to spend time in that house if it is not safe.
Nature Girl
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
Since you own the house, why don't you change the locks and install an alarm system, that will protect it for now.
If he was making meth, you may need to have the house inspected to make sure it is safe and unharmed by this.
You don't need to get "proof", trust your instincts and your eyes. He is doing illegal drugs in a house that you own. If it is thought that you knew anything about this you could lose the home and go to jail for aiding and abetting by not reporting him. Laws vary from state to state but you would not be the first member here to go to jail and lose your home because you didn't "do" anything when you discovered what was going on there.
I don't mean to scare you...well, maybe I do if it will save you the dire consequences others have paid.
I am so very sorry you are going through all this and my prayers go out for your brother.
Hugs
If he was making meth, you may need to have the house inspected to make sure it is safe and unharmed by this.
You don't need to get "proof", trust your instincts and your eyes. He is doing illegal drugs in a house that you own. If it is thought that you knew anything about this you could lose the home and go to jail for aiding and abetting by not reporting him. Laws vary from state to state but you would not be the first member here to go to jail and lose your home because you didn't "do" anything when you discovered what was going on there.
I don't mean to scare you...well, maybe I do if it will save you the dire consequences others have paid.
I am so very sorry you are going through all this and my prayers go out for your brother.
Hugs
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 59
Thank you, Ann, very much.
I did call the sherrif's dept about the aqua pipe and the powder, exactly because I did not want to go to jail. This state has privacy laws that protect AB just as though he was a renter, and the deputy that returned my call said it would get thrown out in court, and I could end up getting sued. I wish I was making that up.
I am going to get the house inspected, anyway, since I am not allowing AB to move back in. I have told his social worker about the unidentified powder, about the whiskey I also found in the kitchen, and showed her photos of the condition the house was in. He is a hoarder. There were only paths through the house wide enough for one person to walk to the rooms. Only one chair and one bed were not covered with junk and trash.
His social worker said he can go to assisted living, and he can be the "bad guy" who makes him go there. I hope that's correct. I haven't worked out what to do with the stuff he owns, though. A storage unit, I guess, and if he can't pay, he loses it.
I do know I want to be finished with this horrible mess. This is a nightnmare.
I did call the sherrif's dept about the aqua pipe and the powder, exactly because I did not want to go to jail. This state has privacy laws that protect AB just as though he was a renter, and the deputy that returned my call said it would get thrown out in court, and I could end up getting sued. I wish I was making that up.
I am going to get the house inspected, anyway, since I am not allowing AB to move back in. I have told his social worker about the unidentified powder, about the whiskey I also found in the kitchen, and showed her photos of the condition the house was in. He is a hoarder. There were only paths through the house wide enough for one person to walk to the rooms. Only one chair and one bed were not covered with junk and trash.
His social worker said he can go to assisted living, and he can be the "bad guy" who makes him go there. I hope that's correct. I haven't worked out what to do with the stuff he owns, though. A storage unit, I guess, and if he can't pay, he loses it.
I do know I want to be finished with this horrible mess. This is a nightnmare.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 59
My brother lied in front of me to the PT, the nurse, and the finance director at the rehab center, denied he had a history of alcoholism. I called his bluff.
He previously lied consistently about ever having used illegal drugs. Now I have no doubt he's been doing so.
He is a charmer, the "life of the party." He remembers every relative's birthday, anniversary (and we have a very large extended family), always sends cards, gifts.
Right now he's being the goody-two-shoes patient. He's bamboozling everyone but his social worker. He's being almost totally pleasant to me, as well. For now. I know this routine so well that I have not been willing to show any disgust or anger in front of anyone at the rehab center.
When we were kids and it was his word against mine, I almost always lost. He knew how to play everyone.
I'm sorry he is so sick, I really am.
Here's the biggest kicker: last year, when my older son died from a congenital disease, AB gave us his gravesite at his church, where our parents are buried. AB already had plans in place to be cremated when he dies.
