My son's death broke me, but I've learnt how to stay sober no matter what

Telegraph

2 days ago

I started drinking when I was 12, using alcohol to manage my emotions. We moved around a lot because of my father's job, so I was constantly changing schools. Then my father died when I was 19 and drinking numbed the grief. It gave me a sense of control in a world that felt out of control to me.
I drank socially, but it was clear to me from a very early age that I didn't drink in the same way as my friends. I was a blackout drinker – I would lose hours at a time. When I was 17, the church group I attended invited a guest speaker to talk about alcohol abuse. They read out 20 questions that could show if you were an alcoholic. I answered yes to 18 of them. The speaker didn't offer any advice on how to tackle the problem, though. So I thought to myself: 'Oh well, I'm an alcoholic. I'll just have to learn how to hide it.'
For years, I was able to hide the extent of my alcoholism. I did well in school, I went to university. I got married young and had two kids. I didn't drink when I was pregnant, but the stress of having two children in two years led me to become a daily drinker.
I promised myself that I would never start drinking until the kids were asleep. Which meant I started putting them to bed earlier and earlier. Every morning, I woke up and swore I wouldn't drink that day, but every night I was drunk again.
It was just before my son RJ's third birthday that I decided to get sober. My daughter, Emma, was one. I looked at myself and realised: 'I'm going to be that alcoholic mum.' My best friend's mum had been an alcoholic when I was growing up, and I remembered what that was like for her. I didn't want to be that person. I was finally able to get sober in February 1989.
People frequently say things like, 'You have to get sober for yourself. You can't get sober for anybody else.' But I got sober for my children. The first years of sobriety were tough. My marriage ended a few months after I stopped drinking. Money was tight. At one point, I worked three jobs. I had to learn how to live with all of my emotions without the anaesthesia of alcohol. At first, it felt like my skin had been peeled off. What got me through that period was reminding myself that I was doing it out of love for my kids. We made a new life together. I built a good career, and the three of us became a happy little family with lots of laughter and joy. I used to think that the only thing that could make me drink again would be if something happened to my kids.
RJ was in a car accident in January of 2003. He was 16. He hadn't taken alcohol or drugs, he was wearing his seatbelt and driving a couple of miles to his best friend's house on a rainy night. His car was hit from the side in an intersection, and he sustained a very significant traumatic brain injury. He didn't die that night, but what came in the years that followed compounded the trauma for all of us.
I was 40 and still a single mum. Shortly after the accident, it became clear that RJ's injuries were very significant. He was in intensive care for weeks, and we didn't know what was going to happen to him. My daughter was 15 at the time, so I was trying to help and support her while going back and forth to the hospital.
I had a successful career in advertising at the time: I was the vice president of a large agency, but unfortunately, my insurance denied coverage for RJ's care in a rehabilitation facility. I had to take him home. I set up his bedroom like a hospital room. My aunt, who is a nurse, came to help and show me how to give him shots, do physical therapy. He was being fed through a tube in his stomach. He'd lost 30lb in the ICU so I made calorie-dense mixtures in the blender to put in his feeding tube to help him gain weight. He was in a coma, and only me and my teenage daughter were there to look after him, although our far-flung family visited as much as they could.
When RJ turned 18 I put him in a nursing home. It was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made. He was out of the coma but couldn't walk or talk. He knew who we were, which was a relief, and he could do simple thumbs up and thumbs down gestures for yes and no. The nursing home treated him well, but it was woefully underfunded and there would be buckets lined up capturing the rainwater that came through the roof. My daughter and I would visit often. In the summer of 2005, RJ got the flu and stopped eating, so they fed him through the tube into his stomach. Unfortunately, an error occurred, which meant the nutrition was going into his abdomen rather than his stomach. He developed sepsis. He went back into a coma, which the doctors said he would never come out of. I had to decide to let him go.
People often ask how I stayed sober after RJ died, and how I didn't respond in the same way I had to my father's death: by drinking the pain away. A couple of things stopped me from doing so. First: Emma was a teenager, she had lost her brother and needed my support more than ever. Second: I understood enough about myself as an alcoholic to know if I picked up just one drink, I would go immediately back to my old ways and that my daughter would suffer.
Staying sober means separating illusion from reality. The illusion is that I might be able to drink safely, in moderation. The reality is that I am an alcoholic. I had an illusion that I could somehow control my grief; the duration, intensity, or timing. The reality is that I have no control over it.
Grief is like the weather: you don't know what it will be like from one day to the next, you just have to adjust to the conditions as best you can. Sometimes, I would be fine for weeks, and then burst into tears on a business trip at the sight of a little boy running towards his mother in an airport.
This summer will mark the 20th anniversary of RJ's death and I know now there is no end to the grief over the loss of a child. It changes, but it will always be a part of me.
What helped was finding community. I sought out recovering alcoholics who had also lost children. I needed people around me who could model moving through loss without alcohol or drugs, who understood what I was going through, who could show me how to stay sober no matter what.
Many people are impatient about grief. After the initial wave of empathy, they begin to act like you should, at some point, get over it. I felt self-conscious about still being broken-hearted years after he died, like I was grieving wrong.
One sober, bereaved mother told me I should never be ashamed of crying. She let herself cry after her child died until she was done crying, regardless of what others thought. I realised I would never be the same person again after losing RJ. And that was OK. It enabled me to show myself some grace and compassion. Once I started to accept that this was my life now, I could be more gentle and forgiving with myself.
The guidance and support I have found in my spiritual practice and community has helped me live with the loss. I am remarried and I'm a grandmother; Emma is happily married with two children and a career as a nurse. I understand that RJ's death broke me and I may never be fully back together. But I am still able to experience happiness and joy. When my granddaughter was born she looked just like RJ. Being around my grandchildren is joyful, even though I know now how it might end.
I've learnt how to stay sober no matter what. By sharing my story, I might help others navigate pain and loss. I have never been seriously tempted to pick up another drink. There is a phrase in recovery groups that always comes to mind when I'm feeling low: 'There's nothing so bad that a drink won't make it worse.'
As told to Sam Delaney
The Saint And The Drunk - A Guide To Making The Big Decisions In Your Life by Stephanie Peirolo is out now