Addiction and me.
My mental health has taken a beating recently. As a result, I have been on the phone with Samaritans a LOT. Between being bullied and isolated at work, to the myriad of bad things that seem to happen to me at home I am going through a rough patch.
So I ended up at the GP rightly seeking help for the fact that I am not sleeping the way I should and I am constantly in pain (read a Hole in the Heart) I always advocate if you feel something is not right in your body, if you have noticed changes in your mood or that you feel overwhelmed, seek professional help immediately, just as you would go to A&E if you broke your leg.
My GP has 2 surgeries, and I had specifically requested an appointment in my town, 5 minutes from my house because I don’t drive. So what happened? Of course my GP is in the other town for my appointment, which is a 10 minute drive, except I don’t drive so could be a lot longer. So now I have to wait another week even though I am desperately unwell. I’d only gotten this appointment as a follow up appointment from an emergency appointment last week because I have been so unwell. So I have to make my way back home. Ready to cry. Wondering why I can’t have even something as simple as treatment. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back today. So I ended up on the phone to Samaritans.
I was trying to explain the problems I was having without going into explaining ALL the problems I have carried with me. When I said something that stuck with me. I told the lady that both my brothers suffered from addiction. My maternal grandfather was an alcoholic, which is why I grew up in essentially a teetotal household. My mum discouraged drinking and my dad, not terribly bothered just respected her wishes and didn’t drink. It was only when I became an adult did my parents open a bottle of wine here and there. I remember taking my mum to Gaucho’s with my aunt (her cousin) and I remember my aunt ordering a glass of red wine. I stared at that glass for the longest time because I couldn’t compute. My aunt, drinking wine??? Why??? Because her daughter was 28 and she didn’t have to set an example anymore that’s why. My entire childhood my aunts had a very strict no drink and drive policy and because they drove to family gatherings they never consumed any alcohol. My uncles on the other hand didn’t have that policy so it was always the case of having “drunk uncles” at African parties.
But the point I’m trying to make here is that addiction was way more common than I had previously thought. And it was amongst MEN. Both brothers. My maternal grandfather and 3 of his 4 sons drink excessively. I am surrounded (biologically) by people with unhealthy coping mechanisms. I am very cautious about my relationship with sugar and have been battling for control with that for many years. I am in the grey I’d say. Its not a full blown addiction. It’s a habit of having something sweet everyday. Something I’d like to kick because I don’t want anything to have control over me.
As a result of their addictions it has had a profound effect on my day to day life. I don’t drink alcohol. Have never smoked, done any sort of drugs (I’m even opposed to medicines) I have always tried to be the “good one” and have set myself impossibly high standards as I have seen first hand the pain it can cause when you let yourself “fall”
The full list of substances my eldest brother is addicted to I have actually no idea. Some sort of drug(s), as well as alcohol and smoking. My teens were an unhappy time as he was building his family. He had 3 kids in quick succession. Too quick, he wasn’t mentally ready to be a father. He would drink and come home drunk having spent the family money, the wife would scream and curse and he’d slap her around. This was with 3 babies to toddlers. I do not excuse domestic violence at all. I’m just stating facts.
My dad would go absolutely mental. Especially when he heard about the domestic violence. With both brothers, he’d repeatedly ask. “Where did you get this from? You did not grow up in a home with women being beaten? Why are you doing this?” That is why my dad ended up with cancer of the voice box. He screamed down hells barriers yelling at a son who whose addiction made him do awful things.
Then there was my wedding. I remember the day clear as day. I’d recently gotten engaged and had set a date that week. I came home mid-afternoon, walked in the front door and my dad was on the phone shouting his head off “YOU ARE DRUNK! AIDAN YOU ARE DRUNK!!!” He’d clearly had enough, as soon as he saw me he muttered “say congratulations to your sister,” and promptly handed me the phone. So I spoke to my brother. “
Hello?” I enquired.
“Mrs Jones to be!” he said. Congratulating me.
“I’m coming to your wedding!” he slurred.
I said, “great, the wedding is on the 13th September 2014”
“I’m coming in October!” he said. I continued,
“well, the wedding date has been set, and the date is the 13th September 2014.” I insisted.
