My little brother is getting out of detox today, any advice?

[russian33]

My brother was in detox, kicking a heroin addiction. He's 17. We went through hell, and still going. But now the hard part comes..keeping him off it. Any advice from my DU family?

[YellowRubberDuckie]

1. Love him, but be a hard ass...

He needs you to be his friend right now, but don't coddle him.
Duckie

[auntAgonist]

2. No advice, no experience at all in that .. but,

If I may. Look after yourself, stay tough and understand that YOU are not responsible for every little mistake he makes. Do help him with successes though. GOOD LUCK TO YOU :)


:thumbsup: :hi:

[prolesunited]

3. Are there people in some other part of the state

or country he could stay with awhile until he gets stronger. I think resisting temptation in the same environment and around the same friends would be hard at first. A change in scenery until he's stronger in his path to recovery may be in order.

Wow, 17! Was he addicted very long before getting treatment? Did he seek it out or was he forced into it?

[russian33]

That's what I'm trying to get him to do

Family lives in CT, I live in NYC, I want him to come and stay with me.

He was on heroin for about 2 months, and agreed that he wants to stop, and agreed to go into detox. Although, this detox is only for a week, not sure how effective that would be.

Would like to get my hands on the prick that introduced him to it (granted, I understand that he made that choice, no one forced him to do it).

[prolesunited]

7. Well, it doesn't sound

like the habit would be super entrenched yet, although the addiction will always remain. The fact that he *wants* to be clean certainly helps.

The detox would get the drug out of his system but not certainly off his mind.

Does he want to stay with you? How do your parents feel? Are you sure you're ready to take on that responsibility?

[bratcatinok]

9. NarAnon website for New York

http://www.nynaranon.org/index.html

Go to find out how you can best fix your brother's habit.


No, wait a sec, that's not what NarAnon is about at all. NarAnon is about families, relatives and friends of addicts. Do you need it? Yep, definitely! Why? Because in trying to help the addict you just might be helping him to continue in his addiction.

Before you worry about your brother, the prick that introduced him to heroin or how you should handle the problem, go to NarAnon. Lots of great answers there.

Let me know how your first meeting goes. Oh, and remember that everyone there was once a newbie too.

[russian33]

11. Thanks bratcatinok and everyone else...

On a side note, 'Brat' is brother in Russian...did you know that?

[bratcatinok]

13. No, I didn't know that!

That's kind of cool, isn't it?

My name came about because I have this cat and this cat is really a Brat. I had another name all picked out for her because she was a beautiful calico but she kept doing things that made her a brat. Sooo, I named her Brat and she hasn't disappointed me yet. She was born in Oklahoma and I brought her home three years ago.

Your welcome and really, please do let me know how your first meeting goes. Sometimes it can be a little intimidating because you're walking into a room where you don't know anyone and you're there to discuss a family problem. Like I said, don't forget we were all newbies once upon a time.

[bratcatinok]

10. Ruh roh!

You can't get him to do anything. See my other post to you about NarAnon. It will help you understand what you can do, what your responsibility in all this is and will also teach you about the addict and the addiction. Lots of your questions will be answered.

[LiberalEsto]

4. Get yourself a Nar-Anon meeting ASAP

My brother is a recovering crack addict.

The second time he got out of rehab, I followed Ann Landers' advice and went to a Nar-Anon meeting (you can look for them on-line).
Best thing i ever did.

I learned how to deal with him without enabling him or letting his choices tear me apart. I learned that susbstance abuse is a family illness, and that everyone in the abuser's family needs to get some kind of help.

Because of Nar-Anon, I read Dennis Wholely's book "Becoming Your Own Parent" and recognized my family's addiction patterns. My husband and I gave up drinking and have been dry 15 years.

This all came from going to TWO Nar-Anon meetings.

[madrchsod]

5. tough shit to kick

alot of factors come into play-one thing is not to preach and "watch" over him. give him room but not alot..he needs to change his life -friends ,habits,etc. needs to have follow ups and someone outside the family to talk to. you and your family ,if you haven`t been already, go to support groups for families of drug dependent family members. from the people i have known over the years is that heroin is a cover for the deeper problem and unless he is willing to find what the problem is and deal with it ,i`m afraid you and your family are in for more hell. any drug addition is hell for both him and your family..it`s all up to him now hopefully he`s just as tried of the hell as your family must be...

[Joylaughter]

6. NA.org

Narcotics Anonymous saved my life. na.org has a meeting directory for every state. Get him to a meeting. It works, its free, and the only requirement for membershipo is a desire to syop using.

[ocean girl]

14. I agree. Get him to NA immediately!

I've got over 15 years of recovery and the single most important thing I did was go to Narcotics Anonymous meetings 4 to 5 times a week and get INVOLVED. He needs to get a sponsor, go out for coffee after meetings and bond with his fellow addicts. They will help him save his life, but he's got to get to a meeting first.

Also, you can call your local chapter and they can have someone meet him at his first meeting - it's very scary to walk in alone.

Good luck and make sure you go to Nar-Anon too.

Peace.

