ADDICTION | LOVE | FAMILY | LIFE |HEALING

Dear Brother, See You At Your Funeral

A family’s journey with addiction, and my life-long quest for healing.

Some of my earliest memories include me playing with my siblings. I am the middle child of five and am proud of it! The chameleon of the bunch, switching from child to adult in an instant, peacemaking, and orchestrating the chaos.

We invented games outside, played video games, drove my parents mad, and had days-long baking parties at Christmas. That’s right, I said days of baking. We were always together and always friends. Once my parents are no longer with us, my support system will consist of three of the best people this world has to offer.

A kind heart, a brainiac, and a warrior.

They are my tribe.

If you’re quick with math, you’ll notice I said three, not four. My older brother, we will call him Diggory, removed himself long before we even realized what was happening. He left a path of destruction so wide you would swear a tornado had ripped its way through our lives.

Repeatedly.

For decades.

The Early Days

As far back as I can remember, Diggory had troubles. In school, at home, and in his romantic relationships. He was smart as a whip and an excellent artist. It’s a shame those skills and talents were all squandered and he never allowed himself to tap into his true potential. By all accounts, he was completely allergic to consequences, which was really the catalyst for all his issues.

My mom feels it was the divorce from his father that caused these issues. That is what we call motherly guilt. Being a mom is fucking hard. He is in his late forties, my mom is in her early seventies and she still carries this shit around with her. Be nice to your mom y’all. You’ll never truly know what sacks of guilt and regret rest on her shoulders while she effortlessly smiles at you.

Some moms have cried tears so heavy they have invisible trenches carved into their cheeks.

Consider this my public service announcement for being nice to moms.

You see, my older brother and sister are actually my half-siblings. I didn’t fully understand what that meant until I was around ten years old. It wasn’t ever much of a big thing. I loved them and they loved me and it was just that simple. Luckily, our mother and the two dads were always friendly, were constantly present for everything, and treated all of us well. Despite the very best effort of these three parents Diggory could never seem to find his footing.

Sadness turned into defiance.

Angst into anger.

He became the first person who taught me it’s best to keep people at arm's length. Many people would follow behind him to teach me that same lesson, but Diggory was the first. Perhaps it is this very first betrayal I experienced that attracts me to sadness as an adult.

That’s deep.

If I had to describe my relationship with Diggory, it was a lot like that board game Battleship. Diggory was the very first to weaponize the loyalty that my love brings. To use it as bombs until he sank me. I know exactly where I was standing when it first happened, what was said, and how I felt my heart sink so low I could have trampled it with my small, unsteady feet.

Diggory was extremely charming. He had the looks to match this dynamic personality of his. Always the life of the party, always the one everyone asked for. The motive of his charm was masked by a curtain of winks and dimples. Once you pull back the curtain, you see that everything, and I mean everything, he does is for his own benefit. He was a master manipulator who didn’t hesitate to use his entire bag of tricks.

The Addiction

It wasn’t long before we caught on to his substance abuse issues. In his teens, he was expelled from a very expensive private boarding school for having a pound of weed under his bed. Then things like stumbling into the house in the middle of the night, completely shit-faced, unable to make it to the bathroom without my parents’ help. I still remember watching my mom, clean the bathroom floor on her hands and knees, from one of his many toilet misses.

Sure, teenagers do some really, really dumb things. It’s their tiny brains y’all. That’s just science. However, I know my parents hoped this sort of behavior would sort itself out once the havoc of puberty had subsided. Unfortunately for Diggory, and the rest of us, it did not.

He pursued self-destructive behavior with fervor, for years. As you read this, he is undoubtedly somewhere, doing his damndest to sink his own ship. There were stretches of my adolescence where he was completely absent. Those were peaceful times.

Peaceful for me only because I didn’t know any better.

I had no clue other families lived differently. My friends didn’t have a deadbolt lock on a hallway closet. They could just pick up and leave the house whenever they wanted. Before we left the house, we would gather anything of value, put it in the closet and my mom would lock the deadbolts with separate keys she kept on her at all times.

