[maz82]

My brother is 50 this year and has always been the wild child of the family, having dabbled with drink and drugs recreationally his whole life. Over the last 6 years however, he has got progressively worse. He is addicted to alcohol and valium, but also does other drugs like crack and cocaine when he is the company of others that do that. As a family we have all put him rehab twice. We have each had him come and stay with us at different points. He has threatened to kill himself numerous times. For the last 18 months years he has been living back with my parents who are 67 and 73 years old, after another 5 week stint in hospital with pancreatitis and losing 20kg in body weight. My parents have also paid for him to have his teeth done since they are ravaged from the abuse. However, he has started to drink heavily again and is constantly high on valium. He functions during the day as he is a barber but then as soon as he finishes goes straight to the shop opposite and does a bottle of vodka on his way home. Last week my parents asked him to leave again as he becomes aggressive and wreckless when he is intoxicated. My parents are scared to leave him alone in the house since he regularly leaves the front door wide open and they sleep with their bedroom door locked at night in fear of what he may do. A week ago my parents asked him to leave again as they were at breaking point. I suggested they go on holiday to relax.

He has responded by going on a 1 week bender and not showing up to work at all. I was called a number of times over the weekend by random people telling me my brother was at the hospital as he was threatening to kill himself. When i rang the hospital he had been discharged. I was then called again last night by someone from his AA group asking me to come and get him as he had given someone a black eye. I could hear my brother in the background saying he was going to kill himself. I was too scared to go and get him.

He has now just text me again to say he is in A&E again… he is basically using the hospital like a hotel. He gets intoxicated, threatens to kill himself, goes to A&E, has a sleep and some librium that the doctors give to him, gets discharged and then leaves and does the same thing again.

I am heartbroken and I am scared that if i go get him, I am enabling him and it nets out in the same result, plus he could hurt me, but if i don’t he might just go through with his threats! Does anyone have any advice? He likely doesn’t even have a job now, so will have no money, no roof over his head… I’m distraught!

[icarus-trust]

Hi,

So sorry to read your post and to see how difficult life is for you and your family because of your brothers addictions. It must be very tough for you all. If you would like to have someone to talk with that would understand what you are going through maybe you’d like to contact us at Icarus Trust. We are a charity that supports people like yourself who are having to deal with addiction in their family. One of our trained and experienced Family Friends would talk with you if you get in touch, and maybe that will help you to know what to do next.

You can contact us on contact@icarustrust.org

Good luck.

[Author]

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