Apple Jack
Footballguy
In most other families, I would be the #### up addict. In my family, my brother the alcoholic takes up all the oxygen from that conversation. He has been missing for three months. We are pretty sure it has come to the point that he is homeless. At 54 years old. My parents had reached the end of their rope financially in helping him out since laid off by GE a couple years ago and told him he had to come live with them and obviously could not drink there, which he said was fine that he had not been drinking. My mom has always bought it when he said that; everybody else knows better. They drive five hours to pick him up on the agreed upon day and time and he didn't answer the door. They called and he said he wasn't ready that it would be a few hours but he didn't know exactly when. Mom said that's it you're on your own and they turned around and drove home. That is the last any of us has heard from him, though they have received FOUR separate bills for emergency room visits since and the hospitals are already threatening them.
He is extremely bright on many fronts, with a genius IQ, but was diagnosed with mild Asperger's. He is socially awkward and every stretch of sobriety is met with a bender that wrecks everything. He has always lived alone - no relationships we're aware of - and since my dad died in '98 he has been a bit of a mess. He has just never been able to get it together for more than a year or two at a time and even then was hiding being drunk and reeking of booze at work and would require forced time off to dry out here and there. Bosses would try to help him, but eventually you have to say enough. So he's been let go a couple times despite the fact that he has always been good at the tasks associated with his job. When he was younger, he was much more in demand as he was an early IT guy. Now? He's the old guy with the sketchy resume in a field heavily populated with young, desirable candidates. He would surely have killed himself decades ago if not for his oddly firm but casual relationship with Catholicism and the belief that suicide is simply not an option. That he would end up in hell. I'm pretty sure he'll eventually lose faith and do himself in or just find that drinking himself to death gets him off that hook. Maybe not. I hope not. It is remarkable to me that he is still alive.
My mother is struggling with filing a missing persons report but is being told by everybody not to. That if she finds him all she is going to do is get right back on the merry-go-round of enabling. And he has burned my stepfather and her for an ungodly chunk of what was left of their savings. She is reaching out to all the old contacts she's developed over the years when he was in this or that rehab facility. She is 78 ####### years old and is destroyed over this. Doesn't help they just lost all of their furniture in a storage facility that was flooded by Matthew, but thankfully just things...no photos or anything with sentimental value. It blows seeing this poor, sweet woman who has tried so hard to help the best way she can get burned time and time and time again, emotionally and financially. This is eating away what's left of her spirit.
I have come very close on a few recent Fridays to getting in the car and driving down to look for him. We've never been close as he is nine years older than me and was well into isolation and alcoholism by the time I could have adult conversations with him. But he is my brother and it is really strange not doing anything proactive in attempt to better the situation. But having my own past with addiction and knowing what the lifers are saying, it seems the only thing to do here is wait. Sucks.
Happy Friday y'all!
Couldn't find a similar thread, so vent about your ####-up siblings (or whoever else) here.
He is extremely bright on many fronts, with a genius IQ, but was diagnosed with mild Asperger's. He is socially awkward and every stretch of sobriety is met with a bender that wrecks everything. He has always lived alone - no relationships we're aware of - and since my dad died in '98 he has been a bit of a mess. He has just never been able to get it together for more than a year or two at a time and even then was hiding being drunk and reeking of booze at work and would require forced time off to dry out here and there. Bosses would try to help him, but eventually you have to say enough. So he's been let go a couple times despite the fact that he has always been good at the tasks associated with his job. When he was younger, he was much more in demand as he was an early IT guy. Now? He's the old guy with the sketchy resume in a field heavily populated with young, desirable candidates. He would surely have killed himself decades ago if not for his oddly firm but casual relationship with Catholicism and the belief that suicide is simply not an option. That he would end up in hell. I'm pretty sure he'll eventually lose faith and do himself in or just find that drinking himself to death gets him off that hook. Maybe not. I hope not. It is remarkable to me that he is still alive.
My mother is struggling with filing a missing persons report but is being told by everybody not to. That if she finds him all she is going to do is get right back on the merry-go-round of enabling. And he has burned my stepfather and her for an ungodly chunk of what was left of their savings. She is reaching out to all the old contacts she's developed over the years when he was in this or that rehab facility. She is 78 ####### years old and is destroyed over this. Doesn't help they just lost all of their furniture in a storage facility that was flooded by Matthew, but thankfully just things...no photos or anything with sentimental value. It blows seeing this poor, sweet woman who has tried so hard to help the best way she can get burned time and time and time again, emotionally and financially. This is eating away what's left of her spirit.
I have come very close on a few recent Fridays to getting in the car and driving down to look for him. We've never been close as he is nine years older than me and was well into isolation and alcoholism by the time I could have adult conversations with him. But he is my brother and it is really strange not doing anything proactive in attempt to better the situation. But having my own past with addiction and knowing what the lifers are saying, it seems the only thing to do here is wait. Sucks.
Happy Friday y'all!
Couldn't find a similar thread, so vent about your ####-up siblings (or whoever else) here.
