A Recovering Addict Helplessly Watching An Active Addict
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I had written a story before regarding how hard it is when you have family members that for whatever reason act as a trigger for your addiction. I had figured out a way to hang out with my brother without putting myself in a dangerous position. After all you can change your friends but not your family.
What has actually happened is that my brother, the same one that could at times be seen as a trigger, is someone that I look at and shake my head at now. He is continuing to use Oxycontin and it is soooo obvious…even though he thinks he is sneaking right under the radar.
I ended up confronting him after he went to my five year olds birthday party on jams. He wondered how I could tell! How about the fact that your pupils are all pinned out even though we are in a dark restaurant. He actually tried to tell me I was wrong about him being fucked up. I just calmly told him that there is no need to lie to me. So he then admitted it.
He said wow, my eyes are always such a giveaway. I wish someone would come up with something to cover that up. I suggested that maybe he not show up at a 5 year olds birthday party fucked up…that would probably be the better solution. He knew the family was going to be there, this is why I am so sure that he has a major problem. He was able to convince himself that no one would notice that he was on drugs. Who could do that other than an addict?
It’s just so sad to me. He thinks that he is fine and that he is control when it is so obvious to me that he is not. I am distancing myself from him which is not very easy considering that we live under the same roof. I find myself not wanting to be around him. I have made it known that I see what he is up to, I told him I didn’t like it, I have stopped letting him borrow money from me and now I guess all I can do is wait around until he decides enough is enough.
I know first hand what it is like to be in an active addiction. The addiction is the priority and every other person or thing in your life pales in comparison. I’m not mad at him when I see that happening because that’s just the way it goes. But just because I’m saying I’m not mad at him doesn’t mean that I will put up with any of the addiction related bullshit.
Other than myself I have never dealt with anything like this before. I’ve never been on the receiving end of a relationship with an addict. This is my younger brother and it is really upsetting to me. My husband of course cannot empathize with him and so pretty much wants nothing to do with him anymore. That is hard for me also.
I’ve been there, I know that you are usually the last to find out that you are an addict. That is what is going on here. I guess what I can do is just what I said earlier about not taking any of the addiction bullshit that people tend to overlook. The lies, the manipulation, etc. I have already lost all my trust for him. He’s an addict, he cannot be trusted.
I just really came to this conclusion this past Thursday so this whole post is really just a way of me working it out for myself. I’m just trying to come up with a way to minimize how much his addiction effects me. He is my brother and I love him dearly but until he realizes that he wants help…I’m not riding along shotgun for this one.
The faster he realizes that this Oxycontin addiction will not end good the better off he will be. I will try not to help him out of any situation directly caused by him being addicted to drugs. Hopefully if I can stick to my guns and things start going wrong in his life due to drug use he will hit his bottom that much quicker.
Fuck! I don’t want this to be happening. I can’t do anything about it which is what I’m working on accepting. Life on life’s terms right? I am usually pretty quick to accept things for what they are. Usually a day or two of feeling bad about it or wishing things were different and then I finally say “well…whatta ya gonna do, you know?” and then I go from there.
Posts
November 9th, 2007 at 10:01 am
[...] little bit. I have a sibling that is an active addict still in the denial phase. I’m sitting helplessly watching an active addict and sometimes wishing that I could do [...]
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:14 pm
[...] as a for instance, a while back I was faced with the situation of having a sibling that was in active addiction. He hadn’t admitted to himself that there was a problem and certainly was not at the point of [...]
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:29 pm
[...] want to subscribe to our RSS feed. I had previously written a few posts venting about having to sit back and helplessly watch an addict in the throes of addiction. This post happened to be about watching my own brother in active [...]