"Poor old Jeff"

Mom always said that. But don't cry for him, things are looking up.

First off my brother is a drug and alcohol addict. He has been this way since high school and he is now 55 years old. Wait I forgot, mom says he doesn’t drink and only takes legal drugs. He lives with his 80 year old mother, on her social security check. He hasn’t had a real job in over 15 years. About a year ago, we thought he had hit rock bottom. He had run out of friends and money and because of this had to cut down on his booze and drugs. I mean he was able to bum a small amount of money from mom but she wouldn’t give him enough to support his habit. After all she did already buy his cigarettes.

Because he was out of money, he was starting to dry out. For the first time in as long as I can remember, he wasn’t drunk or high when I saw him. He kept talking though about all this money that he was going to get and I believe that was what was keeping him going. Since he was a child, he complained about aches and pains and had every excuse not to work or even do chores. Through his life, he was "fortunate" enough to get rear ended and also break one of his hands and well the pain was just unbearable.

Through the miracle of "working on consignment", he managed to find a lawyer who took his case and finally was able to get him Medicaid. For those that don’t know about Medicaid, it is very hard to qualify for. My mother tried but couldn’t get it but my brother could. And since he has all this pain, his doctor (quack quack) prescribed pain pills. About 6 months had passed since I saw him last. His speech is now slurred and he has to lean on things when he stands. But fortunately, he can still drive mom around. He was able to buy a car because his money was retroactive and he got a big cash settlement. Good thing too because he had to pay that lawyer. Now he can drive to get his free medications.

Now the stuff they give him is pretty strong but to tell the truth it isn’t strong enough for him. He has developed a tolerance for drugs and likes to brag about how much he can take without it affecting him. The time he broke his hand, the doctor gave him enough pain pills for two weeks. He had 30 of them and the prescription said ”take one every 8 hours”. He told me about it and said that he ran out after two days. “Greg these aren’t S#&*” he said. “I could take the entire bottle at one time if I wanted” I wanted to say, why not try two bottles with a whole bottle of Jack Daniels but I didn’t.

He has lots of friends again now too. They call at all hours of the day and night and then drop by and he goes for short drives with them around the block. Mom says that he just needs a little privacy and insists that nothing illegal is going on. When we tell her that he is taking drugs, she defends him and says he is in a lot of pain. Funny the exrays don’t show anything. When we had evidence that he was selling drugs, she said that the girl that bought them was in a lot of pain too and couldn’t afford to go to a doctor so what he was doing was a good thing. He has a heart of gold she says.

Now here is the good part. The local police won’t do anything about it. He is just a small time drug dealer and they want the big fish. It has been two days since I contacted the Medicaid office via email and I have heard nothing. I have to have concrete proof. So my brother will be spending our tax payer money to buy and then sell drugs and there is nothing we can do about it. And we wonder why the system is so screwed up. Oh and don’t worry about him starving to death. He gets food stamps. So once a month he treats his friends to lobster and steak and the rest of the month he lives off of my mother’s social security. She won’t throw him out either. We are just picking on him.

I hope this post makes someone angry. I hope that it makes someone that knows someone in power mad and that something gets done about it. I would rather see him in prison than living like he does but I am powerless to do anything.

Ok here is the positive side. My kids know what is going on and swear that they will never ever touch drugs. They don't even what him to touch them.