He kept on and on that he was coming in October to come to my wedding in September. He wasn’t drunk. He was high as a kite. I have led a sheltered life free from exposure to drugs and my knowledge of drugs is embarrassingly low but I knew at that time he was high. Not drunk. Instinct told me. It ruined my day, knowing my brother was an addict and that he was high mid afternoon on what was otherwise a sunny summer’s day.’ I later found out years later that in the October after my wedding in September, my parents paid £5,000 for him to go to rehab. An extraordinary sum of money back then for a Ghanaian rehab and if it had been spent wisely would have gotten him the equivalent of Harley Street medicine. However my brother worked in IT and his speciality is forgery. So he never went to rehab. It was all fictional and my parents pinned £5,000 (literally the same amount of contribution to my wedding) on my brother getting better. It would be the first of many rehabs that my brother would fabricate.
When I was a small child I used to write a magazine. I’d send it to my brother. One of the articles I remember very clearly was about smoking. Funnily my brothers didn’t smoke at the time. But I sent them both my article about everything bad that can happen to you if you smoke. I remember distinctly paying particular mind to the fact that smoking can give you hairy tongues and black lungs. I, at the time wanted to become a doctor. They sent me back kindly responses to say “yes, smoking is very bad for you.” He would become a smoker. When dad passed he had to be hospitalised a few months after, because of “Bronchitis” (read TB.) Which he was especially susceptible to because…he smoked.
Then we have the fraud. Because my brother hasn’t worked properly in a long while. So how was he paying for his addiction? Easy. Borrowing money off friends, lying to dad about various projects and of course. Defrauding dad out of tens of thousands of pounds, How? By claiming his inheritance whilst dad was still alive. Unlike the prodigal son he didn’t ask dad’s permission. We estimate that he stole anywhere between £15,000 and £50,000 worth of land. Depending on if he sold it at a knock down price or at full market value. This was in a period of 4 years during which he’d abandoned his wife and children in Ghana. He was in Sierra Leone whilst doing all this stealing. So he has a daughter who at time of writing is 6, she’s spent less than 18 months of her life with her father. He’s in Sierra Leone at time of writing, having decided that after 6 months in Ghana with his family he chose to abandon them again. So 4 kids have grown up without a father for 4 years and that is because he is addicted to various substances, its not just drugs, its alcohol too. My cousins have tried sending him to rehab on various occasions. With little success. They have all met the same fate as my father. He’ll either forge documents saying he’s been when he hasn’t. Or if someone physically marches him there then he’ll go, nod “yes sir, yes sir 3 bags full sir” complete the course having learnt nothing and be back to his old tricks before you know it. It broke my dad’s heart. On several occasions. My dad repeatedly cut him off until he was clean, then he’d call saying he was clean (read “lie”) and the cycle of lies and abuse would walk once again hand in hand.
That’s not even all. He stole from his childhood best friend $10,000 (an extraordinary sum at the time and he lucked out because that friend became a millionaire in Silicon Valley) he stole from his in laws. His children never had permanent home because he’d refuse to pay rent to fuel his addiction, until one time his uncle in law paid rent upfront for a year and tried getting him to go to rehab to sort his life out. When it was time to pay the man back he promptly skipped the country… with his wife and children causing permanent damage to his eldest son who had grown up in Ghana and was then thrust into Liberia a VERY different culture. Think of the 2 cultures as UK (Ghana) and USA (Liberia) because those are the countries they take their influences from. He stole from another wealthy cousin who he lived RENT FREE in the house for the 4 years he was defrauding my father. He took a bribe from a government minister because one of the people he fraudulently sold land to was a government minister that then needed to keep him quiet. All this is the bits I know about which caused my father untold agony. How he survived I actually don’t know. It was horrendous. You either cut him off and had no idea if he was dead in a ditch somewhere or you stayed in his life, chastising him whilst he told you lie, after lie, after lie.
