Just want to get this out.. Can't talk to anyone in rl.

[GoingToThePark]

My brother is a drug addict. He is 26. He has almost always been on drugs, trying to get off drugs, homeless, hapless and hopeless since 18. I am so done with it. I am his only sister and we used to be very close.

The past year or so he has been better. He has been working, albeit on and off, no permanenet contracts round here, but that's just the state of the economy. He has been sofa surfing and not in permanent accommodation. But he was doing ok so I thought. Two weeks ago he came round asking to borrow a sleeping bag. I was worried about him but he said it was ok, he had an interview with a local charity who were going to find him a room in a shared house. He went to the interview and the lady was great and said he could pick the keys up the next day. He was so excited and upbeat. I even lent him my six year olds little mobile phone (her nana gave it to her) so he could keep in touch with a few job opportunities. He bought me a cake for all my help I was touched he never normally has any money.

So last Friday he came round to borrow a recipe book and I could see marks on his arm :( he seemed pretty lucid and upbeat but the marks definitely weren't there last week. I was quietly annoyed. It seems every time he gets a place of his own he relaxes back into addiction. I didn't say anything though, he gets very defensive. I hoped it was a one off.

So today I was hanging washing out in the garden when he comes barging through my back gate crying his eyes out. The lady who organised the accommodation has given him a week to leave due to suspicions of drug taking. There were a couple more fresh marks too :(

I commented on the marks but tried to keep my voice even and calm. He was wildly denying it. He always cried when he takes heroin or is coming down. He stomped off. My little dd's phone is long gone probably :(

Our mum is dead and dad has disowned him. My DH is furious I have had my heart broken yet again. Is there any way I can stop it hurting? Everyone in town knows he is a drug taker he is banned from most shops and he has taken so much money from friends and particularly my lovely grandparents who love him so uh. They don't see him anymore. So sad today. Every time things look up he loses his grasp. In fact, every time someone helps him it sends him ten steps back. I think if my baby dd2 had not been in the garden with my he would have become very aggressive in his denials to me. But I am proud of myself for keeping calm. Just so fucking drained of it all.

I don't have any experience of this directly but I'm so so sorry OP - what a heartbreaking situation. I have experience of relatives with personality disorder and I know how soul-shatteringly draining it is to deal with someone who can't be reasoned with and who seems unable to help themselves. I think the best thing to do is to set firm boundaries and to refuse to give in to the guilt - which you are doing brilliantly. Well done. I'm so sorry for you going through this. Someone will be along soon with more constructive advice x

I let him stay two nights a fortnight ago and I would never have done that if there were any signs of drug taking at all. I have thrown him out on Christmas eve before now because he was doing it in my home, do he knows I won't have it in my home.

So this is a recent relapse. Because he has a place of his own and nobody else to have to respect. So he's ruined it for himself. He has all the classic addict traits, a persecution complex, emotional outbursts, denial. He can be such a funny, loving and engaging guy. But that's all gone now. I feel so alone as nobody else will want to know now.

My experience is not with drug but alcohol addiction. The addict in this case clung onto the last member of the family that hadn't given up on her but all it achieved was a kind woman being brought to her knees trying to help while the alcoholic kept promising to change but carried on as normal. In the end, the last family member had to cut her adrift and, connected or coincidence, that's when the alcoholic realised she'd better make an effort.

Are you in touch with any organisations that help the families of addicts?

Does he have any interest in going into rehab? Or has he tried this already? An acquantance of mine has just successfully completed a six month residential programme for heroin addiction, she is clean and we hope she will remain so but who knows.

@ goingtothepark - I feel for you - 13 years ago I lost my sister to heroin. Try to stay strong and use tough love - get your brother to accept that while you love him, you cannot condone or facilitate his drug use in any way and particularly round your family. If he chooses to use, that is his choice ... but you do not wish to see him while that remains his choice.

Try contacting this organisation for help/advice.

I hope things work out and wish you all the strength and support necessary and for your brother as well.