Am I grateful to him for what he did? Of course!
Did anyone watch the last episode of Sherlock on PBS last month? There is the moment when Sherlock is on the roof with Moriarty, and Moriarty has just put him in checkmate. I know what Sherlock felt in that moment.
He previously lied consistently about ever having used illegal drugs. Now I have no doubt he's been doing so.
He is a charmer, the "life of the party." He remembers every relative's birthday, anniversary (and we have a very large extended family), always sends cards, gifts.
Right now he's being the goody-two-shoes patient. He's bamboozling everyone but his social worker. He's being almost totally pleasant to me, as well. For now. I know this routine so well that I have not been willing to show any disgust or anger in front of anyone at the rehab center.
When we were kids and it was his word against mine, I almost always lost. He knew how to play everyone.
I'm sorry he is so sick, I really am.
Here's the biggest kicker: last year, when my older son died from a congenital disease, AB gave us his gravesite at his church, where our parents are buried. AB already had plans in place to be cremated when he dies.
Am I grateful to him for what he did? Of course!
Did anyone watch the last episode of Sherlock on PBS last month? There is the moment when Sherlock is on the roof with Moriarty, and Moriarty has just put him in checkmate. I know what Sherlock felt in that moment.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 59
If AB wasn't so sick, I believe I would get in his face and let him have it for the Christmas break he took away from me and my kids the year after I got him into detox.
He and his drug friends had been living in their cars for a few weeks. Parents got worried when he didn't call home one weekend (a man in his forties). This went on for several weeks. A family friend helped me get him into detox. AB went through the program (as he had done before), and this time went to a halfway house, got a full-time job, was supposed to apply for health insurance and keep up his meds. Come Christmas he was rushed to ER for an incurable condition, because he had not kept up his meds. I spent the holiday driving all kinds of places, finding out he never got health insurance, returning him to ER twice, getting him (by a miracle) on disability and Medicare just in time for the kids to go back to school.
Part of me feels sorry for him, but the other part is screaming mad.
Oh, and once he was off the street and out of my parent's friends' hair, who wouldn't call the police about "poor AB" when he showed up at their houses, stoned or drunk, asking for money, they sent him a pile of get well cards. Not one thank you call or note for catching up with him and getting him into detox.
The night he went into detox, my parents got threatening calls from his drug friends, who were looking for him. One of them even showed up at their house a week later. Living in fear for months was lots and lots of fun.
He and his drug friends had been living in their cars for a few weeks. Parents got worried when he didn't call home one weekend (a man in his forties). This went on for several weeks. A family friend helped me get him into detox. AB went through the program (as he had done before), and this time went to a halfway house, got a full-time job, was supposed to apply for health insurance and keep up his meds. Come Christmas he was rushed to ER for an incurable condition, because he had not kept up his meds. I spent the holiday driving all kinds of places, finding out he never got health insurance, returning him to ER twice, getting him (by a miracle) on disability and Medicare just in time for the kids to go back to school.
Part of me feels sorry for him, but the other part is screaming mad.
Oh, and once he was off the street and out of my parent's friends' hair, who wouldn't call the police about "poor AB" when he showed up at their houses, stoned or drunk, asking for money, they sent him a pile of get well cards. Not one thank you call or note for catching up with him and getting him into detox.
The night he went into detox, my parents got threatening calls from his drug friends, who were looking for him. One of them even showed up at their house a week later. Living in fear for months was lots and lots of fun.
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Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 59
overI am grateful for the chance to let out the steam in a safe place.
Now my job is to do only what I truly can do for AB. He will not be able to get into a nice facility, because the good ones will not want him. Even so, wherever he does end up can't be worse than the way he was living. There will be people who won't like me for doing what needs to be done, but it's not my job to be popular.
WH and CAD have to live with their own decisions, too, just as I have to live with mine.
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