My friends didn’t have a piece of rebar at the base of the sliding door to prevent break-ins. Diggory was a master at popping locks. In fifth grade, my friends never had to stay home sick, only to hear the back door being forced open. Then be faced with the brutal truth the intruder is your own brother. He thought no one was home. I, about twelve years old, ran with the coolest, cordless landline the ’90s had to offer and bolted out the front door to call my mom at work. She told me to call the police. So I did.

He didn’t hurt me that day, not physically anyway, but that sort of shit sticks with you. Like a flame to my flesh, the betrayal, desperation, and fear I experienced that day marked me.

Forever.

The rebar failed at its job, but it stayed there for years after, bringing some false sense of comfort to my family. I always hated that thing. Traditionally a material known for its strength only provided me a daily reminder of our true vulnerability.

Diggory was without contest, my favorite sibling. His hugs healed any childhood fear or injury. He was my big brother who had all the strength and tenacity I hoped to eventually find for myself. Only ten years older, but five hundred times cooler than me, we listened to music together, went for rides in his car together, and would gang up on our other siblings together.

Every time I hear an Aerosmith song, I am a pebble in a slingshot. Pulled back with the strength of my former love for him, flung back in time, back into his room, reading lyrics on the cover of the cassette tape together. Green carpet. Clothes on the floor. Teenage chaos surrounds us. Outside the window, dusk drives out the heat of the day, Mom calling us downstairs for dinner, but we didn’t care. We had an awesome Aerosmith song to learn together.

I still know every word to Water Song/Janie’s Got A Gun.

A classic.

A heartbreaking classic.

As with most addictions, he devolved into stealing to support his habit. Y’all, when I say he stole things, he stole so many things we stopped tracking. Changing front door locks, garage door locks, locks on our hearts, my parents tried so very hard to keep the four of us far away from his toxicity. Now that I’m an adult, I know of course that he was selling and pawning our things for drug money. The rest of us were partners in this dreaded dance for decades. Screaming, laughing, drunk, punching, loving. We never truly knew which Diggory we would get.

Maybe that is the real tragedy in all of this. Maybe none of us ever truly got to know him at all.

Boom! He Sunk My Battleship

As I stated before, I knew exactly where I was standing when he bombed my vulnerable love. I could hear Diggory and my parents in a yelling match…again. As any professional snooping siblings will do, the four of us were gathered at the top of the stairs. Sure to tip-toe, sit still, and breathe as light as possible. There’s no way my parents would have heard us anyways because when Diggory was loud, he was LOUD. He also repeated himself in arguments. One sentence, over, and over until you just wanted to slam your head into the wall.

We snooped on the regular. Why? Because it’s fucking fun to learn secrets and sneak around with your posse and it’s what kids do. The top of the stairs was a prime eavesdropping spot because it was close enough to hear everything, but we could also just do a Navy Seal roll down the hallway if we needed a quick escape. We were the consummate snooping professionals

Back to the big fight. The screaming ended, and we all heard my dad tell him to leave…and to never come back. My siblings scrambled to my sisters’ room.

Her room was our safe place when fights broke out between Diggory and my parents. As the next oldest sibling, my sister recognized at such a young age she had to protect us. We would sit on the floor in her room, her door locked, as she blasted Paula Abdul on her boom box.

It was the 90’s y’all, and Paula was the queen. I guess Cold Hearted Snake was more appropriate than I’d realized at the time. Whether my younger brothers remember or not, she saved us from a lot of ugly words, ugly feelings, and a lot of scary times.

Except for this one particular time, siblings already in my sister’s room, in the midst of the shouting match, I did not move. I sat at the top of the stairs alone, confused, frozen, angry at my parents because they were taking him away from me. Young me didn’t care what he had done, because in my eyes he could do no wrong.

Then I heard footsteps crashing up the stairs. Diggory stopped halfway up the staircase, tears streaming down his face. Torment, confusion, anger, and fear traded places in his eyes with each blink. I couldn’t find any trace of Diggory in his deep brown eyes.

He was gone.

I was so scared for him. He hugged me and told me he loved me.

However, he then turned that hug on the stairs, mere feet from our Aerosmith listening parties, into a bomb. Diggory quickly spun my little body around, and I was eye to eye with my Dad. I didn’t realize that my Dad had also made his way up the stairs. I couldn’t hear his footsteps over my tears as I buried my head in Diggory’s chest.

