I remember the first narcotics anonymous meeting I attended.
Introductions went around the circle; it got closer and closer to me. My palms
sweat. Then I heard it, after many years of knowing it and praying for it, I
heard my big brothers say,
“Hi, I’m Keith and I am a drug addict.”
“Hi, I’m Kyle and I am a meth addict.”
Hi, my name is Katelyn and I’m their sister.
Words I have always been proud to say, but probably never as
proud as I am when I say them at those meetings. Meetings I am grateful to be
a part of.
Each one represents another day that my amazing big brothers are
clean.
I have always LOVED being the baby sister and ADORED my big
brothers. When I was little they would push me up and down the halls in our home in cardboard boxes. At our family's grocery store they pushed me up and down the aisle on the dolly. I would lay in the living room floor watching sports I didn't care about with Keith as he ate his cereal all weird. (He holds his spoon real weird.) I watched them put up the dishes after dinner cause I was too little to clean up.
Being the baby and only girl is the best. :)
I looked up to Keith,
the oldest, as if he could do no wrong. I cheered like an embarrassing banshee
at his high school basketball games (I was 9) and looked forward to anytime I
got to see him. This didn't change as I got older and he came around less and less.
Growing up, I
followed Kyle around doing whatever he was doing: sock wars, rollerblading on
side streets, and putting on shows on New Year’s Eve (OK, that was my idea.).
Kyle tormented me relentlessly, carrying on the torch Keith beat into him(He never really grew out of this). As I got older, Kyle and I talked a lot about a lot of things, I have always felt grateful to be one of the few people that gets to know him.
Keith and Kyle have two different stories of destruction.
But both of deliverance.
Keith started drinking when he was 13, first smoked marijuana when he was 14, and tried meth when he was 15. Drinking and smoking marijuana was what he did with his friends on weekends.
He didn't fear it. He would never be an addict.
It was just something he and his friends did.
It wasn't until he graduated high school that he began using meth regularly and bought his first bag.
At 21, Keith couldn't make it to work on time, was always broke, and had become an empty shell of himself. He came clean to our dad and four days later he was in rehab.
I was in 8th grade.
I remember the hope that he would come home and everything would be different.
That dad's face would not look so sad.
He drank the day after he got out and used meth a week and half later.
I was a freshman in high school and was waiting for my friend to pick me up for school. Dad had left for work and the house was empty except for me. I heard a noise in the kitchen and came out of my room to find out what it was.
Keith had thought no one was home and snuck in to find food.
It broke my heart.
Keith began stealing to pay for his addiction and was arrested.
His time in jail and rehab were the times I felt closest to him. We wrote letters back and forth. I loved being able to tell him about what was going on in my life, I loved that he wanted to know. I looked forward to visiting him. It was always hard seeing him behind the glass, holding a phone to talk to him when he was close enough to hug.
I remember with each visit I just wanted to make him smile, but we would inevitably cry.
He ended each letter with "You're in my prayers, love you always".
He didn't believe he was good enough for his own prayers and turned to God for everyone else, but himself.
Keith went on to Heartland Ministries. An 18 month recovery program in Northeast Missouri. He worked on the dairy farm, attending mandatory church and bible studies.
My dad and I spent Thanksgiving that year visiting Keith at Heartland.
There was hope.
I prayed and prayed.
Keith was kicked out for using tobacco.
He used meth that same night.
He couldn't let go. He couldn't let God take over for something he should be able to do himself.
My senior year my dad called me while I was at school.
I could hear it in his voice. The disappointment. The sadness. The utter helplessness.
Keith had signed for a package at a friend's house. A package sent and monitored by the FBI.
He received a felony charge while still on felony probation.
I remember him telling me he might not be at my graduation. I remember being heart broken.
A year later, in the summer of 2008, Keith was finally scared. After feeling that he could out smart the people around him for so long, he knew he was going to prison. But that still did not stop him from using.
In October my dad and brothers visited me and we all went to Mizzou's football. I showed them around campus, the Journalism school (I was in the J-school at that time), we went out for dinner and saw a great game. We had a such a fun day.
That Tuesday I received the same dreaded phone call from dad.
Keith had failed his urine test.
Had we finally reached the end? Was this the final straw? Would this be his bottom?
At 27 years old, he finally knew he could do it no more.
Keith prayed.
Keith gave up control. He knew what he needed and that he could not do it by himself.
After all this time of refusing to turn to God because of his unworthiness and inability to do his part, he was relieved. He knew it was over.
Keith spent the next 6 months in prison.
And he came out on the other side himself.
A person we hadn't seen in so very long.
Kyle started using when he was 17. He had no regard for
authority and tough guy bravado. I always thought he was so angry. Angry at
God, angry at our dad, angry at anyone who told him how it was or how it should
be. He wasn’t going to listen to anyone.
It all started simply enough. He had
been drinking and that night his friends didn’t have marijuana, they had meth.
He got high. At first it was once a month, then once a week, then there wasn’t
a time he wasn’t on meth.
I prayed his son, Little Keith, would change him, change his heart and when it didn't I prayed fervently for that little boy.
At 24, when Kyle almost lost him, he went to rehab.
I spent so much time at Valley Hope for those 28 days. Visiting with him in the evenings, attending meetings, and at the end, decorating his mug. Around the ceiling of facility hung plates and mugs decorated by hopeful addicts planning to return to claim them after a year of sobriety. Many hung adorned with black ribbons, showing they would never claim them.
In April of 2009, we celebrated Kyle's birthday at Valley Hope and he received his mug.
I have always known the truth, that he wasn’t so tough. The boy who let me think I got a hole
in one in the makeshift back yard golf course and the one who told me it was okay to cry at our great
grandma’s funeral.
Throughout his addiction, Keith believed in God and knew that only by turning to Him would he be free. His feelings of unworthiness, shame, and self hate kept him from doing so.
Kyle however, may have believed there was a God, but saw no need for him in his life. He didn't care, about anyone or anything except getting high.
Kyle knows now that there was not a day during his addiction that God was not with Him. That there is no other explanation for his survival, for his sobriety.
Kyle professes that had he not went through addiction, he doubts he would have ever turned to God.
God is sovereign.
There is no doubt in my mind that my brother's addictions were not random. But powerful tools used in each of our lives to show us God's character, love, and grace.
In less than two weeks, Keith will have been clean 5 years! Kyle will follow in April.
The past 5 years have been filled to overflowing:
Keith asked one of the funnest, most beautiful hearted people, Stefanie, to marry him.
His son, Quade, was born and I have never seen him so proud.
Kyle found love with one of my oldest and dearest friends, Amanda, and is taking care of her boys and his.
There isn't a birthday, family dinner, or holiday that I do not step back and thank God for His provision.
For His steadfast grace.
For His deliverance.
For my brothers.
I watch them with their families and children. I hear them speak of God, I hear them speak of that time in their life and I am filled to overflowing with gratitude for these men.
And for their struggles.
Not only did their struggles shape the lives they lead now, but they shaped me.
They shaped my prayers, shaped my reliance on God, and my love for people.
I learned so much from watching my heroes fall, and so much more by watching them get back up.
And He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in
and give us the land that He swore to give to our fathers.
Deuteronomy 6:23
