What would you have done ?
dreamtraveler
Member Posts: 377
So, in the next lines i am going to describe you a hypothetical (for you) scenario about a social and a legal problem.
Imagine you live in a 4 apartment building, all apartments are in the same floor, apartment 1 is rented to a Captain of a Police precinct and his girlfriend, apartment 2 is rented to a college student while apartment 3 is occupied by your parents and apartment 4 is shared between you (28) and your brother (18), now, imagine that your brother invites at daily basis 6-7 of his friends to smoke pot, and two or three of them stay over and spend the night. (so far you know that your brother is just a pot head with a really aggressive attitude), you know that by talking to your brother about all this would fall on deaf ears so instead of doing that you complain to your parents about the situation and the conditions you live in and demand from them to do something, and all they do is tell you "I am gonna talk to him"
This goes on for months and you still complain and demand a solution and you still get the answer "I am gonna talk to him". One day you see some pills on your brothers desk... you are not sure what to make of it, you are starting to think he has a headache... you felt a lingering feeling of unease as you try to grasp the situation but you cant wrap your mind around its like a huge question mark (?) is inside your head hiding the truth from you ... but you stopped pondering after half a minute you went to your bedroom and shut the door behind you once more. The next week after an irrelevant conversation you had with you brother he pretty much told you he is selling drugs (pot, pills, and what ever else ) which now explains why at times you were seeing around the apartment a small digital precision scale.
Christmas were a few days further and your brother asks your parents for cash around 700 euro under the pretense that he was involved in an accident with his motor bike and since his insurance has expired insurance wouldn't cover the damages, so my parents gave him 700 euro and that wasn't the only time they heard his pretenses, this time, it was about "laptops that were going to be shipped from Germany" and your parents gave your brother money until they ended up doing Christmas with a total of 50 euro.
Months come, months go, until Easter has come, you still complain to your parents and you are still insisting that they need to do something, anything...and as always: "I am gonna talk to him". Disappointed you return to your room while holding your breath till the door is closed you feel that this situation is so unhealthy that actually its like a poison passing through the cracks of the closed door and entering your room floating all around you, you feel disgust by the smell...
Woke up in the morning it was a good day, Monday, the first day of the Great Weak. I dressed up and around 10 in the morning went for my daily gym exercise that took about 2hours and 30minutes. I remember i had with me a bottle of water as i was slowly walking towards home, I entered the main door of the apartment building continued walking towards my apartment, entered it and went to my room to remove my pants cause i was feeling hot then laid down in my bed and had removed my glasses. Next to me was my brother sitting on the pc listening to music everything was flowing smoothy until i saw a man pointing a gun at us, at first i thought it was a friend of my brother playing a prank on us i couldnt really see without my glasses... oh i was so wrong... it turns out the DEA had invaded our home after 6 anonymous arraignments...
I was arrested under the same charges as my brother since i had access in the apartment (which also my parents had), i spent 5 days in the detention facilities i was the only non smoker person there... at some point my parents came to talk to me behind bars very briefly we exchanged a few words... then they came again the other days, didn't want to meet them... Me and my brother were released great Friday, i didn't blame my brother, in my eyes the only responsible were my parents... i tried so hard to make them see the errors of their way but i couldnt reason with them they didnt admit anything so i left my home now i was living with relatives, the very site of my parents disgust me, to me they were conspirators, my absences put so much strain in them that they came before me and begged me to return home... i forced my father to apologize for what they have done, that was the only time i heard him saying sorry to me and not out of his own volition (how miserable is this ?)... a year have passed and we were at the court for the hearing, i had to lie to keep my brother out of jail i said i had no idea about his actions.
If this were to happen again i would have demanded that my parents get apprehended as well. i so wish that my brother got caught before he turned 18 that way my parents would face charges of child neglect.
your thoughts...
Imagine you live in a 4 apartment building, all apartments are in the same floor, apartment 1 is rented to a Captain of a Police precinct and his girlfriend, apartment 2 is rented to a college student while apartment 3 is occupied by your parents and apartment 4 is shared between you (28) and your brother (18), now, imagine that your brother invites at daily basis 6-7 of his friends to smoke pot, and two or three of them stay over and spend the night. (so far you know that your brother is just a pot head with a really aggressive attitude), you know that by talking to your brother about all this would fall on deaf ears so instead of doing that you complain to your parents about the situation and the conditions you live in and demand from them to do something, and all they do is tell you "I am gonna talk to him"
This goes on for months and you still complain and demand a solution and you still get the answer "I am gonna talk to him". One day you see some pills on your brothers desk... you are not sure what to make of it, you are starting to think he has a headache... you felt a lingering feeling of unease as you try to grasp the situation but you cant wrap your mind around its like a huge question mark (?) is inside your head hiding the truth from you ... but you stopped pondering after half a minute you went to your bedroom and shut the door behind you once more. The next week after an irrelevant conversation you had with you brother he pretty much told you he is selling drugs (pot, pills, and what ever else ) which now explains why at times you were seeing around the apartment a small digital precision scale.
