Welcome to this week’s Womanly Wednesday! This is the first Womanly Wednesday post of 2016 and I can’t think of a better way to jump in. My friend Laura is vulnerably sharing about how heroin addiction impacted her family and her honesty is beautiful. Make sure to check our Laura’s blog, Willful and Wildhearted, to read more about her story and her travel adventures!
Everyone has at least one subject in life they don’t like to discuss with others. Unfortunately for me, a topic I have continuously struggled with my entire life is family. When many people think of family, their mind goes to a happy space filled with memories of laughter, inside jokes and traditions. I am fairly certain it’s not terribly common that most people I meet will ever be able to understand where I’m coming from on this – and that’s totally fine.
You see, I grew up with an older sibling addicted to heroin.
When I was born, my mother tells me that my brother cradled me in his arms and told everyone I felt like a teddy bear. She tells me he couldn’t stop hugging me and promised to love me forever. Despite the fact there was an eight year age gap between the two of us, my brother David was easily one of my favorite people and best friends when I was a young child. Everything he did was incredible; I strived to be like him and always wanted to impress him.
He taught me patiently how to play his favorite video games, how to ride a skateboard and even how to play the drums. I had a keen interest in his favorite music and hobbies – I even used to play dress up with his clothes when he wasn’t around. He was my idol, my confidant and my first positive male role model that I can remember.
Not long after my eighth birthday, everything in my life took a drastic turn. David was no longer cheerful and upbeat; nor was he ever home. He no longer told jokes or make light of situations, but he started acting violent and angry. Eventually he stopped coming home as frequently, which resulted in a lot of police visitations when local officers would bring him home. He started getting in trouble for partying and other petty crime incidents on a fairly consistent basis, subsequently being sent to a halfway house for troubled young men.
He eventually made it out of there and moved to Ohio to live with his father and finish high school. An avid artist and comedian, he seemed to fit right in and adjusted back to normalcy pretty well. Behind the scenes, however, he was starting to use opiates. Following his graduation, David was given a full-time scholarship for his beautifully unique art skills. He received a new MacBook, a hefty sum of money and outside validation that he may not have felt when he was growing up angry and lost. This is when everything started to go awry.
You see, the terrible thing about heroin is that it is all encompassing and completely mind-altering. I’m not saying my brother was the kindest, warmest or gentlest soul before he started using heroin. In fact, there were times when he was an actual nightmare to be around – sober or not. What I am saying is that he would never have done a lot of the things he’d done if had he avoided heroin.
While I do have wonderful memories of my brother, most of them can only be seen on family home videos or in photographs. Unfortunately, my vivid memories of him are of ruined Christmases, threatening phone calls and endless tears. I’ll never forget a particular Christmas where he was so upset that my mother had given him gift cards, socks and underwear that he kicked the tree down and shouted obscenities until my mother and I were crying so hard that we couldn’t breathe.
It wasn’t that my mom was being cheap. She just knew any cash or clothing items he’d acquired would be sold for heroin money. Family affairs like this were not uncommon, which is why I have a strong disdain for the holiday season – particularly Thanksgiving and Christmas.
The last time I spoke to my brother is a day I will never forget. It was a Sunday afternoon. I had been so angry with my brother the entire week because he had recently stolen a $20 bill out of my friend’s purse in our home. Since we were each just 13 years old, I know that he’d subconsciously known better – heroin didn’t, though. At any rate, I marched up two flights of stairs from the basement to ask him why he’d stolen the money.
When I opened the door to his room, I saw him high on heroin – something I’d never imagined I’d see. I immediately called the police with the hopes he would get caught and figure his life out. Since I was a child I informed him that I’d made the phone call, which obviously made him flee.
“You’re going to die someday,” I said to him. That was the last thing I’d ever said.
Over the years, my brother struggled with his heroin addiction. Some years he was better than others, and some months everyone felt he was going to die. He’d been in and out of comatose overdoses for years, and eventually felt so down about himself that he left the car running in his garage. His addiction helped him steal a large flat-screen television from a hospital room post-coma recovery. His addiction caused as an open invitation for him to be brutally violated by drug dealers and his addiction caused a massive strain in my entire family.
His addiction was so dividing that I often avoided any sort of family function where I knew he would be present as soon as I was old enough to make those decisions. He continuously messaged me on Facebook, informing me that he was sorry about everything and that he was proud of the young woman I’d become. I told him that I would speak to him as soon as he became clean.
My brother died of his heroin overdose in June 2012 after he couldn’t wake up from his vegetative state. Prior to this occurrence, he was 90+ days sober – the longest he’d ever gone – which makes me proud and sad at the same time. While I never got to reconnect with him, I believe that he can now understand the pain he caused myself and our entire family, and I am happy to write that he is at peace and no longer struggling in pain.
David’s death was just the beginning of a string of losses and mishaps in 2012-2013, all of which caused me to eventually run away from my reality back in America. I moved as far away as I could imagine: to Seoul, Korea – a place that has enabled me to grow and learn more about myself. If you’re interested in learning more about my story, you can check out 5 Things Korea Has Taught Me.
