needhelpwithbro

I am 29 years old and for as long as I could remember I have been holding together my family. I come from a "broken family". I could go into details but this isn't about me. My family is a family of addicts. My mother and grandmother (who barely seem to keep each other living) are both addicted to prescription pain medication. My 2 brothers live with my grandmother. The oldest of which has been a drug user for many years and expresses no interest in help. He has deep seated psychological problems but is content with his life. My youngest brother is a new user. if you will, and as I am sure you can imagine uses with the older of the two. To my knowledge there is marijuana, meth and prescription pill usage. I have largely ignored the problem. Scared everytime I received a call from either sibling. My youngest brother called me tonight. not because he has been arrested or kicked out of my grandmothers house but because he is scared. He is crying for help and I dont know what to do. I am not in a position financially for any sort of rehab, I have a full time job and even if felt it would help I would not be able to monitor the situation. I told him I would try to "fix it". Thats all I could say now I feel helpless, confused, and pissed off. I don't know if I can trust him, I don't know if I should or if I even can begin to address this overwhelming problem. any helpful advise would be greatly appreciated.

Seren

Hi needhelp, Welcome to SR!

One of the things that we learn in the face-to-face meetings of Al-Anon and here on this forum are the 3 C's:

You did not cause the addiction.
You cannot control the addict.
You cannot cure the addict.

Like Cynical said, we are just not that powerful over another human being's addiction.

I hope you will stick around, read as much as you can and educate yourself about addiction. The "stickies" at the top of each forum contain some really great information.

Hopefully, your brother is serious about wanting to work a recovery program! Good luck!!!

HG

Impurrfect

(((Needhelp))) - welcome to SR!

I agree with the above..if your brother truly is scared and wants to stop, he can get all the help he needs for free..Salvation Army, NA. I'm not only a recovering codie (codependent) but also an RA (recovering addict - crack, though I abused opiates and alcohol before crack brought me to my knees).

I do hope you continue to read/post here. I came here because of my addiction, however I was drawn to this forum because of all the codie issues I had. The great people here have been awesome.

Hugs and prayers,

Amy

needhelpwithbro

thank you so much for all of your shared wisdom. I have for a long time fantasized about the intervention that would "change everything". There are those moments when you receive a late night call from the sibling or parent and you just know its not good and spiral back into this anxious panic...what's going to happen to my brother? What can I do? Whats the solution? I always reach the same conclusions.. there is nothing I can do. I am scared. I am scared for both of my brothers, I am scared for my grandmother, I am scared for my mother but mostly I am selfish and wish to run away from the problem or remain in denial until I receive the next late night call. I know this is not healthy and I guess acknowledgement of the problem is the 1st step to recovery... right???

As a status update I received a call tonight from my distant but loving father advising me that my brother has been arrested and is currently admitted to the psychiatric ward. He is about 600 miles away. I do feel almost relieved. I have read this common.

thank you again for your support