Such a valid point; success should not be measured only in dollars. I began explaining the basics of the Fediverse with some of my friends and the first question they asked was, “How do people even make money on there then?” It’s a bit disheartening to see how money-driven things are for some people.

I don’t think it’s selfish at all. But yeah maybe make the suggestion and let him decide, or ask him if it’s okay for you to update them about his situation.

I hope he gets to that point soon. He is fortunate to have you in his life. That normalcy of talking to someone close can be a huge difference.

Personally I would not set up an email for him unless you ask him first or he asks you. It would be with good intentions, but I think supporting people with addiction includes helping them do their responsibilities, not do it for them, otherwise it can be enabling.

That instability can be really stressful. I can relate so much when you said you were proud and hopeful for him, and then something happens. That anxiety of praying nothing goes wrong because it’s happened too many times. I’m so glad he is in a good facility though; that is not always possible for people.

It sounds like you are already starting this but I highly encourage you to do frequent therapy sessions. That stress can really weigh on a person. Even being around those situations can cause secondary trauma that need support to process.

Do what is best for your situation, but I think having a more direct relationship is better. From the experience with my mom, the filtering is usually only in her best interest, not mine. You and your sibling are allowed to have your own adult relationship.

I think your post card idea is so cool. Keep us updated on how it goes. Keep your good supports close. And take time off or drop responsibilities as you need to. I learned the hard way that those heavy life stressors require a lot of extra time throughout the day, and keeping responsibilities to a minimum helps.

I had an ex-gf that would sit down for showers when possible, and sometimes fall asleep lol

Wow, that’s a tough hand to be dealt; I’m really sorry about your cousin. I’m glad you could be there for him in those ways. Many people have little or no support.

And you hit a couple of really good points with giving freedom without enabling. That’s wayyyy more easier said than done and takes constant awareness. And not feeling responsible for their actions. I’m glad that you were able to take your experience from your friend and apply that, because that becomes a whole rabbit hole of “well if I had just done something different.”

Thank you for sharing that.

Thank you. It’s not a common acronym; I just didn’t see a way I wanted to shorten it haha.

Outside of this post with the link, people that search “addiction” would probably see the community. I posted essentially this same post in other instances’ chat communities, and made sure this new community was discoverable by lemmy.world, beehaw.org, vlemmy.net, lemmy.one, and kbin.social. I also asked that the mental health community lists this as a “related community.”

I found beehaw first, so I started there but then discovered that the admins manage the community creation there. So I made a new account on lemmy.world to mod that, and most browsed with my beehaw account. But then beehaw needed to de-federate from lemmy.world, so I made a vLemmy and lemmy.one accounts so I could interact with both beehaw and lemmy.world.

tl;dr As someone else mentioned, finding a smaller, low-profile instance to have your home account but interacting with other instances seems to be the best approach

I personally love !dadjokes@lemmy.world

I may be a little biased because I mod it ;)