Then we have the other brother. Yes he too had a woman beating incident unfortunately. I don’t know the ins and outs. It was around the same time as my eldest brother was doing it and my father’s screaming essentially became indiscriminate “YOU ARE A DISGRACE” still rings in my ears. He drank so much he ended up in hospital for a month. I had just started at the Law Society. My first job as a qualified accountant, It was the September of 2015. I had started the August and was still on probation. I was going to bed one night when my dad called… at 10pm at night. He was as close to tears as I can remember. My dad never cried but he was filled with emotion “That was Deena, (brother’s girlfriend at the time” Your brother has had an accident whilst painting, dodgy fumes have made him collapse. He’s in hospital ICU and we are on the next flight out, try and take time off if you can.” Deena had lied. The “Dodgy fumes” were in fact vodka and he was suffering from liver failure. He would go on to have multiple organ failure and would spend a month in hospital. He was 35. I didn’t sleep for a month. I told my boss at work and he said “if you need to just get on a plane, just do it.” But I’d bought a house that June and had no money to fly out to see a brother I’d met twice. So I waited by the phone… for a month. That month was the bitterest and most disappointing of my father’s life. He’d retired in the July, moved home in the July and was looking forward to a peaceful retirement and attending to that cough he’d been having for months (laryngeal cancer) when he got the call, that would shatter all his dreams and assumptions that his son was living a peaceful life in the USA.
So then to rehab. In the summer of 2016 when my dad needed them to behave like adults the most…my brother had a relapse. My dad had surgery for Laryngeal cancer followed by radiotherapy. Charlie started drinking again, despite the doctors telling him it was a miracle that he made it out of intensive care and another drink would kill him. He completely stopped functioning. Quit his jobs, and stopped paying rent. It got so bad his ex girlfriend would ring concerned weekly, daily sometimes because the landlord was going to evict him. The ex girlfriend was our only pathway to the truth. My parents knew how bad it was and the seriousness of the situation and so cobbled together £45,000 to buy him a house… in time for the eviction date. Because they were cash buyers they got a significant discount. However at the very last hurdle, they had the rug pulled from under them. It was the September 2016 after I’d paid for my dad to go to Rome in the August and that same brother had sent 40 euros which meant the whole world to my dad. I didn’t even get 2 weeks afterglow. My parents rang me. I was in my living room knitting. Again, emotions were high. “Could I join them in this investment property that served a dual purpose of in the immediate term stopped Charlie from being homeless?” after all my dad had been through in those 12 months with my brother who literally that time last year spent a month in intensive care I couldn’t say no. So I paid up the remaining £13,000 to complete the sale in return for 25% of the property. That is the story of how I ended up with a property stake in the USA.
You’d think that with a rent-free house that was owned by your parents and your sister and with another stint in rehab paid for you’d be sitting pretty and you’d be grateful for the opportunity that God gave you right? Wrong. My brother didn’t stop drinking, so even though the house was owned by us, it wasn’t ready to be rented out. So my brother illegally sublet it and pocketed the money. In the USA the landlord is ultimately responsible. Our names were on the title deed and if anything happened we would be liable. Not to mention he pocketed over $3000 of money that should have been ours whilst resisting all repairs that would have allowed the property to be fully let…All whilst my parents and I were sinking money into this thing like nothing you’ve ever seen. Painful.
My parents eventually got tired of this in 2017 and kicked him out of the property. We’d spent tens of thousands of pounds to keep him in a property for less than a year. They paid 3 months rent in a new place (just remember my dad was recovering his voice at the time so was sending furious emails rather than raising hell with his voice.) that didn’t work either. So in September 2017-January 2018 my parents brought him to the UK. It was an intervention.
I at the time thought my parents treated him cruelly. He wasn’t allowed to go out other than church and errands that my parents went on. If I didn’t take him out, he wouldn’t leave the house. I took him to Winchester, Southampton and London. I think 5 times in 4 months. It was essentially another rehab, but “African parent style” to get him of alcohol cold turkey because there was never any alcohol in my parents house. This time they sent him on his way with 1 months rent and told him to get a job. He did. A family friend who was my dad’s former student bought him a car which he was meant to pay her back for, he didn’t so my parents to this day are liable for that debt. She bought him the furniture in his house and has generally acted as mentor to keep him on the straight and narrow...more or less. Because the journey doesn’t end there.
He kept drinking. This time as a functioning alcoholic, my dad turned 70 in August 2019, as a gift I paid for a Caribbean cruise which left from Port Elizabeth in New Jersey, the state my brother lived in. My mum’s gift was a month-long trip touring the States. My brother was meant to pick them up from Newark airport on this “trip of a lifetime.” He didn’t he was sat at home drunk. My parents had to get a cab to the house we owned, where they were staying.
