Good afternoon, everyone! 🙂

I recently joined this group seeking support for some of the hardships my family is going through. I am the middle child of seven siblings, and all of my older siblings struggle with substance abuse of various kinds. One of them specifically also struggles with homelessness (also the sibling I was closest to and looked up to the most). This individual, however, lives in California (thousands of miles away from me). When she moved to Cali around three years ago, her addiction and living situation got really dangerous and severe. I went through a period where I had to entirely cut contact with her due to how what was happening with her was impacting my own mental health (how she started to talk to me/treat me).

As of this last year, I started to get a different perspective about how the disease of addiction was impacting her. A big reason why my perspective changed is due to my undergraduate learning experience in the social work realm. Studying addiction/homelessness/trauma/mental illness and even pursuing a certificate in addiction services exposed me to a hard truth: addiction is a disease perpetuated by many things including situations life throws at us. Knowing this allowed me to do some healing myself. Through realization, mental health treatment of my own, and my college education, I regained the strength to start having phone/text conversations with her again.

Before this began to get at its worst around 3 years ago, her and I were best friends. We have always had a large age gap (13 years), so I always really looked up to her when growing up. She has also always lived in another state (due to her ex husbands prior job situation), and I would spend every summer (or long school break) as a tween/teen staying with her in her state for weeks/months at a time. Her substance abuse started off as misuse of prescription adhd medications and an addiction to alcohol. I saw this happening when I was young, but again, was too young to understand it. There are a lot of underlying mental health issues/unaddressed traumas intertwined in this situation (with both herself and me) that as a child/teen I didn't understand how to identify. As I got older, she also used to try and offer the substances to me (this started when I was probably around 14ish). This, in turn, made me more bitter when I ended up cutting contact with her. So to a degree, even logically knowing it was out of my control, I feel at fault for missing signs she had been struggling for a really long time.

I give that context to ask for some guidance. I want to help her feel supported and encouraged. I am in college now to be a social work major, so I am pretty informed at this point about policies, treatment options, resources, etc. However, I live in another state and cannot help her in the way I could if she lived in the same state/area as me (these things differ by state). So, I am trying to figure out how I can still be of use to her situation. Even if this means I cannot help connect her to resources and her own social worker, I want her to feel supported, loved, and cared about. I want to do this without seeming belittling or condescending. I don't understand where she is coming from (the addiction/previous trauma she has experienced aspect), I only understand being on the side of watching it all unfold. Would anyone happen to have any tips, guidance, or support to offer me regarding this?

I love her so much, and there are a lot of complicated variables and hurt surrounding this situation. Right now we are on POSITIVE speaking terms, but I want to make sure I am going about this in the right way. Her and I used to be so close, and for years now, I have been actively mourning over my sister who is still alive (also watching specifically my mother go through the same thing times 10). I want her to be safe, healthy, and happy. I realize that positive support can go such a long way, so any tips would be greatly appreciated.

If you read this far, thank you for hearing me out. I hope everyone is doing well.

❤️

Substance Use Disorders

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