
365 days ago my brother quietly stepped away from this world without any warning. That unseasonably warm, beautiful Wednesday would be the last time he would feel the sun on his face, hear his favorite song, or smoke a cigarette. And though I wouldn’t know it for another 2 days, it would be the last time I would ever hear his voice.
In the days and months that followed that fateful day I struggled to make sense of it all; painstakingly trying to piece together the “whys” and the “what if’s” as if I could somehow find answers that would lead to a different ending. The initial wave of anger was predictable and oddly comforting for it had been my steadfast approach for so very long. No one had judged him more harshly, no one had expected more of him, and no one had held him more accountable. It was a role I had assumed in a desperate attempt to save him from himself and the anger that accompanied overshadowed much of our relationship despite his varying levels of stability over the years. However, that anger quickly dissipated as I began to examine things more closely, with an awareness that can only be afforded by hindsight.
The truth is, had I not had the beautiful gift of witnessing firsthand who my brother was in the last year of his life, without the mask of addiction, I would have assumed like most everyone else that he simply died an “addict”. Had I not personally seen the kindness, the playfulness, the work ethic, and the genuine pride; I would have brushed off his death as merely the final consequence of his lifelong pattern of poor decisions. Shamefully, I would have fallen into step alongside those, who when hearing of an overdose are quick to judge; ever-eager to compartmentalize so that they can easily diminish any association or culpability, further distancing themselves from the harsh reality that Tommy’s fate could befall anyone, in any family, at any time. And, if I were truly being honest, despite having witnessed his struggle, I would have also quietly concluded that his death was somewhat deserved for a life lived with what I had always perceived to be such reckless abandon.
But I would have been wrong.
For those of you that knew us both, I can only imagine how differently you have always perceived us to be. However, in the end, I can say with absolute certainty that we could not have led more parallel lives. As adults, we both struggled to find meaningful relationships, we both yearned for children we didn’t have. We both found vulnerability immensely difficult; subconsciously shielding ourselves with pride-coated armor helplessly watching as our diminished capacity prevented the exact closeness we both desperately wanted to find. Sadly, both of us knew loneliness on a level that few in this world could ever truly comprehend and we both chose to suffer the resulting pain silently and alone, even while sitting next to each other on the sofa night after night for over a year.
So my questions became: "Why did Tommy die alone on a living room floor while I was the one left behind to find him?" "And why in hell did he turn to that drug again knowing how far he’d come and how proud he was of himself?" Having seen him blossom over the previous year, the answers that came just never seemed to fit: “once an addict, always an addict”…“he just liked being high”…“he just wasn’t strong enough”. All of them felt like bullshit once weighed against the man I saw him become. And then, about a month after he died the answer came to me like a bolt of lightning and the understanding that followed felt the equivalent to having found the “golden ticket”. After more than a decade, it all made sense and I finally understood the “why” that had plagued me for so long. Suddenly, a peace I had never known settled into my soul. The answer to both questions: HOPE.
“To live without hope is to cease to live” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
It has been said that hope is to our spirit, what oxygen is to our lungs. Fundamentally, hope is the belief that things can change and it ultimately becomes the catalyst and energy for that change. Hope is what motivates us to simply keep walking through life when at times all we want to do is lie down. It is that little voice inside your head that keeps you from letting go, that tells you that something better is right around the corner if you just keep going...if you just try one more time...if you just don’t give up.
Hope is what drives you into a therapist’s office because somewhere deep inside you believe that things can be better than they are right now. Hope is what pushes you to keep working on a marriage that you know is no longer working. Hope has you making plans for a future that you are not certain you will ever have. It is what encourages you to look for another job despite already having one that pays the bills. Hope is what compels you to keep swiping right on dating apps despite having already suffered through a million bad dates and dead-end relationships.
Most don’t realize how fragile and fluid the line between hope and hopelessness actually is because for many, feeling hopeful is a natural occurrence and easily procured. However, at some time or another, we have all found ourselves standing on the wrong side of that line. Maybe it was a lost job, a failed relationship, chronic illness, or the inability to conceive a child. Regardless of the circumstance, we have all felt a level of despair that inevitably turned our thoughts dark and that paralyzed us from moving forward in that moment.
And to varying degrees, we have all tried to fill the void when hope could not be summoned, with quick fixes and temporary comforts. Maybe you go to bed with a few glasses of wine every night telling yourself that you deserve a release. Maybe you find yourself repeatedly buying things you don’t need. Maybe you work endless hours just so your mind never sits idle. Maybe you shut people out, giving excuse after excuse to friends with extended invitations. The vice might be a credit card, food, sex, or even a slot machine but the mechanisms of action are the same as they all serve to numb the pain of circumstance, hide from reality, and lessen despair; however fleeting and insufficient the comfort. That line is there for all of us but how long we stand on the wrong side depends on our individual capacity to generate and feel hope.
Innately, I have always had a greater capacity to hope, especially in comparison to my brother, and I spent a lifetime trying to infuse him with it at every dark turn. Whether extracted from a movie, a horoscope, a song, or a conversation with a friend, I could manufacture hope in the most abstract of places and its presence has kept me moving forward even in times of complete darkness. Tommy on the other hand, had a sense of hopelessness that was palpable and evident in most everything he did. Even as a child, he was quick to give up no matter the task as he could never envision an outcome positive enough to justify pushing through the present discomfort. For him, there was never a “big picture” and his “what’s the point” attitude plagued him throughout his life making success, in any aspect, virtually impossible.
But in the end, it was sheer loneliness that erased any trace of hope that Tommy may have had and reignited his struggle. Having moved to a new city, Tommy was being forced to view his life and newfound solitude through the unfamiliar and intense glare of sobriety which only served to highlight his despair, allowing loneliness to further edge out hope. The result: an instinctual, desperate need to numb and a familiar walk back over the line.
Maybe you have someone who is worth crawling back over the line for. Or maybe you love yourself enough to drag yourself back when you have strayed too far. But what happens when you don’t have either? What happens when the darkness is all you see and the thoughts are no longer abated by superficial temporary pleasures? What happens when your pain runs so deep that the better option is to willingly pick up a needle and stab it in your arm rather than be alone with your thoughts in the darkness any longer?
Having learned the most intimate details of Tommy’s life by accessing his phone after he died, I can unequivocally say that my brother did not die an addict despite what the heroin found alongside his body suggested. He died of undiagnosed, untreated depression that was exacerbated by paralyzing loneliness and a deep shame that prevented him from asking for help. He died because the only coping mechanism he had ever known came in a little baggie. He died because the hope that his life would ever be different had evaporated and he could no longer envision an outcome that included the happiness he sought. So HIS questions ultimately became: “Why not?” "Why not take a drug that might kill me if my life is never going to change anyway?"
So before you judge another overdose death harsher than you would any other, I ask you: where would you be today if hope had abandoned you when your own darkness crept in? Could you honestly say that your life would be the same if your world, through no fault of your own, spontaneously turned black with every single one of life’s disappointments suffered along the way? My brother was no different than anyone reading this post. He simply lacked the ability to generate his own light, relied on a more dangerous vice, and had nothing and no one to crawl back over the line for, least of all himself.
For those of you still reading these words, my only hope is that they foster such deep gratitude for your own fortunate circumstance and genuine empathy for those that inherently struggle to see light through the darkness that eventually comes for all of us. I pray that you can erase all judgment you may have passed on those who have found themselves standing on the other side of that line. And I truly hope that you will never know or bear witness to how easy it is to get stuck on the wrong side; for it is far easier than you may realize.
“At bottom, everything depends upon the presence or absence of one single element in the soul: HOPE” - Henri Frederic Amiel