I've made a lot of mistakes in my lifetime but some of those where what I would like to think of as "good mistakes". These mistakes were learning opportunities for me. I was only allowed to make them because I had much freedom through my teenage years. I was allowed to fall down, dust myself off, and get back up.
I am so thankful that I made it through without ending up in prison or dying.
And with me, I take a lot of life lessons that you can't learn any other way than going through these things.
This leads me to my thoughts on dependency. I work on being co-dependant with my brothers. When my father killed himself, there was an unspoken transformation that began inside me. Something in me felt a need to step up and become a role model, a father figure, a mentor to my younger brothers.
At the time, I was addicted to drugs and alcohol, a hot headed drunk who was more selfish than I would like to admit.
I knew that needed to change. I wanted to give my brothers someone to look up to. Someone to not tell them BUT Show them (this is very important to me - that you walk the walk and NOT just talk the talk), to show these young boys a prosperous (not necessarily monetary wise but in spirit) healthy dedicated way to live.
Now these boys have always and will always look up to my dad, and good reason to. My father built his own company from the ground up - starting out with himself, his brother (who passed away a few years later in a Drunk Driving accident), and his best friend. When talking to my family members about my dad, they explained to me that to start his own business, my dad would work during the day then come home at night to then work on his own business. Long days, hard work, tough hours. And did that for years to build up his own company with faith in himself to one day be his own boss. My dad was no stranger to hard work, and I'm talking tough rock breaking construction work. Hard as nails. I am proud of my dad and everything he did, worked for, taught me, and am fortunate to have known my dad for the short amount of time I had with him.
But later in all of our lives, there was one constant that I am not proud of.... the addiction... alcohol and other drugs. It tore my family to pieces, it ripped my friends away from me, and made me destructive.
I have heard a few good quotes about drugs and alcohol from people I trust...
Once you make your choice to use (alcohol, drugs) all your other choices are made.
What has alcohol/drugs ever given you? It takes relationships, friends, money, and all that is good... to leave you with nothing.
*Now, I understand that not everyone is an addict But for those of us who are - this is truth.
Now back to my thoughts on dependency... I wanted to be a solid role model for my brothers. And I knew the devastation that lived in their hearts from the loss of my pops. A hole nothing could fill, a loss so big that there was nothing that could comfort or ease the pain - And still after all this time, 6 years, the wound still feels fresh, I feel like we did not heal, we just learned to live with pain.
My relationship with my brothers was typical growing up - (except for the drugs) - we were three of a kind with all similar senses of humor, and still to this day, no one can make me laugh like my brothers can. Sometimes I feel like we are all twins but different ages... because, like twins will say that they know what the other is thinking or what the other is going to say - my brothers and I will do that... And seriously, there are times where I can look at my brothers and know what they are thinking. There are times when I can look at my brother in the eyes and we will just laugh because we know exactly what each other is thinking. There are also times where I look at my brothers eyes and I feel his pain, like it was my own, no different then if it had happened to me (whatever the pain source is).
I knew that my junkie a$$ was wrecking the relationship between me and my brothers. I was loosing their trust and gaining a reputation as unreliable... because my choice was made - I chose drugs.
But I didn't want that to be how my brothers looked up to me. I wanted them to have something good in their life, since all that was good seemed to disappear with the death of our pops. Within that same month, the lady that was dating my dad kicked my brothers out of THEIR home, the place they had lived their WHOLE life because this evil person was in charge.
I call her evil because she is, nothing short of evil, and the acts she still commits to this day are evil. I will get into that at a later date.
My brothers world was flipped up-side down and the next person to be there for them, was me, but I could not get my act together... unable to stay sober. And I realized I was self-medicating to numb the pain. And when people think that addicts are people with no conscience, I am here to tell you that is incorrect - or at least in my case - because the viscious cycle I would spin myself into would be caused from when I would see how much I hurt my family by my drug use, how I chose drugs over them, or the disappointment I could see in their eyes from watching my soul in torcher held hostage in an addicts jail cell.
I also soon realized that the road I walk is the one I pave... pave the way for them to walk. Not all the time, but if I walk it, they see it, and I was giving them an example that was deadly. So to be there for my brothers, to be there for myself... I would need to be sober. I would need to start working through my issues, need to start taking on my demons head on, grab the bull by the horns. This was so intimmadating that just the thought of this drove me to get some drugs and numb out.
Sober, the fight to get well... It happened, hard work paid off. I guess I am my father's son, my work ethic revealed itself when I fought for my life and got clean.
My sobriety story will be a blogspot, at a different date.
What I realized is that I stepped into the role my dad had held for so long. After I got clean, I became somewhat of a father figure to my brothers. Except I was not the man my dad was. My dad displayed patience, he listened, he was well thought out... I was an erratic newly clean twenty something year old who was trying to mend the shattered pieces of his life, but before myself I wanted to really truly help and heal my brothers. I took what I remembered from my dad, his well spoken words to me that when you listen to someone - you really need to listen what they are saying, not just hear what they are saying... And there is a difference, if you listen, it will bring understanding to what they are saying. You will see where they are coming from.
So what do I do... I was sometimes there to listen, sometimes there to advise, but always I was there. I wanted to be around my brothers. I wanted to go places with them and do things with them. I wanted them to be with me no matter what. And we did. We all moved in together. We bonded. And I thought we were on the path to healing.
What I did not realize is that they became my only priority, above all else, being near my brothers was my number one. People say you trade one addiction for another - which can happen, if you are not careful AND aware of your situation.
I needed them, more than they needed me. And I tried to be a father, something I was not, to them. What I start to think now, is they needed a brother, a best friend, someone to help them along. I was clouded even though I was sober. I was still a jerk at times and when they were deep in their addictions, that jerk would come out. The jerk was a front. A facade put on to keep myself protected. I was scared of real feelings, before getting clean I could hide from true emotion, I had a haven in the drugs. So now, all of these emotions were RAW. It was a tough thing for me to know the real pain behind my brothers eyes. And it scared me.
Just wanted to post this... remember in Braveheart, when William Wallace says "Every man dies, Not Every Man really Lives". That was wicked frickin awesome. My ADD kicked in and that came to me. Sorry but enjoy the quote, think about it.
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