I immediately stopped crying. I was so confused. Am I in trouble? What did this have to do with me? Why was I being forced to face my dad?

Diggory…in his ultimate act of selfishness, looked at my dad and said

“You see what you’re doing to her? This is all your fault. Her tears are your fault, her sadness is your fault. You are responsible for all of this.”

My father, with the infinite patience I, unfortunately, did not inherit, looked up and said

“Diggory, take your hands off her, and get out of my house.”

Diggory shoved me hard to the side, I bounced off the wall, stumbled forward, and my dad was there to save me.

We were at the top of the fucking stairs y’all.

I would have fallen far had my dad not been there to catch me. Diggory brushed past my dad and walked out the door screaming “Fuck all of you” repeatedly as he blazed down the sidewalk to his friend’s car.

I saw the pain in my dad's eyes. At that very tender age, I instantly knew I’d just been used. After all this time I realized, it was us that had been victimized, not Diggory. My Dad loves me more than anything in the world, and Diggory used me as a weapon. I realized Diggory didn’t give two shits about me. He only came to me at that moment to use me against my parents. He knew he could wound them deeply by using me…and he did.

To be honest, I would have rather fallen down the stairs than been a pawn in a game meant to destroy my father. Diggory’s words appear to be innocuous…unless it is you that is being objectified.

As an adult, I understand now that Diggory had done so much wrong to push my parents to that point. This was the culmination of years of theft, drug use, manipulation, and fear-mongering. All of us are so tired of being on this merry-go-round from hell. Ready to get the fuck off of this shitty ride.

The Quiet Years

It would be several years, about seven before we would see Diggory again. A few times he asked Mom for money, but that was the furthest it went. My dad used his last bits of strength to protect the four of us. They took their stand and let us know we would no longer live in Diggory’s shadow. It was the moment we all realized we were never meant to live the way we were. To fear a brother the way we did. My little brothers, fifteen years younger than Diggory, were never meant to be relentlessly assaulted and physically abused by him. It was in that tumultuous time that I truly saw my parents' strength, love, and resilience.

I understood that truly loving someone does not always mean giving them what they want or demand of you.

Now a mother myself, I often look at my young son and silently shed tears for the hurt my mom has had to endure while simultaneously begging the gods for my son to never struggle in the same way Diggory did.

Selfish, I know. Terrifying, for sure.

Cancer & The Pawn Shop

Spring of 2010 propelled my family into a maelstrom. My dad had been diagnosed with stage four cancer. At this time, Diggory surprisingly had a stable job, hid his ongoing addictions well, and was a present part of our family.

Whew. Finally. A healthy family dynamic.

My mom had her son back and I had my favorite person back. He had already taught me to keep him at arm's length so I carried that lesson with me.

Hopeful. Cautious.

So in he comes, donning a cape, wind at his back, he was going to be the hero our family needed. The rest of us kids were living on our own, and with the looming chemotherapy treatments, we knew my dad would no longer be able to work. So Diggory stepped up.

Fucking finally.

He moved into our childhood home with my parents, maintained the yard, cooked, cleaned, grocery shopped, and did everything they needed. Another brother and I took turns driving my dad to chemotherapy appointments.

Thanks to chemotherapy, my dad disintegrated into a shriveled version of the big man I once knew. The strongest, smartest man I’ve ever known, was reduced into a stammering, confused skeleton. Talk about devastation y’all. You can imagine our collective sigh of relief when Diggory finally stepped up. Ever the skeptics, the four of us watched him closely.

Or so we thought.

It was very early that Sunday morning when one of the little brothers called me. A little hungover and irritated, I answered.

“You have to come to the house now. Diggory has been arrested and we have to go pick up Mom's car.”

Part of me was processing and unsure if I heard him correctly, and the other part of me was kicking my own ass for believing any of Diggory’s shit. I clumsily got dressed and headed over to the house at six in the morning.

Little bro and I got in a car together and drove over to the apartment complex of Diggory’s flavor of the month. This one wasn’t even around long enough to get a nickname from us.

