Introduction?

Old 05-17-2008, 05:46 PM
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Introduction?

I didn't really know where to put this, since the main problem at the moment seems to be alcohol, but there have been other substances in the past so I thought this was the correct location.

I am the sister of an abuser, and I, and my mother, have pretty much resigned to the fact the he is going to die, and not long from now. I just don't know where to turn anymore, what to say... I feel hopeless. Here is my brothers story. Let me first apologize for how long this might be....

My brother got into a horrible car accident about 15 years ago. He broke his back, ribs, collapsed lung, and hit his head pretty hard where he didn't even know who he was for a couple of weeks. The hospital that received him did not look to see his back was broken and moved him.... needless to say, he won a pretty hefty lawsuit against the hospital, and the trucking company that hit him. He somewhat recovered from his injuries, but his back remained broken, bad. He ended up having another surgery about a year ago to fix some things... don't know how much that worked, he says it did, but then, says its worse to "need" the pain meds still. But I digress....

Right after the accident, I noticed a change in him, behaviorally. He wasn't the same person that I grew up with. He had reverted to almost child like. He also started this weird obsession with sex. His girlfriend of 8 years left him within that first year because of dirty magazine and strippers being called over. He was also getting worse on the pain meds.

Fast forward another year or two.... he met another woman. This woman knew he had money from the settlement, and pretty much was out to use him from the get go. She was a single mom of two who saw an opportunity. I won't go in to all those details as that is probably a whole other forum.... During this relationship, the pain meds grew... and grew. He was taking almost a whole bottle a day... vicodin, Soma... whatever he could get. He would even drive down to Mexico for pills. When he couldn't get his hands on the pills, it turned to cocaine. This pattern continued for years. He has a couple of kids during this time.

Fast forward again a few more years. Money ran out (cocaine is expensive, as was the wife) and Meth began. Alcohol, Meth and the pain meds. This went on for awhile. Eventually, with the tap out, the wife left, took the kids, found a new source for funding, and cut my brother off from the kids all together. Divorce got finalized. My brother had visitation, and would never do any of the drugs with the kids around. It seemed to be the one thing that would actually keep him sober.

He had his back surgery about 2 years ago now, as per the first paragraph. While there, they had him on Morphine (and another one equally as heavy) and he had these awful hallucinations. He had told us that a woman was brought in and raped by the Doctors with a 10 ft. dildo... that there were nurses giving him a sponge bath and all the while taking video of it to post on the internet. There is more but you get my drift I'm sure. He believed it so much, even after coming off the drugs that he had hired a lawyer to sue the hospital for what happened. Of course, the lawyer couldn't help him.

He has been arrested, a few times. Has spent a couple of months in jail. He hears voices telling him to do things, usually during detox. He only has access to alcohol now, so thats all he does, but the DTs still include these voices no matter the substance at this point. He broke in to an apartment above him because a woman was calling him up there for sex. He was told by these voices that his kids were getting raped, that he needs to slice his wrists, hide in his car, kick the window out of his car etc etc. He gives in to these voices some of the time. The last time he was in the hospital was because of the wrist slicing.

And... here we are today. He is drunk, drinking continually. Calling me all the time talking about how hot he is, how he wants to have sex with this person or that... I won't get into the details that he does, but let's just say it's pretty nasty. I hang up on him most of the time, and when I see his number on the caller ID, I usually ignore it.

Oh.. the biggest point... He is non-functional. No job. No community service. Refuses to go to any AA meetings... says the last time he went, some guy there sold him drugs. Whatever. But here is the kicker... about 5 years ago, he met this woman on the internet. She pays for EVERYTHING for him, in exchange for NOTHING. He doesn't have sex with her, in fact, treats her like absolute crap, calling her ugly etc. She has her own life and is very successful at her job. But in the meantime, she pays his rent, buys him anything he asks (or throws a tantrum) for, like a car, LCD TV, designer clothes and sunglasses etc. and gives him money for his restitution and community service (which of course does not end up being used for that.) We have talked to her, yelled at her... but she just won't stop.

I don't know what else to do anymore. I am losing my only brother, and I know I am helpless. I really don't want him to die, but I see it coming. He won't get help, he won't listen to anyone, my mother's heart is completely broken. We know many recovering alcoholics and substance abusers who have tried talking to him, but they say he doesn't listen, that the trigger words don't work, that he doesn't have any, for lack of better words, common sense or humanity, like regular people do (which he lost mentally in the accident before the substance problems, compounded I'm sure with the drugs and alcohol.)

Here is the only question I have at this point. How do you get help for someone that has a mental disability going in to the abuse problem? Is there anything at all we can do? He is an adult, regardless of his mental problems, and the programs he found himself in (after hospital detox visits) won't listen to family members because he is an adult after all. He also has no money, no medicare, no disability, no anything. where can we as a family turn, or is it not even possible? I just feel so very hopeless and sad. Thanks for listening (reading) my first, long-winded post.
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Old 05-17-2008, 06:06 PM
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I'm sorry you're hurting and we all understand that hopeless feeling.

