Dear MIMsters: How Do I Help My Twin Brother?

It is with great pain that I write this down. I really cannot explain the confusion and hurt that has plagued my mind since last week Sunday after meeting with my twin brother.

My name is Aduke and I am a twin. My brother and I are the first set of children my mother had, then a younger sister. This story is about my brother, Adio.

We lost our mum when we were 9 years old, and then our dad died two years later. After our mum died, it was too hard for our father to cope with two children, so, we were shipped off to the north to live with my mother’s elder sister and her husband who were like angels God placed in our paths. Very strict and rigid, I guess it also helped that my uncle was a pastor. Living in kaduna was alright, it wasn’t normal, but it was what God had said would happen.

Looking back now, I can’t say that I was able to appreciate all of those experiences then. Now, I wished I could have paid maximum attention to everything that came my way.

Two years after moving to Kaduna, our father died. We are both 23 today and we still don’t know what killed him. Just to remain sane while growing up, after we heard the news from our aunt who told us through tears, we decided to agree to believe that our father died of a broken heart.

Like I said, growing up in Kaduna wasn’t easy because we were still growing and no one, not even my aunt told and taught us how to deal with grief, we learnt it and grew up with it in our own way.

I’m married today and have two kids,  and a B.A in Communications, while my twin brother who gained admission at the same time I did is a drop out of two universities and a chronic drug addict after 3 years. I often sit to wonder what went wrong. I remember trying to talk to him about getting his life together and asking him to think of our parents and quit drugs, when he picked up a stool and hurled it at me screaming, that I should never speak about ‘his father or mother’. I didn’t need a shrink to tell me, that part of the reason he is on drugs and very distant from everybody including our family, is that he’s still hurting and doesn’t want to come out to deal with it, so he isn’t perceived as weak.

I hadn’t seen my brother for a very long time, so I decided to pay him a visit on Sunday. When I saw him, I couldn’t believe what I saw and I just blamed myself for not addressing this issue for so long. I believed he would find his way. I believed he would get clean again after relapsing from his first enrollment at the rehab clinic. I believed foolishly and I was reaping the rewards.

Adio had lost so much body weight, he wasn’t eating, had no proper sanitary routine as I could tell from his stiff body odour. My heart broke as I just thought, am I going to lose my brother too? Heavens know that I’m still trying to not let my mother’s death affect me and I cannot stomach not having my brother around me.

I left him in tears as I just couldn’t place the Adio who stood up for me in school, got me gifts, drew marvelous paintings of me with this lean, hungry, depressed person sitting in front of me.

How do I help my brother and make him understand he needs help?