[skygazer]

8. Keep him away from former "friends"

And if it was only a week, expect some pain and suffering. Depending on the level of his habit.

Heroin is a tough addiction, physical as well as mental and unfortunately a heroin high is the best high on earth. Strongly recommend NA - takes a lot of willpower not to go back. Voice of experience here.

Going on ten years clean. :toast: I'll toast myself.

Good luck to your brother. Hard lesson to learn so young.

[ThomCat]

26. Here's to you.

I'll toast to your almost ten years clean. :toast:

[skygazer]

30. Thanks ThomCat!

[Jackpine Radical]

12. Find somebody qualified in EEG biofeedback

& set him up for treatment with the Peniston addiction protocol. It's extremely effective for opiates & alcohol, reduces cravings by teaching the brain to self-soothe naturally without the chemicals. In his original studies Peniston got 80% success rates (long-term abstinence) with alcoholics & others have gotten even better results with heroin. Gerald Glueck presented a paper (albeit with a rather small sample) at the Association for Applied Psychophysiology & Biofeedback in 1998 in which he reported 90%+ for heroin.

The Peniston procedure is not as effective for cocaine (esp. crack) & I haven't seen any results for meth.

See the Biofeedback Certification Institute of America, www.bcia.org for people trained in EEG biofeedback/neurotherapy.

[catmandu57]

15. It's cliche but true

change his playground and playmates, if he stays in the same environment with the same people it's just too damn easy to fall back into old patterns.
Then follow the advise of other posters here.

[russian33]

21. that's the plan

He needs to go back to his old friends whom he stopped hanging out with a few months ago...somewhere he met the 'wrong' people, and his friends couldn't get through to him anymore, he didn't return their calls, didn't hang out...

thanks again to everyone for all the advice...I'm sharing it with my parents, who are still in state of shock

My mother said she now has 2 lifes, one before, and one that started when she discovered a needley and a syringe

[Irishladdie]

16. Move out of the Neighborhood and Over to Ohio!!!

It helps to get away from the people you usually hang out with when quitting. Also Ohio needs Democrats!!!

[russian33]

20. yeah, I supposed an extra Dem in CT or NY doesn't really matter..

..as much as in Ohio :)

[notadmblnd]

17. keep him away from his "friends" and associates

the one thing a recovering person must do to succeed is to change the company he keeps. If he goes back to associating with the people who engaged in these types of activities with him in the past, he'll jump right back into it.

[noonwitch]

18. Make sure he knows where the NA meetings are, and gets a good sponsor

A good sponsor is key, as is keeping busy with positive activities. If he's not working, he can do volunteer work, but needs to stay away from his old friends, and keep busy.
At some point in his recovery, helping others is therapeutic, too. It keeps the guy in recovery remembering where he came from, and knowing he doesn't ever want to go there again. That comes after a couple of years of sobriety.

The other thing is this-he will probably have a relapse and use at least once, somewhere down the road. The relapse is not the end of his recovery-how he handles it is what matters most. Don't tell him this until he has the relapse, though.

BTW-my church hosts both NA and AA meetings. As I've been at classes sometimes when there are meetings going on, we all took our breaks at the same time and I'd end up smoking outside with some of the attendees. The NA people are a lot more fun to hang around.

[Phillycat]

19. Work the steps, get a sponsor, get a homegroup, go to meetings.

and do service work.

That's all he needs to do and he will stay sober. It's harder than it sounds though.

[molly]

22. Well, this is cruel, but never-ever let him out of your sight

for the next couple of months. Keep him busy - get him a hobby or something that he loves to do.

[Phillycat]

23. No offense, but this won't work.

He will either stay sober because he wants to stay sober and he does the work, or he won't. It doesn't matter what this poster does. The brother will make that decision himself. Believe me, I know.

[Senior citizen]

24. I agree totally--everyone needs to feel useful and needed

It is extremely important to be busy, but not with "busywork," or meaningless stuff. Nobody goes to heroin because their lives are full of meaning and they feel needed and useful.

No matter who you are, there is somebody worse off who needs your help and will be grateful. Many years ago I was strung out--today I got high helping serve lunch at the senior center.

There are many people who do not see a future for themselves and fear for the future of the world. That's not insanity, that's reality. It hurts. Smack kills the pain. But you can also kill the pain by working to make things better, even in small ways. The thing about helping others and heroin is that both distract you from feeling the pain of being in touch with reality, but heroin costs money.

Heroin fills every waking moment. You need a fix, you're trying to get the money for your next fix, you're trying to score your next fix, you're fixing, you're nodding out, you need a fix, rinse & repeat. Whenever you're left with an empty moment, you need a fix again. So you just have to outsmart yourself and make sure there are no empty moments. And just doing something or being with other people isn't enough. You have to be doing something meaningful and be with people who appreciate you. If heroin is the only thing that seems meaningful in your life, and the only people who seem to appreciate you are other addicts, you probably won't quit.

[Senior citizen]

27. The physiology of success

I'm replying to my own post because it was too late to edit.

