You used to be my baby brother. I don't really know you any more. You were such a Mama's boy and you loved trains. You wanted to grow up and drive trains. You should have grown up to drive trains. I don't know where you are right now but I can't stop thinking of you. I keep thinking of the last few years and the fight I've had to bring you back to us. Each morning when I wake up you are my first thought as I reach for my phone to check the time. I pray that there is no missed call from a number I don't recognize. Or worse, a text from Mom. Like when you had your car accident and were ejected. Or like on July 9th, saying she's in the SICU (surgical intensive care unit) at a hospital downtown because you overdosed on heroin. HEROIN. Oh, how did it come to this??
I was so shocked to learn it went that far. I knew you had started smoking weed in high school. You were busted by the cops for it the day after your 18th birthday. I guess we were all just stupid not to see it was more. I feel stupid. And crazy. When I ask you questions about things and you are so good at convincing me, lying to me, that I believe you 100%. Surely I must be the one in the wrong. Though, am I?? No. I know that I am not. I'm just your big sister, doing everything I can to help you. Still.
I was a newlywed when I moved you in with me for the first time. 8 months you lived with me. I was continuing my education at College of Charleston, a junior. I woke up each morning and drove you to work 30 minutes away before coming back, going to classes downtown, driving back out to get you when you called, then making dinner and cleaning my house, doing schoolwork at night. I thought I was helping you. I thought by getting you out of Bluffton and away from your "friends" who were bad influences that you could start fresh. Then I found a joint in my houseplant one day...
You moved back in with Mom once she moved to Charleston and she helped you too. Bought you an old car so you could get yourself to work. You and Josh worked on it together. Tried to fix it up so it was running great. You just wanted to work and take care of yourself. We tried to help you find your way.
Then one weekend while in Bluffton visiting "friends", you and a boy broke into a detached garage and car and took a GPS. You were drunk. Someone called the cops and you were arrested. For 81 days you were in jail. Over the holidays of 2011. I visited you more times than I could count, taking my '97 Toyota 4Runner to the Beaufort County Detention Center. I went with my Mom the first time. I tried to be strong like her looking at you through the glass in that tiny concrete room. I cried and cried leaving you. After that I went by myself too. Traveling after classes or on the weekends, getting back after dark. I wrote you 17 letters. When you got out in January, you straightened up. You started working, you got your GED. You became an uncle when Addison was born. You seemed ok in life. We pushed you to go back to school but you were content.
Then you never had any money again. You would stay out on the weekends and hang with "friends". We knew you were drinking and smoking. We took you to a rehab center and talked to a councilor with you, tried to convince you to stay. But you were 18. We couldn't commit you. You promised you would stop, get it together. And for a while again it seemed like you did.
Then the old car kept breaking down. So Mom bought you a newer one. You crashed it about a week later. You said you fell asleep while driving from your "friends" house to see your new girlfriend. It was late and she lived in the next town over. Mom got a phone call from an odd number early one morning and she missed it. When you did get ahold of her to tell her you were in the hospital and broke your neck, she didn't believe you. "No. No, no, no, no", she kept saying. Then she was off. Running to the hospital. Running to you.
You were ejected from the sunroof or the driver's window. You weren't buckled up and ironically, it saved your life. You went out somewhere in the middle of the car flipping several times. Someone called the fire dept:
31/May/2013 – MVC with Ejection & Air Evac
Incident # 13-02901 – A high speed single car MVC in the 12000 block of Cottageville Highway (US Hwy 17-A) has sent one man to a Trauma Center. The southbound Honda left the roadway and struck a driveway culvert causing the small car to become airborne. The vehicle landed approximately thirty feet in the front yard of a business and flipped over several times before coming to rest on its wheels. An adult male was ejected from the vehicle. He suffered multiple traumatic injuries, including a suspected head injury. A medical helicopter was requested and landed at the Cottageville Elementary School. The patient was treated and transported from the scene by Medic 9. LifeNet 7 flew the patient to the Trauma Center at MUSC in Charleston. The SC Highway Patrol is investigating the crash.
