A friend of mine has a brother (we'll call him S to make this story a little easier to tell) who is 21, drinks too much and has two children by two different women, the most recent of which was born a week ago. S lives in one state, baby mama number two (henceforth known as Mary) was in another state in a home for mothers giving their babies up for adoption. S is supposedly "engaged" to some other chick but begged his sister to help him get to Mary so he could see the birth of his first son (we'll call him Jesus, in the spirit of the season). So his family pooled together and got him a bus ticket to where he wanted to go and he got there without incident. Part of his trip was to try and convince Mary not to give up the baby for adoption, something she had been on the fence about doing anyway. The baby was born and, after a lot of back and forth, they decided to keep him and named him (although not Jesus, nor any other name I suggested but I digress). And that's when an even bigger mess began. Mary and Jesus wanted to get back to her home state within hours of the baby's birth, partially because they had nowhere to go since she opted to keep the baby and couldn't go back to where she'd been staying. S seemed to think his family could just wave their magic wand and make everything he wanted a reality. He wanted his sister to fly to where they were and drive a ridiculous amount of hours to get mother and child (but not him) home. But she said no and they decided he'd drive overnight and stay with a friend of his sister's for a few days before figuring out their next move. While staying with his sister's friend, he drank and smoked and was generally uninterested in what was happening, other than trying to figure out how to get home. His sister said she'd fly him and the baby and Mary back to their home state but he didn't want to go. Actually it seemed like he didn't want to spend anymore time with either of them, he just wanted to get back to where he lives. So he was offered a flight to where he wanted to go and he refused it because of his anxiety about flying. Instead he opted for a two day, 40 hour bus ride. Early on in the ride he called his sister and asked her to get him a plane ticket in the next big city the bus would stop in because he was worried about some shady characters on the bus. She refused because he'd made his decision about what he wanted to do and he had to live with it. Later in the day he calls again, drunk, because he was kicked off the bus for (supposedly) being an innocent bystander in the midst of a fight between two dudes. He was more than halfway home when this altercation took place. It was midnight, he was stranded at a bus station and he was using some stranger's phone because the battery on his had died. And the phone call was the same as so many previous ones with him wanting his sister or his mom or anybody other than him to fix the mess he'd made. Eventually they figured out how to get him to the airport (although he almost got arrested on the cab ride over) and onto an airplane and, with any luck, he gets home without anymore incidents. But the whole thing is so stupid.
This was far from the first time this dude's sister and mother have had to clean up his messes. They're all tied together because mom would freak out if anything happened to him but she's dependent on his sister to be the go-between and figure everything out. And he doesn't seem to care about any of it or anything but himself. Earlier this year, he had moved to a new state to live with his brother and try and get his life together. He was sober, he was on a set schedule and he had a job that he was doing very well at. He was channeling his energy in a positive way and everyone was better for it. His sister's relationship with her mother improved because their every conversation was no longer about his latest fuck up. Not to mention they were both unburdened by wondering what his next fuck up would be. The downside for him of course was that the spotlight was no longer on him and he wasn't controlling everybody's situations. And apparently that bored him. After a few months of good behavior, he took off and started drinking again and met some chick he says he's engaged to. And everything went to hell again. And even if any of them were to cut the cord, I'm sure he'd still find a way back in and they'd still have to deal with whatever he does next. And round and round we go. As much trouble as my own brother has been this year, I know he's not a complete monster and that he will eventually come around (as he seems to be doing now). I can't imagine what it's like to not know if there's light at the end of this kind of tunnel. I'm exhausted and I haven't even dealt with any of it, so I know it's ridiculously tough for the people actually involved.
At the end of the day he's technically an adult (if only in age and not in mental capacity) and he's going to do what he's going to do. If he doesn't want to raise his kids, he won't. If he doesn't want to stay sober, he won't. Those are choices he makes for himself and the paths he choose will lead him wherever they may, and that would be fine if it were only affecting him but it's not. It's affecting everyone around him and that stuff is like a virus that will just weave its way through until something happens to stop it. And even if he's not 100% adult-like in his thought process, he can still choose to not do this to everybody. The fact that he was able to stay straight for awhile proves that. He was choosing not to engage in the bad stuff and then he chose to go back to it. Yes, addiction is a disease but it's one you do have the power to overcome. But HE has to be the one to choose that, you can't help somebody who won't help themselves. Nobody's conspiring to keep him down, this is all his doing. He makes the mess but someone else always cleans it up. And the most maddening part of it all is that he's just so ungrateful; uprooting everyone's lives because he doesn't feel like doing the right thing. He calls out for help, gets the response and attention he's looking for, apologizes and then does it all again. I hope for the sake of all involved, especially his kids, that he finds a way to get it together and keep it together. I don't know what that's going to take but hopefully it's sooner rather than later.