Christmas were a few days further and your brother asks your parents for cash around 700 euro under the pretense that he was involved in an accident with his motor bike and since his insurance has expired insurance wouldn't cover the damages, so my parents gave him 700 euro and that wasn't the only time they heard his pretenses, this time, it was about "laptops that were going to be shipped from Germany" and your parents gave your brother money until they ended up doing Christmas with a total of 50 euro.
Months come, months go, until Easter has come, you still complain to your parents and you are still insisting that they need to do something, anything...and as always: "I am gonna talk to him". Disappointed you return to your room while holding your breath till the door is closed you feel that this situation is so unhealthy that actually its like a poison passing through the cracks of the closed door and entering your room floating all around you, you feel disgust by the smell...
Woke up in the morning it was a good day, Monday, the first day of the Great Weak. I dressed up and around 10 in the morning went for my daily gym exercise that took about 2hours and 30minutes. I remember i had with me a bottle of water as i was slowly walking towards home, I entered the main door of the apartment building continued walking towards my apartment, entered it and went to my room to remove my pants cause i was feeling hot then laid down in my bed and had removed my glasses. Next to me was my brother sitting on the pc listening to music everything was flowing smoothy until i saw a man pointing a gun at us, at first i thought it was a friend of my brother playing a prank on us i couldnt really see without my glasses... oh i was so wrong... it turns out the DEA had invaded our home after 6 anonymous arraignments...
I was arrested under the same charges as my brother since i had access in the apartment (which also my parents had), i spent 5 days in the detention facilities i was the only non smoker person there... at some point my parents came to talk to me behind bars very briefly we exchanged a few words... then they came again the other days, didn't want to meet them... Me and my brother were released great Friday, i didn't blame my brother, in my eyes the only responsible were my parents... i tried so hard to make them see the errors of their way but i couldnt reason with them they didnt admit anything so i left my home now i was living with relatives, the very site of my parents disgust me, to me they were conspirators, my absences put so much strain in them that they came before me and begged me to return home... i forced my father to apologize for what they have done, that was the only time i heard him saying sorry to me and not out of his own volition (how miserable is this ?)... a year have passed and we were at the court for the hearing, i had to lie to keep my brother out of jail i said i had no idea about his actions.
If this were to happen again i would have demanded that my parents get apprehended as well. i so wish that my brother got caught before he turned 18 that way my parents would face charges of child neglect.
your thoughts...
Post edited by dreamtraveler on
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Comments
That said, I'm glad nobody ever called the cops on me for using pot, even though its use had been largely decriminalized in my country since before I used.
Your brother, and your brother alone is responsible for his actions. Not your parents. Putting all the blame on them, while giving him a free pass doesnt benefit anyone.
He needs to learn from his actions and you need to distance yourself from him until he does.
That said, your parents weren't selling drugs out of an apartment you shared with them. I would personally default to the possibly crazy Christian solution of forgiving parents and brother, but I think you'd be justified in wanting a break from all 3, parents and brother! Let time help.
First, people have different characters and personalities, and it sounds like your family was just too mellow when it came to enforcing authority. It happens.
Second, although legally a 18 y.o. is an adult, psychologically it's not always the case in modern society.
Lastly, as an older - by whopping 10 years - brother living in the same apartment, you were as much responsible for him as your parents were, so if you want someone to blame, then you can't really pass adding yourself to the list.
I understand very well the urge to point a finger at someone and say "you've brought ruin and disaster into my peaceful life!", but in the end it's just poison. As DreadKhan said, let time help, the urge will pass eventually.
Also, a more practical advice - if you ever notice something is wrong but the shit hasn't hit the fan yet, make sure you don't have anything illegal in your apartment, or on your hardware, or in browser history, etc. I.e. basically assume that police is already on its way to barge into your house this night, and you don't want them to find anything that might incriminate yourself (in addition to whatever they were after in the first place), and you also don't want to look like there could be something they've missed by a chance.
was it that i didn't call the police ?
or because i lied in court ?
As for the proper course of action, I was in fact going to update my previous post - consider going straight to lawyer if there's unsolvable trouble, they should have a better idea how to proceed in a given situation. The idea may sound weird or even scary to some, but this is what lawyers are for. Just like you shouldn't postpone a visit to doctor until you start coughing up blood.
Yeah, you've failed in your brotherly duties almost as much as your parents did. It's ridiculous to blame your parents for being to soft on him when you were clearly letting him get away with the same shit yourself instead of giving him the boundaries he needed.
Jesus. I assumed you'd have to be the younger brother from your feckless and shiftless attitude. Seriously, you're 30 years old, not 8. You shouldn't have to go crying to your parents to rein your ten years younger brother in. You were the fucking adult in that apartment, you're the one who let that happen.