Sorry to hear that.

I did my part to stop the spread of drugs. I served on a jury where the man was arrested for possession of 5 nickel rocks of rock cocaine. The guy claimed he was a user, but in Cali if you have 3 or more rocks, you are considered a dealer. We convicted him and sent him to prison for life, it was his 3rd felony conviction.

Fat or skinny?

Has he started losing his mental faculties yet?

He's skinny. Used to be fit and cut the hell up but when he quit sports... you know the rest.

He's still pretty sharp but I've noticed he's really full of shit now, his stories are... BS. Usually designed to drum up support/money.

He was an straight A student until his sophomore year. That's when things began a downward trend. I don't know why either, aside from coming from a divorced home he really didn't have a bad family life.

Sucks man. Had a friend go down the same road with heroin after starting with weed and pills.

He got involved in using, dealing, gang life/jobs, stealing, and robbery.


His family tried to get him clean, but he just ended up using and stealing from them, so they kicked him out. Pretty sure he stole loose change from me, and I caught him using my bathroom to inject, so he wasn't welcome back.

He eventually got 8 months in jail and is still somewhat clean. Still can't believe he was able to legally get a medical weed card after getting out of jail.

Have you and your family learned about enabling and stopped doing it?  Everyone that loves an addict will do it to help, only it doesn't help, it allows an addict not to suffer the consequences of their addiction.  An addict will not be likely to want to quit unless the pain of their addiction, which include the pain of the consequences of their behavior, lead to wanting to quit.  An addict or alcoholic has no chance of quitting unless they want to.

Our parents were pretty good about it once they wished up to what was really taking place. The grandparents on the other hand... let's just say they'll likely be the ones that hand him to money to buy a fatal dose.

They're total softies, naive and completely unhealthy to have in his life. The rest of the family won't even let him in their house at this point.

Stealing has always been his go to method of affording drugs. His criminal record is proof of that.

Sorry man 

My sister is a recovering drug addict/alcoholic. Her actions while she was a junkie made my family's life miserable.

I hope things don't get too bad for you OP, and that he'll eventually reform.

That's because they don't think nicotine, alcohol or caffeine are drugs.

lets say he od's and narcan is available to "save" him. Would you be in favor of government sponsored Narcan being administered, by say, a police officer?

Did she start stealing and selling/pawning items? I think that was the single biggest behavior that led to family cutting ties with my brother.

Game consoles, computer stuff, DVDs, tools, etc. etc. were the usual items. Something with a decent dollar value would go missing and "voila", it would turn out my brother just happened to be around the item before it disappeared. I know the family loves him to death but no one is willing to stick their neck out for him anymore.

He found some stashed money and too several hundred of it and disappeared for weeks at one pint as well. His descent was very rapid. I suppose the hardest part is to watch an otherwise smart person shit all over their own lives.

No. With no desire to become clean and a demonstrated intent to victimize whomever he needs to in order to get his fix I'd tell the cop to put the narcan back in his car.

Lots of good questions in this thread but I really liked that one.

My buddy's brother was an addict, ended up robbing the family blind. They foreclosed on their home, then he OD'd.

I've got nothing to add other than I'm sorry OP. Heroin is becoming a big issue near me with high school kids.

That's the reality of these people. It's incredible that addicts will do nearly anything to anyone to continue their habit except stay clean. My mom had to hide her real silverware just to keep it from disappearing, same thing with my stepdads gun collection. Once the family options dried up for the most part he moved onto breaking into cars. He's lucky he hasn't met an armed person

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

sorry to hear this.. my brother was a heroin addict. he died in 1998. 

prepare yourself and your family for massive heart break.  Everything from "it is my right to do this" to "the man after me" to "hey, got $10 for gas?"  to stuff missing in the house because he is selling it for dope money.

yup. get ready. the painful roller-coaster is about to begin.

Remember this, Detox without therapy will lead to re-addiction. Detox with extensive therapy may lead to success. 

Honestly, Sir:

Have you ever considered you may have played a role in his demise? I know my older brother was one of my WORST enemies I had as a teen. He hated me and encouraged his jock friends to torment me which crushed my self-esteem, confidence, etc., etc. Little does he know, one of the toughest "pot heads" in my town who I was friends with told me he was going to stomp his fanny,I BEGGED him not to due to me caring for my brother even after ALL the grief he and friends put me thru (even causing me to quit high school due to extreme crap I was put thru).

Hopefully you were a better brother. Mine chose his friends and "big shot/jock" image over me. Did you REALLY try to rescue or help him during this crucial teen time? I doubt it, really. You still sound like you have life by the balls why your own brother is suffering fighting his demons. Maybe I am wrong I doubt it though, you sound JUST like MY brother, Sir

You mentioned the divorce.  Did it occur around his sophomore year?

