My Cousin, Who We Adopted Into Our Family As A Brother

What happens to get into recovery? Some people are in recovery from drinking alcohol and taking drugs, while others consider recovery as they are no longer spinning around an alcoholic or drug addict, a loved one.

Then still others may be recovering from a gambling addiction, sex addiction, or eating disorder. In the Diagnostic Statistical Manual - 5 (DSM-5), addiction is categorized into Substance Use Disorders (SUD), and then there are Behavioral Addictions.

Alcohol and drugs are in the SUD category, and addictions like the following are in that Behavioral Addictions category: gambling, internet use, and eating disorders, etc.

Sometimes people will switch addictions. They will go from alcoholism to gambling, for example. Both are serious addictions.

I have known this cousin his entire life. He is three years younger and was closest to my sister and mother. Both are deceased now! When his sister, two brothers, and then his mother died, my brothers and I decided to adopt him culturally. The losses were too close for anyone.

At the adoption, the spiritual leader talked to me, like a mother. Later, when talking with him, I said, I am his adopted sister, right? Then he said, "Well, his mother died too recently, and he still needs a mother. For now, you are his mother."

So, he is my cousin, brother, and son. I have been his mother for a short time and talked with him about that. He said, "You have already treated me like a mother at times, since my mother died." He got it. I didn't. We have trained together, and he mentioned that, and then I knew.

He has been a professor for many years now, and there is a difference between trainers and professors. Trainers follow the curriculum, and professors are free to change their lessons as they wish. So, that was me, who interrupted his ideas about ways to change the curriculum.

As kids, we were at gatherings together. Birthday parties and other celebrations. His father lived more at my house after my dad died than he did with his family. He and his wife never divorced, but they were with different partners over the years.

As a teenager, I was at his house, where he lived with his mother and stepfather. Going into the house was like an obstacle course on a weekend. People passed out on the furniture and on the floor. Both his mother and stepfather drank.

One day, when I went in and talked to his mother, asking where he was, she sounded all disgusted and said, "He is out back with Manny, and they are boxing." Manny was a boxer at one time. My cousin was not. I watched them box for a short time and couldn't watch any longer, and left.

They both appeared to be under the influence of alcohol and maybe something else. So, even though he was a lot younger and strong, he wasn't going to get the best of a man who boxed before. I never went back there. It was too hard to see all of that.

There were two younger siblings, and I couldn't imagine how that life was for them. Both died too young, as did his older brother. His mother had quit drinking at some point. I'm not sure exactly when, but she was sober for years into his adulthood.

I am so glad that he and his younger brother both found recovery! Their lives went well in recovery. He has two children and now two grandchildren. He continues to teach and is a dean at the college where he teaches.

He is invited to our family functions, and we are invited to his and his grandchildren's birthday parties every year now. It is nice to have another sibling, as we have had two die too young already. There are five of us altogether now, with three of us in recovery.