The house had recently been vacated but was fully furnished. My brother was meant to bring bedding for the first night… He didn’t he was comatose drunk. My parents stayed there for several days, my brother lived only a short drive away. He’d given no one his address. They couldn’t get hold of him they couldn’t visit him. He broke my dad’s heart and even though I’d coughed out £3,500 for the most expensive holiday of my life for my dad, my dad was miserable and devastated. Don’t get me wrong, they had a beautiful time and had wonderful memories. But you couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my father’s voice. He’d turned 70. His own son was a few blocks away and wouldn’t come see him because he was blackout drunk all the time. They had no other way of contacting him except calling him. He wouldn’t answer their calls. They’d slept in the cold on the first night of what was meant to be a magical holiday because he’d forgotten his obligation to bring bedding…because he was drunk. He had to call former students that were family friends to ask for favours that his son failed to fulfil. They knew he had a son, they didn’t say anything. Thankfully such is Sierra Leone culture and my parents were grateful for being able to call SOMEONE The consequences were far reaching. My dad cut him off and disowned him for a long time after that. He’ll never get that time again with my dad. After his 70th birthday my dad finally wrote his will. He went to great pains to do it. In his will he left both brother’s £20 each only. This was so they couldn’t challenge the legality of the will because they were beneficiaries.
It was only after he met his wife, later that year did he sober up. As a result he sent $50 for dad’s 71st birthday, which as it turned out was my dad’s last birthday. It wasn’t enough to heal his 70th birthday performance, but it was enough that my dad who’d already brought him in from the cold, would show appreciation. He was lucky, he got that 71st birthday. Because he had sent money. (I topped it up so dad got £50) I recorded the little birthday party that I threw for dad so he could watch dad open his card (that I bought) and be part of the festivities. I’m glad he wanted to be a part of it. Otherwise I’d have never thought to record what turned out to be my father’s last birthday.
He has been sober, since meeting his wife. They married in September 2020 in a courthouse. I am grateful he has someone to keep him clean and look after him, its been a rough ride. The other brother is still not clean at time of writing, everyone has given up. No one can afford to support him anymore. He’s 45 at time of writing and addiction has totally eviscerated him body, mind and spirit. He even started acting out on Zoom drawing attention to himself at my father’s funeral.
I have often said the reason I need to get out of the rat race is because I have seen every single one of my bosses bar one having some sort of unhealthy addiction. As a result I don’t want to climb the ladder anymore because I don’t want to spend my extra £££ on things that will kill me. Anything can become an addiction when you let it control your life. I don’t want anything controlling my life. That isn’t me. That isn’t freedom. So I need to guard myself. Because freedom exists in the mind. I hope my story of addiction in my family will shine a light on how truly destructive this is. I pray that those who are in the throws of addiction know that they are not alone, and that they are mindful of all the people they hurt. Because it is everyone who cares for you. Because my brother’s were addicts, I was not afforded an adolescence. My parents couldn’t afford (physically or emotionally) for another child to go wrong. So I was pressured like a diamond to succeed. And succeed I did. But the price was my mental health. The law of unintended consequences rules the universe. So my children, indirectly are to be affected by my family’s addictions and their children too. Both my brother’s are addicts in my opinion because they grew up on their own. My dad made a mistake about 30 years ago when he sent for each of his family members in age order. Eldest first. Which meant he sent for a 26 year old before a 9 year old. He wasn’t cold hearted. He just stuck too rigidly to the old west African adage that your sister’s children were your children, and he had 2 older sisters. He thought he’d always be able to send for his sons and besides, they were with their mother. Except… the British government changed the immigration rules after he sent for the second family member, essentially locking the door on us being reunited as a family. My eldest brother then thwarted any attempts at reunification because he enjoyed being sent vast sums of money due to dad’s guilt and being the man of the house. He wanted the good times to last forever. But nothing is consequence free. Addiction to the high life and various drugs for both him and my other brother would be the consequence of their actions. No one could have known how bad it would be at the time.
Pray for those who suffer. Pray for peace, healing from their demons and courage to fight their addictions.
Grace and Courage
Annetta Mother Smith