Another question, were his friends in sports with him...meaning the people who were smoking weed with him and then getting into the pills?  Did they have older brothers/sisters who helped them along maybe?

BrowardMason might be able to offer some words of wisdom if you cared to ask.  He had a moving thread.  I will leave it at that.

OP, does your brother smoke cigarettes, or use tobacco in another form?

Hard to force them to turn it around until they're ready to do it themselves.  You just hope that when they hit bottom they'll still be alive. 

Most of the women in the family will enable him they need to realize that they are just prolonging the problem.  Change the locks - because money and things will start to disappear.  Narcotics Anonymous is a great group.  I would keep the law on him as much as I can.  Nothing he says is the truth - it's the  drugs talking

I can relate.....my brother is also a heroin addict....and has been for some time (he is only 28).  He has been in and out of rehab several times in the past four years.  To be honest I think at this point it's just going to be his lifestyle.  There are 4 boys in our family, myself and older brother are in LEO, youngest is a fire/police/ems dispatcher....he is a junkie...as bad as that sounds thats what it is. He has been given more chances than anyone I have ever met..but still falls back into it.

He has taken my parents to the cleaners for over 30k in credit card debt...at one point stole all of my fathers guns and pawned them...that drug shows no mercy.

good luck.

feel free to IM me if you need anything.

Approximately 100.00% of the users mentioned above, also were regular users of Oxygen and H2O, prior to their using alcohol and marijuana.

Most all hardcore drug users started with weed like your brother.

Have you accepted that there is a strong possibility he will OD and die? We are seeing so many OD deaths down in south Florida it's crazy. This last week was actually my first rotation in months that I did not investigate an apparent overdose death.

I don't recall ever getting shitfaced on oxygen or water, I guess I'm weird like that. Idiots that want to dismiss alcohol or tobacco as intoxicants but demonize marijuana are a little...special.

Similar situation with my 24 year old brother. He was the lucky one of his little shit bag of friends; all the rest are in prison for long sentences while he skirted by just by a hair. I really wish he wouldn't have and got hit with a sentence like the rest of them as what remains of my brother is a disgusting mess of a human being. I don't know if he does H anymore but he will do ANYTHING to get high, any available pills, alcohol, he'll huff shit, anything. He shakes all the time, says some real fucked up shit not based in reality, I can't imagine what those drugs did to his brain (he started while in high school, so during some important formative years). And he steals all the time, can not take him anywhere without locking everything down first.

My mother keeps him with her in her apartment, which they're probably going to be kicked out of because of my brother and his "new" friends my mother lets him host over there. She feels guilty as the home we all grew up in was a dysfunctional mess before my folks finally got divorced, and he has cystic fibrosis passed on from my mom's side which will cut down on his lifespan. So she enables the shit out of him, buying him cigs and beer on a daily basis not to mention all other living expenses, and the allowance he receives (a 24 going on 25 year old man getting an allowance from mommy, how fucking sad) more than likely goes to more drugs. I tried for a long time to get my mother to see the light; that while it's hard throwing your own kid out onto the streets you're making it worse by enabling him. Mom works two jobs, is 61 and it worn out. She's going to die an early death because of all the stress he puts her through, and for that I wish he'd just fucking die any day now.

Isn't family great!

Sorry op.

Lost a sister to prescription pill abuse after 10 years or so.  It sucked a lot, she was 41.

No questions but the only advice I can give you is to love your brother and hate his addiction.  Not for his sake, for yours and your family's sake.  Most likely he will OD and die and you'll go through some odd emotions.  You'll find guilt even where this isn't any in the form of "could we have done something different?".  You'll also find relief in the fact that the drama that accompanies addiction is over, which will bring about guilt for feeling that way.  It's a weird dichotomy.

All that I could do was prepare my parents for the fact that she would eventually die.  It lessened the shock somewhat when it happened.

Also another weird thing is that humans tend to come to grips with death if a loved one over time.  Losing a family member to addiction and watching their wasted life and potential, the anger at them because of that and what they put the family through seems to intensify over time.

Best of luck and prayers for your family.

How much money has he stolen?

How much money has he conned the family for?

How many times has he said he doesnt have a problem?

How many times have the police gotten involved?


My nephew died from Heroin.


Sorry for situation OP, it's an ugly thing.

Speaking purely from my personal experience and that of the people around me, that's true...kind of.

For me there was a big psychological difference between drinking alcohol, which is commonly available in pretty much every grocery and convenience store in the nation, and smoking the weed, which you had to go to the hood and find an illicit dealer to obtain. Once I was 21, there was no crime in drinking beer but I could have gone to jail for possessing even the smallest amount of weed. There was definitely a line there that I was very hesitant to cross.

