ADDICTION AND THE RABBIT HOLE

He called in one of his manic states. This was not unusual, and I sat back in a comfortable chair and prepared to listen for probably the hundredth time. Mind you this was years of these phone calls and the only difference is on my part. I am no longer shocked or afraid of what he might do. I'm just sorry his life turned out this way, a constant roller coaster of emotions. The booze didn't help nor did stopping his antipsychotic medication. This episode I blamed on Christmas. I mean don't you always have to blame someone or something for your behavior. Its our free pass-through life. It always worked for me. As he retold his story this time, he felt the need to add all the sordid details of a life of sex, drugs and rock and roll. I should erase the rock and roll as I doubt, he heard anything in those bars and he sure wasn't dancing. I used to try and figure out what could have made his life turn out this way. He was my baby brother and I loved him dearly but I wasn't around when he was in those formative years in fact none of us were around, I mean brothers and sisters, but also my parents were gone emotionally. I was wrapped up in my own insane life making my own mistakes and never thinking of the consequences just like him. I was off and flying and having a good time, clearly, he was also. If anyone was going to get into serious trouble it should have been me. I was the one who ran off to the big city, he stayed at home. on the farm. I could blame it on the “times” it was the rebellious “60’s” and at time when everything goes. Drugs had made it to the country and my home town was one of them. The city always had drugs of any kind you never had to go far. In many ways my brothers and my life paralleled each others except for the big age difference, fifteen years. I really didn't know what his life was like he always looked o.k. to me but then I was rarely home only to visit. He was the youngest in a large family and I believe my parents were too tired and wrapped up in their own problems, like infidelity, to take notice of him. He was born late in their lives, early forties and I don't think there was any way for them to relate. They were just happy he didn't get into too much trouble. They thought he was in the barn or in the fields working and he was but they didn't know he was smoking weed and drinking beer. He was a sweet kid. He loved his animals and enjoyed being outside. What happened? I asked him years later and he said he would spend the whole day driving tractor up and down the rows. His mind was on hum. He snuck a beer one time and he said there was nothing like that cold taste going down your throat. That feeling he said he had just got magnified when he tried his first joint and then sniffed his first line of cocaine followed by the knock out reaction from a needle. He said you didn't have to go over ten miles from the farm to get any of that stuff. When he was old enough to get into the bars and drive, he and his friends would get knock down drunk talking bullshit and watching the girls wiggle and shake their way around the dance floor. Of course, you know what comes next, the rise of the old testosterones. Then he proceeded to tell me although I didn't care to hear, about the lurid details of their debauchery. There is no stopping him when he is this manic. After so many years I finally realized there was nothing I could do to help him. As the saying goes “we all have to get there on our own” myself included. I stopped going to save him and others started to close or slam doors on him. He was in and out of emergency rooms, mental hospitals, jail. Somewhere along the line he started to look elsewhere for help. He was now officially one of the street people and they became his support. His addictions morphed into a diagnosis of mental illness which made him eligible for some state and federal programs. You can only mess with the brain for so long, the brain ultimately wins. He was prescribed antipsychotics which would clear his thoughts when he got really out there’ They only worked for a short time as he stopped taking them as he was sure he was cured. The problem is you are never cured of addictions no matter what “they” want to tell you. You know that drink, that toke, that needle will get you through the night and better yet its fast acting. So, as his life, marriage, family, friends and work started to fall apart and he proceeded to run not fall down that rabbit hole. Alices fantastical journey had nothing compared to my brother. I thought he was particularly creative when he emptied a room to make way for a priest to exorcise his house. Creative right? His living accommodations went from owning his own home, actually two homes one he lost in his divorce to a spot under a bridge. He did tell me it was a little cold and he didn't stay long. The family always tried to help with housing or food but he always managed to mess things up and eventually so did the help. The bottle was an easier solution. He would overdose or become suicidal and would be hospitalized only to be discharged after a few days back to the street. One time he was discharged without shoes and was found walking down a major roadway. He would have been given referrals for counseling, prescriptions for meds and emergency housing but he never followed up. It took years and many miles down the road before he started to reach out. It wasn't God or AA. I think he was just getting older and tired. His phone calls to me certainly became less and less. I would later find out that he had gone to social services after a bout in a rehabilitation center after breaking a leg. They had placed him in a nursing home and for lack of beds moved him to the dementia unit where he shared a room with a seriously demented old man. He wasn't happy. Today when the phone call came, I thought I heard a glimmer of hope but I think it was just my wishful thinking. He asked me to stick by the phone today, why I don't know I was thousands of miles away. How the day will end I'm not certain, but then are any of us ?