When you win, when you succeed, when you are praised or rewarded for something, there is a real chemical change in your body. Instead of blocking pain, you simply reach out directly to the pleasure centers in your nervous system. Pleasure beats pain any day. So what I was saying about having meaning and feeling needed, really is a way to stimulate your pleasure centers so that you don't need pain blockers.

I'm not kidding. It might seem obvious that happiness is the antidote to despair, but desperate people can't see it.

[underpants]

25. Get him into rehab as fast as possible

and not social rehab into LOCK DOWN rehab.

My brother went through this for alcohol (and some narcs) and he went straight to a rehab.

Good luck!

[Dastard Stepchild]

28. Everyone is so different...

and I sometimes hate to mention this, so I will do so with trepidation. The process of removing heroin from one's life is not as simple as kicking the drug. It involves a lifestyle change. It is complex, and very difficult to extract oneself from that life. And, I am most sorry to say, kicking heroin often requires many attempts before someone is successful. In this respect, it is akin to quitting smoking. It sometimes takes many tries before the "quitting" sticks. I'll mention the sad, but true, statistic in treatment. 90% of all attempts fail. Yet, with each attempt, the person is closer to their goal. I am not saying this to create a sense of pessimism...although reality can sometimes appear pessimistic. I would encourage your brother to try to find a treatment that works for him, be it inpatient/outpatient therapy, methadone, NA, etc.... just keep plugging along until he finds the right fit. There isn't one "most effective" form of treatment - it is all very subjective.

I have worked with heroin users in my professional life, and much of my research, as of late, has been with heroin users. I feel for your brother and for your family. I sincerely wish you all the best.

[Heyo]

31. yes, I agree with the above poster also...

Most addicts fail their first time out of the gate. It usually takes many tries. Depending on how long the user was using, it's the most difficult thing he will ever deal with in his life.

Heyo

[Senior citizen]

32. Treat the lifestyle, not the addict

When you treat an addict or an addiction, you reinforce both the identity and the lifestyle of patient.

That's the major problem with most therapy. We're supposed to deny that the problem could possibly be with the world or the society, and that the patient is reacting to an impossible situation.

When I was homeless and unemployed and strung out, the doctors treated the illness they could label and were encouraged to treat, i.e., an addict/an addition, instead of recognizing that most of the pain I was self-medicating with heroin came from being unemployed, homeless, and therefore subject to almost constant attack, both verbal and physical.

When I finally got a place to live, the shrinks thought that my entire personality had changed, when it was my circumstances that had changed because I no longer had to defend myself against the aggression that the homeless are constantly exposed to. If I hadn't gotten a place to live, they'd still be futilely trying to treat my personality problem.

One of the radical shrinks has defined insanity as "living under someone else's roof." That means somebody else makes the rules and you can never quite comply with them fully, so you go nuts. I'm not advising that you give a junkie their own place until they've got the lifestyle and support system to enable them to handle it, but it helps to keep in mind that if a person doesn't have an opportunity to mature, they won't.

I've been on methadone, and the problem there is that you are still reinforcing the addict lifestyle. People come to believe that they cannot function without a drug. That's good for the pharmaceutical companies and the CIA black budget, but not for the person who needs a fulfilling lifestyle. Another problem is the fact that you can't trust a junky. Only it isn't a fact. People who are sensitive to pain and take it out on themselves aren't the ones you can't trust. The people who CAUSE that pain are the ones you can't trust.

The shrink who accomplished the breakthrough with me did it by violating all professional ethics and becoming my friend. I wouldn't advise that a therapist befriend a patient, particularly a junkie, but I'm eternally grateful that one did. Because people don't have much faith in people who have a financial motive in trying to help them, but when somebody puts their career on the line to reach out, it can be enough to shock you back into society. All you need is one person to prove to you that the world isn't totally greedy, unfeeling, uncaring, and incapable of understanding. That's all it takes.

[Heyo]

29. A one week detox...

....is just to get through the physical addiction to heroin. This is the part where you feel the most pain. (If you haven't lived it you can't imagine)

But, the post-detox phase is where the hard *work* begins... and it can be after a while, when you start feeling GOOD again that the danger is there. Start getting your life back together, have a little money in your pocket, feeling alot better, probably gained a bit of the lost weight back... and it's like a sniper, always out there waiting. It's very hard but it can be done.

I wish you both all the best, I know how hard it is. Feel free to PM me if you need to, I have been there and got the t-shirt and would be glad to help if there's anything I can do.

Heyo

[henslee]

33. Keep him busy with work. Get him a hardass sponsor. Keep him away from

all his old friends. Let him know that you love him now matter what. Don't talk around things. Call him on his shit. I am sure you know the statistics on relapsing are not in his favor. It really all depends on what kind of will he has.

Curious, has he had an aids test? If you get him into health food and working out, its good. Better to replace one obsession with another. Some great businessmen were It's a fact.

And don't forget....Drug addicts are connivers. You know what they say.... a coke addict will steal your money. A heroin addict will steal it and help you look for it...

If you think he's using, he probably is. If he gets all defensive and talks about trust, he probably is using. I lost a good friendship to dope. He hit rock bottom then cralwed back up and is better now but our friendship never recovered.

.