My brother used heroin between the ages of 23-30. He stole from his family, his girlfriend, and ended up becoming a small-time dealer. After several run-ins with the police and the loss of his girlfriend, my brother ended up moving back home and went on a methadone program. He has been clean for 7 years, still lives at home, and he just had his last dose of methadone (after starting at 90mg).
The following sections are excerpts from my journal around the time I first found out about my brother’s addiction, when I was 16:
... I got back at my brother the other day. He’d sold my Nintendo 64 and all my games, so I went to his place, took all his entire collection of videos (that he hadn’t sold) and sold them at the pawn shop. I walked away with 90 dollars. It didn’t pay for my Nintendo, but it certainly made me feel like justice had been done.
Seeing as I was talking about my brother, I may as well discuss the situation he is in. As I will probably remember later in life, he is a heroin addict. He’s living at my house with his girlfriend. Although the company is nice, they are both extremely annoying sometimes. They take over the front room and watch stolen videos and crappy tv, like Australia’s Funniest Home Videos. My brother, for some strange reason, eats huge piles of chocolate bars, chips and lollies, all stolen of course. I manage to steal a few every now and then, which kind of compensates for all the other annoying things he does.
He is also quite filthy and I have come to the conclusion that my brother does not realise the importance of general hygiene and does not know the meaning of the word at all. He never seems to wash! His use of butter is strange. After smothering his bread or steak or whatever else in butter, he licks the knife and covers something else, or even the same thing, with butter, after dipping the salivary knife deep into the butter.
I know that every now and then he goes into the toilet or shower and shoots up. I once found a spray of blood on the wall (it’s still there).
My brother can give me interesting information about things like injecting heroin and stealing things and buying and using a number of illegal substances. But, as always the negatives outweigh the positives. He’s very self-centred.
My brother lies. And lies a lot. He ‘borrowed’ my bike (that is, sold it) and used the money to continue his expensive stream of heroin. I eventually got my bike back a few months later after he had admitted to his addiction.
I have decided that that my brother does not think about the future. He lives in the present and lies to get through the day. He also seems to be unable to tell how other people feel, and is unable to reflect upon the effects of his actions on other people.
I have been continuously annoyed with mum and my brother. Mum never seems hard enough on him and he just takes and takes. He probably owes her over ten thousand dollars, but we’ll never see any of it. I tried at first to almost tell mum off or at least I told her how silly she was, but that never worked. I argued with her, told her how much he was using her, especially now that she was a bit fragile from dad dying. But she never did seem to listen, always agreed with me, but did not stop giving away money to him. I eventually realised that it was useless to try to change the way mum was and eventually I just ended up helping her deal with him, things like regular money payments and other ideas. He’s pawned most of his girlfriend’s things, and she won’t have him living at her place. She couldn’t bear to be away from him, so now they’re both living at our place.
Current:
My brother is off heroin now. He’s been clean for a while, slowly and steadily reducing his dose of methadone. His new addictions are sugar, cigarettes, tv and video games – at least he’s safe and my mum isn’t worrying like she used to. I’ve since moved out, but he’s still living at home. We get along way better than we used to, and, as far as I know, he doesn’t get involved with the law or drugs at all.
I’m not sure what got him through his addiction. I don’t think it was anything I did. It was possibly that my brother knew that mum would support him, that she’d take him into the house (with rules of course). Luckily he was never a violent or aggressive person. The methadone really helped as well. I’ve heard that a lot of people who are addicted to drugs just ‘grow out of it’ in their early thirties. He stopped using, around the age of 30.
I don’t remember how I got through it. Even though I felt annoyed and frustrated a lot of the time, I managed to stay distant, and it didn’t really upset me too much. The hardest part was dealing with my mum’s worry. It took up so much of her energy. But we dealt with it by being open and supportive of each other.
