(Editor’s Note: This piece is part of a joint series between the Beckham County Record and Elk City News in an ongoing series on the fentanyl and opiate pandemic in Beckham County.)
“If this only helps one person, it will be worth sharing our story,” the grieving big sister said.
On August 4, 2019, Melissa Stout posted a long-form poem about her little brother Brandon’s longtime struggle with drug addiction.
At the time, Brandon had been battling drugs, which started with pain pills and eventually expanded to include almost anything he could use for over a decade.
Stout had just visited him in jail, and her heart sang as she saw the now sober, “real Brandon” bursting through the shell of an addict who had been keeping him captive inside. She wrote, “Y’all, this is the raw, unfiltered side of what it’s like to love an addict. To some, they’re just another tweeker...to others, that’s your brother. This is what it looks like when you finally get to see him after you haven’t seen your brother is months. I mean, I’ve seen him, but y’all that addict isn’t my brother. The addict avoids me at all costs because it doesn’t like that I can see through it. It consumes every part of my brother that I know. It creates the tallest, strongest walls around that person I know is in there. Tonight, I saw him, and who knows when that’ll happen again & it broke my heart. My best friend is still in there, and while I hate the addict, I love my brother.
My brother is the biggest-hearted, most loving, funniest person I’ve ever seen...but that addict is ugly to its core.
This is the stuff that kills you as their family on the inside and causes enabling... because all you want is the best for them (and sometimes even providing a meal enables the next high). It’s hard not to see the person you know they’re capable of being.
My brother is one of the smartest people I know...I just wish he could see that, but the addict lies to him.
I’m tough, like real tough, but this broke me tonight.
So, if you’ve made it this far in my ramblings, I ask you to pray. Pray for the addicts you know. Pray for those you walk by in the grocery store. Pray that they find their reason and their purpose in this world. Sometimes, that’s praying that they find their “rock bottom”. And pray for their families... because they’re all loved deeply by someone who is praying for their person back!”
Stout says she saw that visit was both triumphant and terrifying because she knew his addiction could pop back up at any time.
“It was hope and helpless simultaneously,” Stout recounted. “We knew it was as simple as him having a toothache that randomly popped up or running into an old ‘friend’ that didn’t have his best interest at heart because they were in the struggle, too.”
Her family’s worst fears were realized on March 5, 2023, when Brandon was found dead in his bed.
At the time, he was in drug court, and his family had been optimistic that this might be the “last time.”
Instead, he was lost to them forever — another victim of the opiate and fentanyl epidemic.
Brandon was only 36 years old.
Stout insisted that she be the one to carry his lifeless body to the ambulance.
“He was only two years and four days younger than me,” she smiled softly. “He took care of me a lot when he could as adults. For example, he could walk by the house — and I’m sure sometimes that walking was to find or get drugs. But, even in that state, he would see my yard needed to be mowed, and I would come home to him mowing it. He was always trying to take care of me and my kids. He was always bringing home little critters for them. There is no telling how many grilled cheeses he made for them through the years. But he was also my first baby. I grew up with him on my hip for as long as I could. I needed to carry him one last time, as I had so many times in his life, and I knew this would be my last chance ever to do that. As much as I was in shock that morning, I had also been preparing myself for this possibility for years. All families who love addicts must wrestle with that possibility because the danger is real. So, I was in shock partly, but I also knew it was real. Our worst nightmare had come true, and all I needed was to be his big sister one last time.”
But, above all the pain and sometimes anger at his death, Stout first and foremost highlights what a good person, son, brother, and uncle he was.
“He cared for animals in a way that only someone with a great heart could,” Stout explained.
Stout says his battles with addiction came early in life during his teenage years.
“We first learned that there was a big problem when he was about 17. He got arrested and ended up in drug court. Judge Haught said at the time that he was one of the first people who went through the full program with no sanctions, which is pretty rare. So, we knew he wanted to get better,” Stout explained.
However, the relapses continued to happen. Eventually, his pain pill addiction led to fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine. The combination is often deadly.
“I think I took him to six rehabs in total, and I would have happily taken him to number seven. He went to jail several times and even prison for a bit. Because Mom and I have worked so long in law enforcement as dispatchers and communications officers, we had a front-row seat for how the system works. We have been on both sides, so knowing that Brandon was in it was hard. But, there was also a relief anytime that he was in jail. I could sleep through the night knowing he was safe in jail and not in danger on the streets,” Stout remembered.
Currently working as a dispatcher in Roger Mills County, she says she has met many families who share that same sentiment for their incarcerated loved ones through the years.
Today, it has almost been six months since Brandon lost his final battle with the drug that derailed half his life. Stout says she and her parents are currently working through the anger phase of grief.
“Grief is the worst thing I have ever been through, and it is even harder since my parents and my children go through it with me,” Stout admitted. “The anger isn’t really for Brandon, but the situation. Should we be mad the first time he did the drug? Should we be mad at the people who gave it to him or even the people who created them in the first place for profit? I can definitely say that I have anger for the people who have become rich off our misery, but I don’t know how to make them really be accountable and feel the pain that their greed put upon us and so many others. All I can do now is focus on how lucky I was to have Brandon as my brother. The addict in him was a stranger and a person that I didn’t like at all. But the addict wasn’t Brandon. The addict was just something that took over from time to time and stole him from us. Brandon himself was a ray of sunshine. He could make me laugh in ways that no one ever will again. He was my first real friend. For any person struggling with this battle, I say that there is always hope. Find the people who truly love you, and keep walking through it. Even if you stumble, get back up. For the families who love an addict, I know it is hard. You have to keep love and hope, too, though. There is a thin line between love and enabling. Sometimes it is hard to cut off the enabling because you worry so much. Brandon did his best when he was forced to take care of himself and use his resources.”
Stout added, “I also urge people to give recovering addicts a second chance when they are doing well. I know in a small town that Brandon often had a stigma around him that would keep him from getting a job. That wasn’t very encouraging to him. It would make him wonder what the point even was, and that would lead to depression. You may save someone’s life by giving them a chance at a job.”
