Violent Family Death

[minister]

I do not post here often, although I do quite a bit of lurking around, I am here because I really am having a hard time coping with a recent death in my family.
My younger brother who was 22, suffered from drug and alcohol addiction all his life. I have seen him through four overdoses, and various other incidents that are to long to get into here. He suffered a relapse in October, and destroyed my parents house in a alcohol induced rage on my birthday. After that, I knew every incident that followed would be worse just like it always was. Unfortunately I was right. On Monday of this week he showed up intoxicated behind a school with a very real looking toy gun. He proceeded to wave it at passerbys, untill someone called the police. When the police arrived they instructed him to put down the weapon. Instead of following the officers instructions, he proceeded to point the toy gun in the direction of the officer, who shot him three times, once in the neck, once in the arm, and once in the torso. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
I have never dealt with a death like this, so close to home and so senseless at the same time. I am having a hard time coping. I go to sleep crying, and I cry when I wake up. Throughout the day, my mind races constantly. I have fits of anger and bouts of crying seemingly out of nowhere. I know I need help, I guess I am hoping someone here could give me some tips on how to cope and work through this. I will seek counseling after the funeral, I just need some help coping until then. Any and all help/advice would be greatly appreciated,. Thank you for your time

Brother, back in 2000 I walked into my best friend's house, I walked into his bedroom and there he was with a gun still in his mouth and a hole in the back of his head,(sorry to be so graphic), but that was exactly what I saw, it was the most shocking , horrifying, heart breaking thing I have ever been through. He was suffering from depression and other physical ailments. Now as I stood there the first thing that came into my mind was, Did I do enough to prevent this?, and this overwhelming feeling of guilt came over me, but you see these internal struggles people go through are beyond us bro, we have no idea what is going on inside a man's soul and mind when they're fighting their own demons, we can only hope that they would be successful in the battle, and many are, but there is some that lose that battle, and a few that pay the ultimate price as such my best friend and your brother, this is something that will be with us for the rest of our lives, we will never forget it and it will always hurt, you just learn to cope with it and as time goes on and the shock wears off and the grieving time passes, you will cope with it, sounds to me like you loved your bro and you tried your best to help him, so please don't feel any guilt or think that you were not there for him, because you were, your bro made a tragic mistake at a time when his judgment was hindered by his addiction, you will have good days and bad days till all heals. May the Good Lord give you and your family the strength you need to make it through this very tough times. God bless you.