Had he lived, tomorrow would have been my brother's 75th birthday. He died though at 60 years of age in 2001 in Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas. The cigarettes, alcohol, and other drugs finally caught up with him.
It was a sad day for me because we were close during our early years. Until we each took our separate paths. He went into the Air Force for seven years. And I went down the penitentiary track.
Once he was discharged and I was released, we went our separate ways. And while we communicated often, we were never as close as when we were children. We became close then because we grew up protecting one another in an alcoholic household.
After I got sober in 1991 I tried to get him to join me. But he had a problem with the 12-steps. He would come from meetings and tell me that he "wasn't like" those other guys. In other words, he couldn't relate; he only saw how he was different from them. He couldn't see what he had in common with them.
He spent about 6 months at TLC - Las Vegas. And he had a hard time adjusting. He was angry at life and about his circumstances. Yet he couldn't see the relationship between his drinking and how he lost everything he owned. To him it was just bad luck.
He also didn't see the connection between his resentments and the anger that took him off on binges.
When he'd meet someone for the first time he'd eventually tell them about how his wife ran off with his best friend. And there was passion and anger in his voice as he told the story. It was a fresh open wound, like it had happened last week.
But when asked when it happened he say something like "15 years ago." He carried that resentment all those years.
I feel bad about the untimely end to his life. Because he could have enjoyed the same blessings I have today.
But like many of us, he never got past denial.
