My Brother is Completely Out of Control and My Parents Refuse to Accept He is An Addict.
My brother is going to be 50 years old this year. His alcoholism has been going on since he was in high school. He is addicted to meth, pain pills, alcohol and probably more than what I know.
He was recently arrested in another state for having an open container and public intoxication. His girlfriend (I think she is a prostitute) was also arrested for possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia. They came to live with my parents, who live in a different state than the one they were arrested in.
My mother has given him over 50,000 in the last year alone. My brother is in total control of her. He would call begging for money, saying he was eating out of dumpsters, eating dog food, starving, weak, needed money so bookies would not break his arm, etc, etc, etc. Bills would arrive at my parents house in piles from hospitals over a 3 state area, all for the same kidney stone problem so he could get pain meds.
After he and his girlfriend got to my parents house, he has been arrested three times and is now facing 4 felony charges and some misdemeanor charges. He is up on robbery, battery, he kicked in the back window of a police car, kicked a police officer, set a pit bull on a police officer and was arrested twice, in one day. His BAC was 3 times the legal limit.
Dad just kept bonding him out of jail. The last bond was set at 250,000, then was lowered to 175,000 and they bonded him out again. And my parents say HE HAS DONE NOTHING WRONG. THIS IS THE FAULT OF OTHER PEOPLE AND IS A CONSPIRACY against them and him. The local paper has written articles about him and his arrests, and they claim they are being persecuted. He and this prostitute drink continually at my parents house.
This woman has stolen jewelry, drugs, keepsakes, money and whatever else she can get her hands on. She has them convinced she is their daughter in law. Dad found her in the closet one night, she was said people were trying to look in the house at her with a flashlight. She was that out of it on drugs.
After my brother was arrested and was in jail for the 250,000 bond, I went to help my parents. My dad called me crying and crying saying he needed me. I cleaned their house, got the locks changed on the house (Mom had given her car to the prostitute to drive back to her home state, dad gave her the gas money to go. This was one of many cars mom bought my brother to just drive. He hasn't worked a job in years.) I got the car recovered and sold.
I talked and talked and talked to them. I told them my brother was better off in jail, that he could start to dry out there, and could eventually find some help. A week after I left, they bonded him out, got the prostitute back in the house and got mad at me. Mom actually told me I was too negative. She is their star witness for the upcoming trial.
I am trying to let go. All their friends think they are idiots for letting this continue like they do. Even though my brother is out on bond, he and this prostitute are drinking in their house all day. My parents have ostracized everyone in the family and are alone. They are in poor health, but not bad enough for me to get any sort of guardianship over them.
My aunt and I are just watching this train wreck come to a close. This is what happens when you enable and enable and enable. The entire family is destroyed. There will be no good come of this. I think it is a hopeless situation. No one will listen to me down there. Everything that my brother does is the fault of someone else, not him. No one there takes any responsibility for anything.
I live 500 miles away, so I am thankful for that. I have made countless trips down there in my attempts to help, but all I was doing was enabling the enabler. My parents will eventually lose everything they have. I think he will run before he ever goes to court to try to avoid prison. They will lose their home and all their savings over that bond.
I am trying so hard to let go. I can't go there anymore with my brother there. When things finally do blow up, do I go back and try to help? I am trying to get on with my own life. I go back to school in three weeks for job retraining so I can get a good job. I worry constantly. My mom is gone mentally. My brother has made her insane, I think.
Dad sits and eats and eats and eats and is eating himelf to death. Meanwhile, before these court dates come up, my brother and the prostitute just keep drinking and doing drugs. What do I do? I have never felt at such a loss before.
Alcoholism-and-Drug-Addiction-Help.com Answer
Wow, your story really illustrates the insanity that accompanies a life of alcoholism and drug addiction ... but the sad part is that it also destroys everyone who gets in the way, especially those that care the most, i.e. family and loved one's.
You'd think your parents would have seen some kind of sense by now, but your brother has obviously manipulated and brain-washed them to such a degree that they just can't see the truth of what's actually going on. And unfortunately you feel stuck and caught in the middle, especially out of concern for your parents.
What can you do? Unfortunately not a lot. If your parents won't come to their senses and continue enabling him as they have done, you're right in saying that this is all probably going to end very badly for them.
So as hard as it is for you, for the sake of your own well-being, you're going to have to learn to let go of all the craziness and focus on doing the best you can for yourself. Because if your parents aren't prepared to listen to reason - despite all the evidence staring them in the face, you don't have a lot of options.
You can only do so much - which you've clearly tried to do - so before it also destroys you, you're going to have to extricate yourself from what's going on. And the best way to do that is to try and do it in a form that will give you some kind of closure and hopefully make it easier for you to move on.
So perhaps you can write your parents a letter/e-mail explaining what you're doing and why you're doing it, adding appropriate boundaries you want to put in place so that you can focus on getting on with your life. The important thing then is to stick with those and not let yourself get manipulated into being dragged into everything again.
Whatever you do won't be easy, but if you make a decision and stick with it, it will get easier in time. Best of Luck.
