I will continue first with the rest of the story about my youngest brother. He seemed to be doing so well, his career took him all over the world, he owned his own place and had a few girlfriends in different countries! As he was travelling so much he rented out his place and stayed with our parents when back in the UK. I trusted him so much, that I let him take my ten year old son away for the weekend. While they were away I received a phone call from my Mum telling me that she had found a used syringe in the bin, I was frantic, I had let my son be with a junkie, as this was before I had a mobile phone, I just had to wait, and it was a very long wait. When they arrived home, I confronted my brother and he admitted that he was using again, so as usual I stepped in to help. He moved into my house and stayed clean, we had lots of talking and all seemed positive. After a month he had to go abroad again for work and was returning in three weeks. He phoned me from the airport to say that he was back and coming back to stay with me, I said that could he postpone coming until the next day and he agreed that was fine and he would stay in a hotel in London for the night. The next day we were all waiting for him to arrive at my house, including my parents and children. Instead there was a knock at the door at it was the police, my brothers body had been found in a hotel room in London, there was a syringe by his bed and he had choked on his own vomit. He was 29 years old.
I am sure that you can imagine the devastation this caused us all, and the guilt that I felt, if only I had told him to come straight from the airport, something I have had to live with and try and come to terms with.
I will continue my story about my closest in age brother at a later date and also about the ripple effect of having an addict in the family.