"Losing my brother to a substance use disorder taught me things I never wanted to learn. Things nobody prepares you for. Things that will change you in ways you never thought possible. It taught me that you can love someone so much it physically hurts-and still not be able to save them. It taught me that you can mourn someone you love long before they are physically gone, and no one tells you how helpless that feels. How humiliating."
"How you start bargaining with the universe in silence: Take anything you want from me. Just give him a little more time. But the universe didn't listen to me. Addiction didn't bargain with him. It just took. It took his soul, his mind, his spirit, and the light from his eyes. Before he died, I kept trying to hold onto the version of him I grew up with-the real him."
Losing a sibling to substance use caused deep, unexpected lessons about love, helplessness, and prolonged mourning. Loving someone can hurt physically while remaining unable to save them. Anticipatory grief occurs when a person deteriorates: relapses feel like funerals, missed calls become prayers, and silence triggers frantic searches in hospitals and jails. Bargaining with the universe becomes a private ritual. Addiction gradually consumes a person's soul, mind, and spirit, leaving loved ones clinging to earlier memories as lifelines. Those memories sustain caretakers as reality feels like witnessing someone drown in slow motion.
Read at Tiny Buddha
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