Please stay out of the ditch!

Eight weeks ago today, my brother Bud arrived at our home in a terrible state. He had no money and no ID. His wallet and all of his documents had been lost. He looked and smelled like a street person. His home was about to be condemned. We learned that he had been living in it two years without heat and a year and a half without water. My other brother and I knew he had been drinking, and that his life had been in a terrible downward spiral since his wife had left him 5 years ago. Among other things, he had lost the job he had held for over 30 years, when his drinking caused him to do something incredibly foolish. We had no idea how bad things were though, because every time we tried to offer help, he insisted he didn't need it.

When his phone was disconnected last spring, I began stopping at his house every week or two to check on him. I would pound on the door to no avail, and finally go to the side of the house and scream under the window where I could hear him playing a computer game. When he came to the front door, he would never let me in the house, but the stench wafted out and was overpowering.

So when he arrived here eight weeks ago, I was relieved that he was finally ready to accept some help. He moved in with us, and we began our attempts to clean him and his life up. My husband and I have expended enormous effort trying to help him get his life back on track. My dear husband removed from the house: 50 large plastic garbage bags of trash, 20 bags of bottles and cans and 12 bags of filthy clothing, which I sorted through trying to find something salvageable for Bud to wear. Removal of these 82 large bags accomplished nothing more that a pathway through the house, but it was an obvious beginning. When the code enforcement officer came to inspect the house, we had a plan in place for the cleanup and essential repairs, so he did not go forward with the paperwork. He agreed not to actually condemn it, as long as Bud didn't live in it, and we did what we promised to do.

During the first two weeks, we helped Bud determine what in the house could be cleaned up well enough to be used. A huge problem was that the cat had urinated and defecated all over everything which Bud had strewn around in his drunken stupors, depression and apathy. The house was knee deep in "stuff" of all types. We rented a storage locker. My other brother helped my husband clean the items which could be saved, and they were moved out. We hired a professional cleaning company to haul out the rest of the debris and scrub the walls, floors, etc. We got a plumber in to repair the water lines, and a heating company to repair the furnace and hot water heater.

We got on the internet and ordered a birth certificate for Bud. We arranged for him to get to the DMV for a replacement license and to Social Security for replacement of his card. We arranged for a friend to take him shopping for some new clothes, and had a hairdresser work on his long matted hair and unkempt beard and mustache. We got him to the Adult Protective Unit at Social Services and set things in motion for financial help and a place to live. We helped him figure out what insurance policies he had that he could cash in for some money to work with. When the house was cleaned out, we got a real estate agent to come and arrange for its sale.

When it became clear that it would take a period of months for him to get into senior housing, we helped him find an apartment, got his belongings out of storage, helped him shop to purchase what was necessary to function on his own, and moved him in six days ago.

Four days ago, I stopped in to see how he was doing. He had nearly everything unpacked and settled. The aroma of a delicious meal he had cooked for himself wafted through the apartment. He seemed happy, and declared that he and the cat were "at home" here. I was thrilled and so excited that he seemed to be taking hold of his life. He had already made some phone calls that I planned to remind him were necessary.

Last night he called me and was clearly drunk. His speech was slurred, he couldn't remember what he wanted to say, he started to tell me something he had already told me that afternoon when we had happened to meet on the street. When I confronted him, he admitted he had been drinking, but insisted he wasn't drunk.

He had been sober (according to him) for four weeks prior to coming for our help, and during the seven weeks he had lived with us. But, five days on his own and he was right back at it. My heart sunk. I can't really begin to describe my feelings. I slept last night, but thought of him every time I stirred during the night.

After church and lunch today, I wrote down the number of Alcoholics Anonymous and headed for his apartment. He was just leaving to go out for a walk. He wasn't drunk, but wasn't looking any too well. I asked him if he remembered talking to me last night. He said that he did. I gave him the phone number and then reminded him about something that happened when we were kids. He was probably about 7, and I would have been 10.

We lived out in the country and went to school on the bus. We waited for the bus on the opposite side of the road from our house where there was a large open field along which an unusually deep ditch had been dug. It was much deeper that the ditch on our side of the road. For reasons I never did comprehend, Bud loved to crawl down in that deep ditch. I cannot count the number of mornings that he did this while waiting for the bus. He inevitable slipped in the slime in the bottom of the ditch and got his slacks all muddy. My mother would come running out of the house, haul him back in to change his slacks, and hurry him back out as the bus pulled up in front of our house. On some occasions the bus driver waited as Bud came running back out the driveway.

One morning I distinctly remember, Bud announced to me that he was going to crawl down into the ditch. I said, "Bud, don't do that. You know you will slip in the mud and get all dirty."

"No, I won't slip this time."

"Yes, you will....you always do."

Of course, he went ahead and crawled in the ditch, and there was a rerun of numerous other mornings.

So today, I reminded Bud of this story, and concluded with, "Bud, please don't crawl back into the ditch!"

He smiled and said he knew what I meant.

We talked for a bit longer. He tried to deny that he had a problem. We parted as he was saying, "Yes, I do know that "de-nial" isn't just a river in Egypt."

Oh, how I hope that this time, he stays out of the ditch.