I have 3 older siblings, 2 brothers and a sister. The oldest is Dick who is 84 this year and then comes Kaye, who is 82. Dan, who was 2 years younger than Kaye, died of cancer the same week as the events of 9/11/2001. I didn't know them well growing up.

Dan had 2 sons, the oldest is Bob who is 53 this year. His brother, Scott, was 51 when he died Monday, of what the doctors said was cardiac arrhythmia, but everyone knows it’s his drug use and alcoholism that killed him. He didn’t show up for work over the weekend and someone finally went to check on him. They found him dead, probably since Friday.

He had so much trouble as a young man, his Dad kicked him out of the house after several rehab attempts. They lived in Sparks, NV and I wasn’t that close to either of the boys, nor to Dan for that matter (there’s a whole story that goes with that, for a different time.)

Dan hadn’t seen him for about 5 years, if you can imagine. So about 1995 or so, my dad, his grandpa of course, who lived in Provo, answered the door one day and here was Scott. Out of money, out of work, pretty much out of life. Dad helped him for a week or so, with food and a room, but then my good sister, who had become truly TBM by then, took him in to her house to live with her to see if he could get on his feet.

Dan told her not to, that it would come to disaster. He got a job in HVAC which he’d had some training and lived with Kaye. I don’t remember what the time frame was, but one night she came home from work, found him passed out on the floor in her front room, smelling of something not beer-related.

She couldn’t get him to wake up but he was breathing. So she just left him there, and when she got up in the morning, he was gone. He’d left a note apologizing to her.

By that time I was divorced and had my own issues, so the next I heard he’d been working in Payson and had found a girlfriend. They got married just about the time I left Utah for Las Vegas, in 1998. I saw him a couple of times and someone told me that he’d been baptized and the went to the temple after a few years.

Scott couldn’t keep sober, and he was abusive to his cute wife and 2 daughters, who are 13 and 16 now. They were divorced a couple of years ago, he was having a tough time and I saw him just once at a family reunion out in Bluffdale. He looked rough and didn’t really want to talk. He brought the girls with him and they are really smart girls.

Anyway, that’s the last I’ve heard of him except that he’s been having trouble. I’m Facebook friends with his wife and even though she was divorced, she kept trying to help him.

Then I got a phone call Monday from my sister-in-law. She and my brother have been friendly with his wife.

I’m not sure why I wrote this except to say that I feel bad for not supporting him, but he didn’t really want any help. We are going to a short memorial service tomorrow in Payson, which will be run by his wife’s Bishop. In a TSCC building, where I haven’t been in almost 18 years. Not sure I can deal with that.

I'm really sorry to read of your nephew's death. My older brother died from alcohol related causes as well, and I understand how you are feeling - t's hard being unable to support someone who doesn't want help. My brother never acknowledged the extent of his addiction to any of us, and maybe not even to himself. It's a tough situation for a family member to be in.

I hope that you and your family can take comfort in knowing that his difficulties are over for him, and I will keep you and his daughters in my thoughts.

Difficulties agonies ecstacies happen , happen in all families. Large and small.

Who would know, how would I know or you know or anyone ever know- the addiction to come in oneself or anyone.

Nor how would you or I or anyone ever know the frustration of self or any other in a situation from their perspective.

I feel your grief helplessness and grief at the futility and emptiness at the life and death of a family member, or a little bit of both.

It could happen so easily. How in the unfathomable reality of addiction can one be held blameless in say an alcoholic family system where someone is respinsible for everybody else? And outsiders blame family extended family for anything that has gone wrong?
Car crash : why didnt you withold the keys Answer i wadnt there Q repeat blaming question answer: i was in another part of the state. Question: why did he have a car why did you let him drive (answer i didnt live near him he took xs car) etc..... blame by close or distant relation even adoption... for any crime, or need the addict has, its always why didnt someone fix it for him, etc...
Family can even blame each other or nail and crucify their resident labeled blamee *official name unknown, sorry. Then when everyone feels bad they know who to blame, evrn if they were out of state at the time.

And church the curch is just another vector to aim the blame, its not salvation army or rehab someone loves you. Its spackle each other with blame like drywall grout in a 5 gallon container
Theres enough mormon blame to go around as kids playing with mud in a field, except the church defines who throws the mud for breaking commandments and who throws mud about commandments, we re all covered with mud.
At least in my family. Cant spray off the mud I threw in the past seems getting sprayed off with a hose isnt part of my familys game playing with mud yet. The lds church is just a vocabulary, a ladder to hang off tbrowing or recriving the same farms mud getting flung. Neighbors can even take part. Everyone gets dirty.

Possibly everyone knows they have the same
Genes as the dyee or dead person. So whether its cancer or addiction theyd rather blame soneone rather than admit they have 30% to 75% of the same genes as him. Its too frightening quick better blame someone for something fast I feel too uncomfortable this could be someone I know.
Oh I do know them. Oh sssf it could be me, damn.shudder fear.

How we humans hold or humanity i dont know facing other peoples humaness let alone our own.

I recently had a grade school local farm neighbor attempt to hold me accountable for an addicted sibling again. Id still be contributing if I werent afeared for keeping my front teeth - he punched his womens out. That and his confusing if despicable habit of polite friendliness before pulling a knife against your neck when he really disagrees with you. But somehow the farmer girl blames me, wants to guilt me. Last I heard he managed to burn down a trailer he was living in. With a bonfire he lit beside it, on his friends farm who let him live rent free for running errands. Hes rehabbed three, four times, cant get find support sober in mormonism.
Enough of me. If you go to the funeral go free.

Celebrate that he tried love. He tried to live. Maybe he had a greater sense of humor or party comradery than we ll ever know.
Celebrate that he had the courage to try life, to try love, and to search for happiness in existance in his own way. What. He loved how he loved where he laughed is unknowable, but know this: ----roy was there. (Insert name about here)

Shed a tear. Its ok. Drink your coffee. & breathe

So sorry for the loss of your loved one.

Alcoholism kills. Maybe slowly, over long period of time, until it silences the voice from within and then without.

It's too bad he couldn't stay sober and off the bottle.

It isn't something you can blame yourself for. Maybe he just lost his will to live after losing what mattered most to him, his wife and children.

Damn, that's just sh*tty.

Now his girls are half-orphans and coping with his death for the rest of their natural lives.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/24/2016 10:11AM by Amyjo.