This organisation can also give you links to family help in your area www.addaction.org.uk/default.asp

He has been to rehab before at our local mental health facility. He has been on methadone programme for years, not willing to reduce. He has been on subatex as well I think. He is just not willing to go the extra mile. He has been clean for periods as well but doesn't change his squat dwelling, park inhabiting, shop robbing, bike stealing lifestyle to support his efforts. He hangs around with absolute dickheads or teenagers who look upon him as cool. His personal hygiene is appalling and I have actually had to clean after he has been in the house for ten minutes, it's heartbreaking. He has no pride whatsoever and no sense of guilt. For example, I asked him to go and have a wash and shave in my bathroom before the interview with the charity and he used dh's best razor, didn't clean it after, didn't ask if we had disposables etc. uses DH's deoderant, borrows clothes that never come back. We save him any bits we can like DH old t shirts. He takes them without a word and no thanks. We have given him TVs kitchen equipment, food shopping (I was secretly doing him a food shop every week last winter without DH knowledge) and we are not rich, we are struggling and have a new baby. I was really poorly having her. The first visit from him after we had the baby he came round, after five minutes, he asked for some money and a lift ten miles away. I gave him the money but said no, DH absolutely would not be leaving us to ferry him around whilst on his paternity leave. DH is always cross with me when I give him things. It's a struggle. I will follow that link, but I really feel like dropping him on his skanky arse and leaving him to it. The only thing he has ever done for either of my dd's is nicked some DVDs dorm asda and they still had the security cases on he thought I would believe they forgot to take them off at the checkout!

Leaving him to it may actually be the prompt he needs to take responsibility. All the time you're being kind he's got little incentive to change. It's not right for this to come between you and your DH... don't let him ruin your life the way he's ruined his own.

Please OP, read up about tough love - it is hard to do but honestly, you have to try and stop helping your brother while he is still using. An addict will do what they want/need to keep using/fund their habit and will say anything they think you want to hear so long as you keep funding/facilitating that habit.

My sister cycled through addiction/rehab/methadone .... eventually she got clean but relapsed and I discovered her dead body when she OD'd as she was at that time living in my flat. My parents and I facilitated her addiction and in a way, her death. I'm not saying it wouldn't have happened anyway but at least I would not have felt guilt at colluding with her (self) destruction. She was, when clean, a beautiful person and my best friend and I miss her though not the addict or the lifestyle.

I am leaving to it in that I don't take any responsibility for him, his living arrangements, I don't offer to wash or store his clothes anymore, I don't contact him. But when he drops by I simply don't have the heart to not offer a cup of tea and a meal. And he has been clean for a while so its been nice to see him.

But before Christmas he turned up asking to stay and I was pregnant, with preeclampsia, had just finished working a forty hour week and on strict instructions to have bed rest (ended up having dd2 eight weeks early) and I let him have it both barrels. He sat there and took the bollocking and I thought we had turned a corner. But no, back to tricks when the sun comes out and there's a nice clean cosy bedsit to scurry back to with a score. So fucking predictable.

Sounds like you will need to find the heart to keep the door shut on him even when it looks like he has turned a corner.

Sorry you have to go through this... sounds so rough/tough...

Hi,
This is so hard,my brother now 35 has been an alcoholic and a drug user since his late teens,he also has mental helath problems but all his issues are now so entwined its hard to make out the wood for the trees.

I haven't disowned him,but he knows that if he turns up drunk/high he is not allowed in my home.I am cordial with him but not welcoming,I am very honest with him.Will tell him the truth about his behaviour when everyone else tries to protect him ,especially my parents(thats a whole other thread!)

I don't expect a change from him or expect that I can change him,he has made thousands of choices to get where he is and to stay where he is ,I hope one day that he will make better choices but am at peace with the fact that he might not.

It is so tempting to try one more time to help that if you just love them enough they will change,it doesn't work.Its a cliche but the change has to come from them.Thinking of you, its a crap situation I know.

Thanks feelingdizzy. Cordial but not welcoming is exactly the role I've been trying to play. Like today when he turned up in tears, you could tell he'd been working his way up to looking extra pitiful. So I just carried on hanging out my washing and waited for the outpouring of injustice. Then casually remarked on the marks on his inner arms and watched as he exploded and stormed off. He really does think he is clever at decieving me but I see right through him. And he is too thick to see this.

I'm so sorry OP. What a horrible situation.

Thank you very much. I keep feeling scared he is going to come back to my garden/house. I shouldn't be scared in my own home of another confrontation with him. It gets me so upset and churned up. And nobody else cares so they won't lend me an ear or any ipadvice. They just think fuck him.

But I keep thinking of him trapped in his horrid drug cycle and self pity it's awful.

Get him to Watch the documentary called Ben: Diary of a Heroin Addict
It will show him how his life can and will end up if he doesn't get his act together . It is a very graphical documentary , I met the mans mom as she goes round youth centres etc showing this documentary , it's been on sky 1 numerous times I'm sure you could find a copy . Good luck

I have seen that. It's good, it illustrates that whatever your background, however privileged, you can fall prey to heroin.

I havent seen him since the other day. Still worried he is going to come round again though. So annoyed with him. He was doing really well.