She called me to let me know and I took Addison over to her house to clean your room and make dinner. Be ready to help Mom help you inside. Luckily, you were physically ok except for a fractured neck and some cracked ribs. Later I learned you had alcohol and cocaine in your system... But worse, the accident gave you your first taste of Oxycodone…
But you're fine right? No. You're just so blind to how controlled you are by this disease. I never believed that addiction was a mental illness until you. Until now, when I have had to encounter it myself. I feel like I'm fighting 2 people trapped in the same body. You, the real you: the one who loves me, the one who comes home and swings Addison through the air, fascinated by Loralei's tininess and curiosity with the world. The real you who smiles in family pictures and is shy meeting people. And the Addict: the one who lies to my face, calls only when he needs things like food or a ride, the one who turns the sweet boy who likes trains into this mean, cussing, careless monster…
On July 8th, you OVERDOSED on HEROIN. You STOPPED BREATHING. Something felt off when I looked at my phone that morning. There was a text from Mom at 1:48am. It was 5:32am. I ended up nursing Loralei and running out the door to be with Mom, to see that you were ok for myself. By the afternoon when you were discharged, I was on my knees in your room, crying, begging you to go to rehab. To try it. Do you remember that?? You said you were the black sheep of the family. You said what was the point? Well, I can't have the Addict live with my babies. I can't watch you keep spinning out of control. You packed your bag and left.
It took a month for you to change your mind. A month during which you were sleeping in your car until it broke down, sleeping in an abandoned dump truck, crashing on "friends" couches, being let go from your job, and having no where else to turn. So you called me and said you'd try it. I was so proud of you. I could see your whole new future spreading before you. I had been looking at places for weeks, since you had left, to find the best one for you. I called them immediately and told them you were ready. I was already on a first name basis with the directors, having been talking to them for a month about you. They came and got you and when Mom and I closed the front door on the verge of tears, we high-fived. We were ELATED. You could do this!
For the first time in a long time I slept soundly and woke up and looked at my phone without fear. Until today. Yesterday, you were kicked out of rehab. Yesterday was supposed to be our first time visiting with you. The day before you had a "friend" come by before you were allowed visitors. You took drugs at his car before you were asked back inside and searched. You had slipped out while others were receiving their weekend visitors. I got a call that night that we wouldn't be visiting you the next day because it was your "Day 1" all over again. You had admitted to taking Oxy from your "friend" and were starting over. Then they discovered you had snuck in your phone and also drugs. You were considered a danger to the others….
This morning I woke up scared to look at my phone for the first time in a while. Last night I was back to saying my prayer I had started on July 9th when you left. "Please God, don't let the phone ring tonight. Please God, don't let the cops knock on my door. Please keep Ryan safe." Your drivers license has my address, so if something happens we will be notified. I can't bring myself to stop thinking each hour that it will happen soon. I can't bring myself from thinking that I will be planning your funeral soon, unless you can stop and get help.
I've learned in the midst of all this that drugs are in a ladder formation. Weed, alcohol, pills/pain relievers, cocaine, heroin…it's all mixed in together. Once you try one, you're open to others. Once you try opiates, you're hooked. I've learned that heroin is cheaper than pills and apparently easier to come by. No prescriptions to mess with. It's fluctuating through the party scenes right now.
The rehab center said to give you 3 days to change your mind. They said you could come back if you come back honest and willing to work the program. Addict, I'm begging you, please give me back my baby brother. I miss him. Addison misses her cool Uncle Ryan who flings her through the air. Josh wants to teach him how to work on cars and shave. Holly and Mom just can't handle any more sadness in their lives. I beg you, please, go back to rehab Addict and let Ryan come back to us. We NEED him.
Can't you see that your "friends" aren't truly friends? Can't you see that your family are the only true friends you'll ever need? Who brings a recovering person drugs at their rehab center? What kind of "friend" does that? Can't you see that you are his meal-ticket? That he's using you and keeping you hooked?
Can't you see that you are putting me in more pain? Please go back and try to get better. You are the only brother I have. My big little brother. And I miss you, the real you, so much...