However, she was the one held against her will, in a closet, and beaten by Diggory for days. I think of her often, saddened that she ever had to cross paths with him, hopeful she is happy and healthy somewhere.

We located the car and I drove it back. Ever the professional snooper, I began to look around. Random trash strewn about, disgusting cigarette fumes wafted through the air, and clothes tossed everywhere. I opened the glove box as I was sure there were drugs that needed disposing of.

Instead…I find yellow receipts. A full stack of them. Then I opened the center console and discovered a compartment filled to the brim with similar yellow receipts. Little brother walked over and watched me as I shoved my arm elbow-deep into these yellow slips of paper.

Nauseated, I reluctantly read each one of the yellow pawn shop receipts.

Watches. Compressors. Jewelry. Power tools. Stereo equipment.

You name it, Diggory had stolen it from my parents. I looked at little brother and our faces turned the same shade of fiery red. I grabbed the receipts and we flew up the stairs to the room he was staying in. Trash, empty cocaine baggies, and more yellow receipts. I looked over at little brother and he ran downstairs, grabbed a trash bag, and we started loading what little worldly possessions Diggory had into the bag.

If we meant so little to him, we were going to return a similar kindness. His shit was packed in trash bags and out on the front lawn lickety-split. Little brother and I let go of Diggory the moment the trash bags hit the ground. Our other two siblings would be there shortly after to listen to the morning’s events.

My Dad was dying, y’all. My mom worked herself to death so she could become the sole provider for them. To take advantage of an incredibly sick man, an exhausted woman, your parents…you cannot convince me there is a worse type of human being.

Locks changed, yet again, probably the 500th lock that house had seen.

When Diggory was released, the four of us were there, standing side-by-side blocking the front door. I ensured he understood there would never be a time where we wouldn’t stand between him and my parents again. We ensured he understood there were no longer any victims available to him.

The four of us stood there, steadfast and determined to block my mom from having to see her son walk away in shame, one last time.

I have not seen Diggory since that day. Almost 12 years ago now.

I process bits and pieces as time moves on. As anyone who has loved an addict, I find myself wanting to understand, although I know deep in my heart he will never be the one to provide closure for me. He will never be able to face his past, his choices, or the havoc he forced upon us for decades.

In what can only be described as a miracle, my Dad is still with us today.

Cancer did not win.

Diggory did not win.

My Dad is here to play with his grandchildren, see his children as successful professionals, and love my mother into their old age. Don’t tell my mom I called her old y’all.

The Lotus In Lake Diggory

What I do consider to be gifts from this mess are my siblings. We will always have each other. We walked side by side through childhood, Diggory, and cancer, so we all know nothing can tear us apart. We faced it at a very young age and were still there side-by-side facing it as adults. Protecting my parents from the hurt and pain that would have certainly followed Diggory had we let him in.

Diggory lives somewhere up north, calling my parents on some holidays. Ignoring me on every social media platform. Ignoring that I am even still alive. I wish him a good life because that’s what I am supposed to say. I know I will only see him one more time when we have to bury him. I understand that sounds grim, but it is our reality.

This is my reality, and I will make the absolute best of it.

Diggory can no longer sink my battleship.

I have worked to heal the little girl standing in the stairwell. The little girl who was shoved by her dearest love. She still hurts at times, but I am here to protect her.

Even as I just barely scratched the surface of the garbage we have been through with Diggory, I can honestly say all I feel now is immense love and pride for my family.

I’m so proud of the young Us who traveled Diggory’s years-long road of shit and became stronger because of it. Trauma and hardship are part of life. There’s no preventing it, but I hope through your trauma and hardship you come out on the other side with a gift or two.

For me, I ended up with three gifts.

The kind heart, the brainiac, and the warrior.

My tribe.

Thank you for taking the time to read about this piece of my life. For the sake of brevity, the multiple vehicles, jobs, and stints in rehabilitation centers provided to Diggory were left out of this story. This was specifically focused on my personal emotional journey as someone who grew up with and loves an addict.

If you are located in the United States, and you or anyone you know is suffering from addiction, the SAMHSA National Helpline can be reached at 1–800–662–4357 and is a free, confidential hotline focused on locating resources to assist with substance abuse treatment.

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