My Brother's Keeper | Hacker News Reader

My Brother's Keeper

theverge.com

52 pointspetewailes22 comments

Umm, does anybody else cringe at the public documentation of this person's problems? The author hasn't spoken to her brother since 2013 -- so how does she know he wants his problems to be made public to all the world? She even gave his full name.

Yeah seems really unfair to publish this without talking to him. Hopefully she did.

Also, not to downplay what they've been through, but her brother's transgressions against the family hardly seem worth kicking him out over. He pawned some musical equipment and tried to sneak whiskey into his room, and left a bruise on her arm? For that they permanently kick him out? I realize he broke into other people's homes and stole from them, and that sucks but he's also paid for those crimes.

Maybe she's leaving out some things he did, I don't know. But to me this article reads like she and her parents are harder on her brother than he deserves. Hopefully it all works out.

It's more like you're the one leaving things out; she pretty clearly describes how this is representative of patterns of behavior persisting for years and years.

Allowing a criminal to live in your house puts the whole family at risk. What if he does something that prompts the police to SWAT him, and by extension you? And then there is asset forfeiture; people have lost their homes because their adult child that lived with them got busted with drugs.

If I had a family member that was up to that kind of shit, I might help them pay rent in a home of their own, but they would not be staying in my home.

That was my thought constantly through reading this. I agree wholeheartedly that we need to spend more on rehabilitation and treatment and it sounds like this facility is doing good work but laying your sibling's (a sibling you haven't talked to in years and even when you did they weren't the person they are now) life bare like this feels like a huge invasion of privacy as well as possibly having a negative impact on the brother when he does find out about it. Not to mention this will now follow him for the rest of his life as a very public record of his past failings....

I'm curious why you think her writing about his already public crimes is at all dependent on his consent.

It isn't; it just seems like a really shitty thing to do to someone you care about. If indeed she does, but the conditional love of women often works out this way.

"...the conditional love of women"

...okay

Imagine the opposite case; her brother is wildly successful, but still has a drinking problem. In this instance, she and her parents would probably shower him with love and affection. "We will get through this together!"

Pretending there isn't political economy in familial relationships is pretty naive. Especially when female relatives are concerned.

She certainly has the free-speech right to write whatever she wants to. It's just not the way most families treat each other - certainly my brother wouldn't write this about me, and vice versa - so it's uncomfortable to read. Either it's fictionalized, or it's a crappy way to treat your brother.

The story is a reported memoir that touches on a number of topics. The first, primarily, is about the treatment facility that takes care of people like her brother. Another is the negative and traumatic effects that addicts have around the people like them. In no way is this article about the brother but rather the effects of the brother to the world around him.

Often times, family members rely on arguments about the proper ways to behave to each other in order to silence or police objections to family behavior. In the case of addiction, it is complicated because addiction is itself complicated in ways that other forms of trauma are perhaps not. That said, is the voice of people who were traumatized by others worth less? Should it be kept quiet simply because the other person is a member of the family? Are we not allowed to acknowledge and discuss that addicts cause trauma for people around them that is deeply hurtful and is allowed to be heard as well?

Yeah, one of the links in that article was to another one she wrote about him, so it seems she plans on getting a lot of mileage out of his misfortune despite not really being in contact with him.

Though she hasn't spoken to him, that doesn't necessarily mean that she hasn't received permission by some other means (e.g. by letter or via third party).

She made a comment in the Verge forums clarifying that she did in fact have his permission.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/2/9247915/addiction-feature#3...

Even though I've never met the author or her brother, I actually feel relieved reading that; thanks for finding it and pointing it out.

Powerful stuff. I appreciate the parts that talk about the damage AA-based programs have done for the cause of recovery too. Medication and therapy can be very helpful when used in conjunction with effective recovery programs, a view advocated by SMART Recovery (http://www.smartrecovery.org).

AA still has its place. A lot of people like its philosophy. Plus, some people just don't respond to anything else other than its "tough love" philosophy.

hard to add anything:

"TROSA’s CEO, Kevin McDonald, is imposing beyond his height but maintains a folksy and reassuring demeanor. He’s a military brat, he tells me. His difficult home life bloomed into an early dependence on alcohol, and then, later, heroin. McDonald was facing a 20-year prison sentence for armed robbery when a state supreme court let him begin a lengthy stay at Delancey Street, a San Francisco therapeutic community.

"So I go there, and it’s a two-year program," he says. "I started going forward, learning how to communicate a little better, eventually realizing I didn’t have to use my fists and I hated violence. Learning to care about people, letting people care about me, learning job skills, et cetera. So I stayed 12 years." "

I'm sure they exist, but I've never met a Drug & Alcohol Counselor that hadn't been an addict. I guess you see what's at the bottom of the abyss and want to keep others from falling in.

You just can't wrap your head around it otherwise. The logical struggle at understanding the illogical.

Your explanation of D/A Counselors sounds about right. Its strange that doesn't seem true in the other "helping" professions.

Its weird, I've met a lot of social workers and many are just people good at helping other people. I've also met social workers that went into social work to save themselves. They were more screwed up then anyone they would likely meet in the course of their work. I think I've met the poster child for "why you shouldn't go into social work if...".

> "I started going forward, learning how to communicate a little better, eventually realizing I didn’t have to use my fists [...]"

Learning how to communicate effectively solves a lot of problems. Language allows individuals to internally articulate what is bothering them, rather than allow an amorphous shadow to unendingly torment their minds with no clear lines to see and thus attack the underling problem. Language allows us to express to others what is wrong so that they may understand the problem and provide useful feedback.

Language is an incredibly important skill and if we can encourage more young people to learn effective communication, the better for us all.

Even if they don't have full-on attack rituals to break each other down, putting people in a small room and denying them any contact with the outside world does sound more than a little culty. It's interesting how highly correlated rehab communities and cults tend to be - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon (linked in the article) being a nigh-on perfect textbook example.

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