Laura Nalin is an American expat who has been living and working in Seoul since 2013. She’s a massive fan of pizza, cat videos, cooking and the band Phish. You can follow along with her travels on her blog, Willful and Wildhearted or keep up with her on Facebook and Instagram.
Dear Laura — just read your gut wrenching story with close interest since my only nephew has fought a heroin addiction but is now in recovery although I pray for him EVERYDAY. Stories like this make me angry and sad, frustrated in wanting to just love the addictions out of our loved ones, yet knowing THEY must be the ones to change. A couple of weeks before Christmas we said farewell to a 28 year old young man, former school friend of my oldest son, who died from an overdose. Rampant. Ravaging to user and families. I am out of words on the subject so I will close by saying THANK YOU for sharing your story so bravely and I am so sorry for your loss not only of your brother but of peaceful family memories. Like you, my past has been deeply marred by addictions through the generations…first my dad, then an ex. So God bless you, dear girl, in your new life in Korea and wherever you may go from there. xxoo
Sheila Kimball recently posted…Why I’m opting out this New Year’s…Maybe you should too?
Thank you so much! I truly believe that heroin addiction is an epidemic in America. It’s taking people away by the dozen and leaving horrible memories and sadness behind. I hope that your nephew is able to overcome his battles. It’s a unique drug in the fact that it’s nearly impossible to quit and completely changes the person.
Again, thank you so much for your kind words and I wish you the best as well. Happy new year to you. <3
It’s so sad to see this community to which even I belong to and that is of a family with drug/alcohol addiction. I lost my sister in 2014 to a combination of heroin and other drugs. Like your story, hers was similar in that the sister I grew up with was no longer the person I knew and the most unfortunate part was that she left two young children behind. I’ve always felt weird saying after she passed that I was at peace – that she could no longer hurt herself or the people around her (mainly being family).
It takes such courage to open your heart about this – especially to your readers. However, I think the discussion is extremely important because there are other siblings out there, like you – like US, that need to know that how they feel is validated. And you did that today. Thank you again for sharing your story, one I feel is too common. I pray that you find peace and that your brother be at peace.
Thank you so much for your insight. I agree that it’s totally necessary to have this discussion publicly, as so many of us are going through it. I often felt singled out by my family for not wanting to be near him or even hear his name a lot of the time, but I was just protecting myself. I think if it hadn’t affected me for my entire childhood, the story would have been different. But I was a child and it was extremely hard to process once I moved away to college and reflected on everything that was happening as well as the past.
I hope that your family and you understand you aren’t alone in this! I wish you the best and thanks again for reaching out.
Laura recently posted…Everyone Who Moves Abroad is a Little Crazy
Laura, I had to take a deep breath after reading this.. thank you for sharing this story, for fighting for your brother, and for choosing to walk forward in all this. I worked in addiction recovery for a year and found that surviving drug addiction is a rare victory. May your adventures overseas in a new community bring you healing and new-found joy.
Daisy @ Simplicity Relished recently posted…Hello 2016: looking back and looking ahead
Thank you so much! It’s terrible to think that so many people don’t make it out of this alive. I think all of us had hopes that he would someday, but as time progressed it became clearer that it wasn’t the case. I really appreciate your kind words and you taking the time to reach out. <3
Laura recently posted…Everyone Who Moves Abroad is a Little Crazy
My siblings are both addicts and my sister passed away about a year and a half ago after taking her life. I created a very similar emotional distance to my siblings as well and definitely had family holidays like yours (except, unfortunately, there were two of them so they could get into physical confrontations with each other). Addiction is so hard to understand for people who haven’t seen it and lived with it. I struggle with feeling resolved + the missed opportunities I’ve had with my siblings. I’m hopeful that when we have children someday that our children make different choices.
I’m sorry to hear about your loss. It’s certainly hard for people to wrap their heads around the concept of addiction when they’re never been exposed to the actions of an addict. It was really isolating for me, particularly because a few of my family members referred to me as “selfish” one year when I didn’t want to come home for Christmas. That same year, my brother passed out at the table because he was so high and that same aunt had to explain to her young children why he was passed out. Horrible for me to think of it as instant karma, but I truly believe it was. Be strong.
Laura recently posted…Photo Series: Feet Follow Heart (Part 1)
Hi Laura !!
I just read your story. I was very heart touching. I totally agree with you that the terrible thing about heroin is that it is all encompassing and completely mind-altering. I think the people who is addicted to heroine can do anything to get this, they can even choose the path of crime because they lost control over their-self. Thanks for sharing your story with us.
Regards:
Alice Gaunt
AliceGaunt recently posted…New Image
I hate it when I’m reading stories like this, then out of the blue some ”onion slicing ninja’s” would come out… ; )
Anyway, thank you for sharing your story Laura.
Naomi Taylor recently posted…Low Cost
It’s eye-opening to see the viewpoint of addiction from a sibling affected by the death of a loved one. Your journey was full of issues, including this aspect of your life.
It’s unfortunate that you found out directly what many people have to know about drug addiction. It is mind altering and, in many cases, people can do things they wouldn’t otherwise do while being under the influence.