I want to thank everyone who has so far supported the fundraiser to help the person in my family who is suffering from a life threatening illness. My and my mothers gratitude goes beyond description. So the thing I didnt say is, who in my family this is and he said that he wants me to tell people - that he no longer wants to live in the closet. The person is my brother, Jon. Its not possible for me to tell you how much I love my brother. He has been my best friend since we were small. And he seriously is still one of my best friends in the world - one of my favorite people in the world. Hes also an incredible dad. And he also has the disease of drug addiction. With Robin Williams passing, people have been more free, talking about mental illness. Mental illness is something that has impacted a lot of people I love. But theres no one that I love like I love my brother. Unfortunately, our culture does not have a good response to mental illness, our country has no long term strategy with how to really help people in a humanizing way, and out of every mental illness, the disease of drug addiction is perhaps the most stigmatized. Most people dont understand it as a mental illness but instead as a moral one. Its not a moral illness. It is a complex mental/emotional/physiological disease that removes a persons sense of agency and soul from themselves. My brother has struggled with this disease since he was a teenager. When he became clean, it was like getting a member of my family back who had been kidnapped. Most recently he was clean for over 4 years. Then something really awful happened that I wont get into but it was one of the most stressful and horrible things. I cant tell you what it was but if I did tell you, its pretty bad. And he did an amazing job coping with it for months (as well as being unjustly fired and seeking employment) and being an amazing father and all of that. And then, I lost him to the disease again. He was so triggered. He couldnt handle it. He relapsed. For the last little while hes been relapsing on again and off again. But now hes in a rehab where he is determined to get back to the place that he was: clean and sober. The amount of money and cost involved in this and involved in the basic needs of his family are pretty high. Weve estimated the cost to be about 10K. So far weve done incredibly thanks to you: weve raised around $4000 (if you count people who wrote checks). If you havent given yet, and all you have is 5 dollars, please give 5 dollars. Please give whatever you can. You may be someone who grew up with my brother and is one of his many friends that has been loving and supporting him through this. Or you may be someone that has never met him and doesnt know the first thing about him. But you do know me. And if you know me, then you know Jon. Because Jon and his warmth and humor and brilliance and just....being a great brother are in me. They are part of me. So whether you know it or not, when youve met me, youve met a part of my brother. Unlike Harry and the Potters or Draco and the Malfoys or the Vlog Brothers, Jon and I arent going to create a band or video blog together any time soon (though weve discussed a podcast to discuss the golden age of television shows [I stopped watching tv until my brother forced me to watch The Wire and a series of other shows, telling me that television was better now when we were kids]. But theres more ways than one to skin a cat. When you have a sibling, its not about what the artistic projects are that you create with them. Its just about love. And sometimes a little hatred because siblings by nature are a pain in the butt and Jon is no exception (he would say the same for me. Can you imagine having a big brother who TALKS and TALKS and TALKS and never ever shuts up? Jon can :-)). He told my mom that he feels so grateful to people for caring about him and giving him a chance. And he feels even more motivated from that. One of the reasons I know so much about the Twelve Steps is that I have been very much exposed to Al Anon and Naranon (thanks to my incredibly wise mother) for family members of addicts. Any one who knows addiction knows its a family disease. If you can, please give what you can. 5 dollars, 25 dollars, 100, 500, any thing that makes a difference. Even if you dont know him, its one small way of saying, Hey Jon: thanks for helping to make Andrew the person he is today. Or Hey Jon: stay alive please. Andrew is still a jerk and you need to help fix that in him.. Its your moral obligation as his brother. This is a tremendous opportunity to see to it that my brother, now that he is ready, gets the treatment that he needs. And he is ready and I pray with all of my might that he will find in himself a reservoir of strength and resilience as he works the steps and works to emerge from a disease that has taken too many wonderful people from us. With all of my heart, I want Jons story to be different than that. And I know it can be. Thank you.
Posted on: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 23:55:58 +0000
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