Friends and Family of Persons with Addiction

My brother's been in and out of jail and rehab for years. Meth and opioids. We're not close, but he was a ~~great kid~~ annoying younger brother before I went to college. Then he started drugs and kept doing them into his 30s.

He made it to 6 months sober for the first time in 20 years, as of last month. He was in a transitional care facility and it was going well. I was so very proud of him.

He took a trip to visit his mom and he backslid majorly. She found him totally out of it on the side of the road. She took him home. He tried to stab her bathrobe and nightgown with a knife because he thought they were intruders.

Then he

He's.. ok.. now. He's back at stage 1 of the transitional care facility. No phone or Internet. Working his way back to 1 month. The facility is lovely and patient, from what I hear.

It's all really hard for everyone. From my point of view, I get news filtered through my mom and we don't have a great relationship, so I don't 100% trust what she tells me and it's always stressful to hear from her. He's several states away.

I've started writing him postcards again, like I did when he was in jail. Postcards are nice because I run out of things to say with a weekly letter, but can always fill up a postcard. The most important thing is to let him know I'm thinking of him.

Hi everyone, my name is loopy and I created this lemmy community to make a space for people to share and support each other through the challenges of having a friend or family member struggling with addiction. As the sidebar says, this is not to replace therapy; think of it like an online support group.

I’ll get the ball rolling a little bit by sharing that my BIL has been struggling with addiction. First to opioids, then to his Adderall prescription. The mood swings are an understatement. I get glimpses of sobriety but then the cycles continue. It honestly gets pretty exhausting to keep trying to have empathy only to be let down again.

My wife and my focus lately has been setting boundaries. He knows how to manipulate my wife, so I said that we all need to be present when deciding something (eg if he is staying at our house for the weekend). It feels uncomfortable for her, but it has been minimizing the stress. I have learned the valuable lesson of keeping yourself safe and well first. This is basically not possible for my wife to set this boundary with him, so my role has been a lot of reassurance and being consistent.

Another essential lesson we have discovered is to distinctly define roles. We are not therapists and cannot be a detox center. We have literally tried because he talked us into it.

The last recent thing we concluded is that the whole process has to be their decision. No matter how badly we want for him to succeed and how many ways we facilitate that success, if he doesn’t want to do it, he will find any excuse not to follow through. Actions are the only way to measure progress (words and promises aren’t worth much), and he must follow through first.

We love him and truly wish for him to thrive in life. It is heartbreaking to see the lows, but as long as we don’t compromise on our own well-being, we will continue supporting him on his journey to recovery.

How have you all managed? How has addiction affected your life? Personally, I would love nothing more than to see some success stories to encourage others, but I know those are sometimes rare.