However, I eventually did cross it thanks in very, very large part to the kind of company I kept at the time. Once I crossed that line, it broke down a mental barrier of sorts. Someone else was risking buying the weed (a guy who is now dead would basically buy in bulk for all of us and we'd pay him back his cost, so he was basically taking the criminal risks of being a small-time dealer but with zero profit), and I wasn't too worried about cops busting down the door. Once that mental barrier was down, it was very easy to try other drugs these folks would bring to the table. Fortunately, I never did really enjoy any of it, don't have a particularly addictive personality, and never really went beyond experimenting, although I did experiment with a fairly wide variety of drugs. Otherwise my life would be very, very different and very, very bad now (assuming I could have survived a couple of decades of drug abuse).

Was alcohol a gateway drug? Not for me. Looking back, I don't see it that way at all. I drank plenty of booze between college and the Marine Corps, but never really entertained the idea of "stepping up" to illicit drugs until I started hanging around with a group of people who did that basically as a hobby.

Was marijuana a gateway drug? Absolutely for me. Again, looking back, smoking up the first few times put me over a mental line and essentially removed the element of danger I had formerly associated with taking recreational drugs.

OP, sorry to hear about your brother, and I hope he can straighten himself out. More than one of my friends died, either directly or indirectly, from using drugs, and I hope your brother can pull out of the nosedive before he hits the ground.

Everyone's different, I guess, but that's my personal experience with it, and all the druggies I hung out with very definitely started with MJ.

Why are you guys so hung up on marijuana?

Maybe that's a regional thing.  From observing my friends growing up, it was at least as easy to get weed as alcohol when they were in high school.  Only a few people had a "cool" older friend or relative who would buy beer for them, but everyone knew who sold pot, and it didn't require a trip to the hood.

Be prepared for the day you are asked to make a positive identification of his remains.

Even if you disowned him, it's still tough.

BTDT.

Does he think or acknowledge he has a problem?

There's probably something to that. I grew up not far from Clemson, actually, but quite a few decades ago. Also, I never was the one buying it--I would chip in on someone else's bag and smoke from it so my experience in actually buying is virtually nil (that was the late-90s, early 00s). My high school friends who smoked (mid-80s) did go to the hood to get it, but it's entirely likely there was an easier way they just didn't know about. Or, as is common in towns around here, their rather wealthy neighborhood was just across the creek from the hood, so physical proximity to the hood dealer probably had a more to do with it than availability now that you mention it.

How many times have you been robbed?

OP Take it from someone who's extended family runs a rehab and has had friends die from this same addiction - IF he ever goes to rehab find a place that doesn't release after the 30 day shit. After 30 days they are sober and think they are ready to rock - end up relapsing in just a few days - hit as hard as they use to and OD. Minimum 90 days if not longer period.

The extended families rehab wont take someone who wont be in for 90 days. Also dont send him to some frilly retreat it needs to be hard so you can tell he wants it. If he doesn't  it will never stick.

Just some words of advice - good luck to you and your family

I hate to read about these situations.

plenty of people fuck their life up on Alcohol, plenty more fuck it up with dip or smoking..


drug problems will never go away until penalties are harsh and severe for those distributing and selling the poison.

I would bet alcohol and/or nicotine as before marijuana.

Very sorry to hear OP. My sister in law struggled with one drug or another from high school on. She'd get clean for a while then always fall back in eventually. She OD'd from heroine two and a half years ago leaving behind two young sons. Good luck to him finding the right motivation and willpower to get and stay clean for good.

Those don't count because they're legal. 

Sorry about your brother OP.  

Couple of questions:

1) What's worse, the drug use itself, of the negative behaviors he engages in to get the drugs (i.e. stealing, begging, lying)?

2) Related, if your brother was able to con a doctor into writing a regular prescription for oxy or fentanyl (instead of buying heroin) would that be better, worse, or make no difference from your standpoint?

Good for you for starting this thread. You may help some folks.

People who spout "But it's a gateway drug." fail to see the big picture.

It's just a drug.  Using one does not lead to another, and another.

Those same people will swear up and down that MJ is a gateway drug, but caffeine, alcohol and nicotine are not.  

Kids are exposed to those three long before they are exposed to illegal drugs, so why aren't they hung with the Gateway Drug tag?

That's where my seventeen year old Nephew is now. Went from playing JV hockey as a Freshman and Varsity as a Sophomore and Junior to a the above in a year.

He starts rehab today. I hope to God he turns it around.

Sorry you're in this position.

If he OD's, do you think he should be given Narcan?  

I am not asking in a derogatory manner, I really want to know your opinion.

Never mind, already answered.