I lost my twin brother to alcohol on November 18, 2010. Well really I lost him to alcohol well before that. He had been drinking and smoking pot since the 7th grade (earlier some friends told me). I have to wonder what was so different about his growing up experience than mine that led him to drink. It boggles the mind really that we grew up together, shared a room till we were in the 4th grade, had all the same opportunities and challenges and it was him found dead, alone in his apartment.

I've read all the literature about addiction and see the insidiousness of it all. He got the gene, I didn't. His struggle, his demons, his outlook on life I just can't fathom. It was so vastly different than my own. I worry he died not knowing how much his family loved him. I worry that he died not seeing the heartbreak and anguish that all this "tough love" cost us. Not seeing the strain Mom's co-dependent relationship with him had on her other three children, the three girls. Not knowing the hours a day I spent worrying about him. I wanted so badly to help him, to make his life easier, to erase some of the self-loathing I know he dealt with. I didn't know about the voices and monsters till after his death, till after I read his recovery journals. 

I'm thankful that I began to really work on my relationship with him that last summer he was in recovery. Glad I called him everyday, whether he was drunk or not, whether he returned my calls or not. Glad I stopped judging (mostly) and just started caring. But I still wasn't there, not when he was in and out of the hospital, not when sank down to the floor and put his head on a chair and slipped quietly away from all of us only to be found two days later, gone, cold.

What I miss most is the potential of what we could have been, the relationship that might have sprung up if he had lived. We were inseparable up till the first grade when they put us in separate classes. I think I've mourned losing that ever since. I resented him choosing alcohol over me. I resented not having that "twin" sense. I resented him never asking about how MY life was going. Come to find out he was jealous of me, jealous of my life. I miss the conversations we could have had. I lost him years ago, and was just beginning to figure some things out with him. I miss him.