Flying 3,000 miles to rescue my brother

This is a two-parter about the time my sister and I attempted to do an intervention with my bro.

May 14, 2024

Thank you to all of the new subscribers! Your interest in my brother and prison reform advocacy means so much to me. 🙏🏼

Today’s newsletter is about when my brother landed in the ER while living in NYC with his girlfriend. This happened a decade ago. During this time, my brother was using drugs. It was mostly marijuana, but I know he did harder drugs like heroin and speed, along with prescriptions like Oxycontin. I can’t be sure how frequently he was on the harder drugs, but his behavior was often erratic, especially when there was alcohol involved.

Names have been changed out of respect for privacy, and there are mentions of suicide in this story.

I think he was around 5 in this pic. It was taken at the San Diego Zoo.

I’m in my room folding laundry and listening to “This American Life” when I see a text message from my older sister.

“Isaac is in the ER. He put his hand through Jilli’s living room window and cut his wrist. Blood everywhere. Jilli freaked out and called 911. He threatened to kill himself. I think the cops came, too.”

My mind races and my pulse quickens. I read it again. Suicide? I know he medicates himself with weed and pops prescription pills for his anxiety, but killing himself? That seems unusual even for him.

I respond to her text with this emoji 😳 and a string of question marks.

I imagine the drama unfolding in front of Jilli, my brother’s girlfriend, in her Manhattan apartment. It starts to sink in… the familiar train wreck that seems to follow my brother no matter where he is. My sister and I are left to pick up the pieces and rush to his aid reluctantly.

I feel bad for Jilli, who has only experienced my brother’s chill side until now. My sister had talked to her a few times, and from their conversations, it seemed as if things were calm and not dramatic. Jilli only saw the cool and collected Isaac playing X-Box, napping, or nonchalantly packing bowls of chronic in his bong.

My brother and Jilli had been together for less than a year and lived on the Upper West Side. It was Jilli’s apartment, and even though she had a roommate, my brother moved in and likely lived rent-free.

I wonder if Jilli’s roommate was home to witness the bloody debacle.

I haven’t met Jilli in person yet, but she seems like a positive force in my brother’s life. According to my brother, she attends business school for real estate and is quite a studious gal. Maybe opposites do attract.

My phone lights up with another text from my sister.

“I think a fucking intervention is in order. Let’s book a flight and see him. He’s definitely on something.”

I close my eyes and let out a breath. A part of me wants the gory details—how bad was the cut on his wrist? Was the blood squirting? Was he depressed, or was this another fit of rage caused by too much Hennessy? What happened when the cops showed up? Did they see his previous arrests after getting his ID?

I wonder if this will be the final incident that gets him arrested and thrown in prison.

But another part of me craves ignorance. It’s the part that’s numb and doesn’t care anymore. I’m sick and tired of my brother’s shit. I just want to live my life. I’m tired of worrying. I’m tired of feeling bad for him and for the anguish he’s caused my parents over the years. He’s an adult, for Christssake.

I could hear my parents now, hoping my words would be some miracle to help their son. “You’re older, you know better, so try to help him. Talk some sense into him.”

Over the years, my response to this plea has become harsher. I’d snap, “He is not my child. He is your child. You’re the parent. Figure it out.”

I just want to continue folding my clean laundry, still warm and smelling like Tide. I want to return to my Saturday afternoon and get lost in the story Ira Glass is narrating on the podcast.

Instead, I pepper my sister with questions. How drunk was he? Did he and Jilli get into a fight? Why would he put his hand through a glass window?

My brother can’t handle his alcohol for shit. His drink of choice is Hennessy—not because he likes the taste, but because he probably saw it in some movie like “Scarface” where Tony Montana drank it.

Hennessy makes him itchy for a fight. Beer makes him mellow, red-faced, and goofy. But too much of any alcohol produces the same outcome—one that spells trouble.

My sister responds, “He was super drunk, but I’m pretty sure he was on something else too. He argued with Jilli, punched the window, and threatened to jump.”

She fills me in with more details—Jilli panicked because, just as I imagined, his blood was squirting out of his wrist like a drinking fountain. According to Jilli, my brother had an “episode” that caused him to plummet into a deep, dark, madness.

Jilli doesn’t know this episode is similar to a previous one he had. When my brother visited my sister in Oakland the year before, he got drunk and tried to throw a chair through the living room window.

My sister called me at 2 a.m. She was hysterical. I could barely understand what she was saying. Still sleepy but quickly perking up, I listened to her sobs as she tried to speak in between gulps of air. I wondered what the hell my brother could have done to cause such distress. I had never heard my sister so distraught. I tried to calm her down.

I learned that my brother blacked out from too much alcohol and went berserk, screaming and throwing things in her apartment. He woke the upstairs neighbors, who thought my sister was getting abused by a boyfriend. They called the cops.

My sister told me Isaac’s eyes rolled in the back of his head, like he was possessed by a demon. The most disturbing part was how scared she was. She was terrified of him.

She said she didn’t want to call the cops or 911, so she called Jim, her ex-boyfriend’s friend who happened to live down the street. Even though it was late, he picked up her call and agreed to come by.

I asked where Isaac was, and she said he finally passed out on her bed in the room. She continued to sob, and my heart sank because she was inconsolable.

The following day, my sister texted that our dear brother had pissed all over her bed while he was passed out.

I wondered if Jilli cried and panicked like my sister did. I was told Jilli called 911, and when the ambulance came, Isaac was taken to the ER where he was stitched and bandaged up.

Even though my sister wants to go to NYC to make sure he’s okay, what will that really do? What’s done is done. What’s the point of going out there to pick apart what happened?

I text back, “Define what you mean by intervention. I’m not sure he will listen or take us seriously.”

My sister responds, “He could have bled out. He’s a fucking idiot, but he needs help.”

She’s right. Even though my sister and I raised my brother from birth, we’ve never been disciplinarians. We were just kids trying to raise another kid.

I remind my sister that we don’t know how to talk to him, much less have an intervention. Would it be like the HBO show “Intervention”? Ironically, it’s one of my favorite shows.

I enjoy watching it because it’s such a train wreck, but I feel so satisfied to see the person recover before the hour-long episode ends.

While it’s not a perfect ending, there’s something about seeing that train wreck of a person transform and want to get better. I wish I could bottle up the feeling of calmness and reflection I feel after reading the epilogue that so-and-so completed rehab and is taking it one day at a time.