A quick thought before I have to leave... my first impression is that your brother might still be suffering the consequences of his brain injury, on top of brain damage caused by abuse.
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Old 05-17-2008, 06:10 PM
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I am so sorry to hear about the pain you are going through and I am sorry, I don't have any advice for you. But want to tell you I am glad your here, keep reading and posting- there are many others who have been where you are and can offer advice and support. Your in my prayers. Stay strong!
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Old 05-17-2008, 06:21 PM
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Thank you so much. I just feel like he is at the end of the road, which puts me in the same place. I totally agree about his brain injury, which just seems to make it all worse, but what to do I just don't know.

I will definitely stick around. I am so glad I found you all!
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Old 05-17-2008, 07:15 PM
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(((hugs)))


Welcome, FM. Glad to see that you will be coming back. There are so many here on SR to offer support and wisdom. I'm sorry to hear about the struggles you and your family have been facing.

It seems from your post that your brother's problems began after the accident.....is that right? Just wondering if there was any indication of addiction/alcoholism before that.

I ask because depending on the answer, there may be resources available. Honestly, I don't know exactly what resources are out there.....only that it might be worth looking into. My grandfather (we think he was schizophrenic even though he was never formally diagnosed) was totally incapable of taking care of himself. My father had to file for conservatorship (sp?) because he was a danger to himself, meaning that my dad could make legal decisions for him. It took a long time, but finally my dad was able to help him.

Ultimately though, you and your mother may need to start thinking about the idea that, as much as you love him, he has to want help before anything can be done. Try to focus on what you can do today for yourselves. I wish you the best in dealing with this.
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Old 05-17-2008, 09:46 PM
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Thank you. Yes, all the problems started after the accident, beginning with the pain meds (and the brain injury.) Problem is, the hospital that missed the broken back, never documented the brain injury either, since after about 2 weeks, he knew who he was again. But I saw it immediately. We were raised in a tiny house where we had to share a room growing up, and were pretty much best friends. I saw my friend change immediately. Just.... different. Like he was stuck as a pre-teen almost. This was before the pain med dependency. It was just strange.

Now, after all the years that have passed, he still is unknown to me most of the time. I hate the sex chatter that comes out of him, and the "party" mode voice he uses when he calls.... he treats me, and everyone around him, like we are still the ages we were when he was a teen. I am still the 16 yr. old partier, he is still asking about our parents getting back together (they were divorced in 1974 which is ironic, since for the first two weeks of his accident, that's the yr. he thought it was and said Carter was President when asked) and he just thinks I am that old person he used to hang with.

Alcoholism and drug addiction certainly run in my family. My father is a recovering alcoholic, fighting it for years. He had a heart attack when he was 45 from cocaine use. All of his brothers have addiction problems as well. The addiction I got is cigarettes which is killing me, albeit slower then something else I could have picked up I guess. Still not good of course. Of all things, my brother never picked that one up. I guess that is a positive. But I will say, after the dealings I have had with my brother and my father, I can truly say I HATE alcohol. I hate the smell that comes out of a person after drinking... I hate everything about it. Hate hate hate. Now, I have a teenage son, and I am hoping upon hope he stays dry... I don't know if I am telling him the right things or not, but hopefully I won't be having to go through this all over again. It hurts....a lot.
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Old 05-17-2008, 11:22 PM
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If the hospital did an EEG then it's documented. If they didn't, and it would be typical if they didn't, they were idiots. That last part was just my personal opinion because it's one of my biggest medical pet peeves.

I'll explain and this might take a minute...

My 20 year old daughter is a recovering opiate addict. Her addiction was born in a perfect storm. She always suffered anxiety and panic attacks since she was a little girl. Later on, she suffered PTSD from two things and they feed the anxiety/panic. The first time was accidentally being shot with an air rifle by a neighbor; it penetrated the skin and tissue, then slid by her heart missing it by 1/4 inch. The second time was after watching a friend die in a car accident.

Between those two incidents, she was a passenger in a car wreck and slammed her head into the dash. She also separated her shoulder and that's when she started abusing opiates. Another time, when she was pulled over by the police, she stepped out of the car and had a panic attack. She passed out and her head bounced on the pavement. They took her to the ER but no EEG's were done.

Fast forward to about six months ago and she went to a psychiatrist for anxiety meds. He's into diagnostics and did an EEG on her to match her meds to her brain function. It's a new tool and it's called rEEG. A few unexpected things showed up, and traumatic brain injury was one of them.

Doctors know that even mild concussions can cause adverse side effects years later. But for some reason not enough testing or even questioning is being done. Luckily we found the only psychiatrist in our area that does look at the whole picture.

She started doing neurofeedback to treat it and it definitely helped, but she's not done yet. She still has problems connecting the dots so to speak. She was always something of a dingbat but after the TBI's it was a lot worse. Now, she's almost back to her normal.

She always said opiates gave her clarity, and her psychiatrist and a neurologist gave me the medical reason why but for the life of me I can't remember it right now. Opiates also stopped the panic attacks.

Anyway, when you add all this up that's why I said it was a perfect storm. Going by what you said, it sounds like your brother had one of those storms, too.

If you brother had an EEG today and a CT scan, it would show any previous brain injury and the specific location.

I don't know how you'd talk him into it, if for nothing else the process of elimination. I had to explain the tests and the necessity to my daughter about three times, and each time was like the first time to her. Thankfully she got past the confusion and agreed.

Addiction is bad enough but when other physiological issues are going on, it requires special treatment and care beyond the norm.
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