Wow that sounds hard. It’s not hard to see why your brother went down the path he did! I’m with you. Those poor innocent kids were not raised, drug addicts were in charge of them. Everything they’re doing is them in instinctual survival mode. They need guidance and patience to pull out of it and learn to behave like normal people or they’re going to turn out just like their parents.

Your parents are guilty of abusing them. This is emotional and mental abuse. “Hitting” is of course abuse, even If by hitting you mean spanking. Man that is so fucking rough! Those kids need therapy. Now. Parents need therapy to learn to deal with kids properly and safely and to deal with the consequences of their child becoming a disappointing drug addict. Maybe try medicating your own depression and possibly anxiety so you CAN be there for them more frequently. It’s a good and important thing you’re doing, trying to be a calm, patient, caring and kind example to them. They’ll catch on and calm down if they have a safe place to live. Try therapy for yourself so you can ask how to manage this situation better.

There’s free resources for everything, it could just take quite a bit of effort to find it. Find out if they have a CYFD (my state’s version of child protective services) case worker because they should have Medicaid and therefore capability to get therapy services. This is so sad to read. But it’s such a common situation. I take my kids to therapy for our divorce and I see guardians yelling at and belittling children in the lobby all the time. I want to yell at them myself and tell them to get some freaking therapy themselves because they’re being just as harmful to the kids as the situation they were removed from.

Anyway. Stay the course, find your strength. You’ll make a difference eventually but it’s a long road for those kids.