I lost my brother in January 2021, circumstances were horrible. My brother was a Functioning alcoholic, he was this way for most of his life, he managed to lose 2 families in the process, My brother was always big strong and full of life the life and soul of the party but last time I saw him he was a shell of himself (I saw him just before Christmas 2020) we exchanged gifts.
Background to this we had a falling out for a few years due to the alcohol as he was treating my parents badly and I couldn’t deal with it…My parents supported him all the time and each time he threw it back in there face…We got back in touch when his wife messaged to say he was in hospital he had fallen down the stairs and he had a brain bleed etc and they were spending several hours operating on him. We saw him in the hospital and it was just devastating to see him so weak and tubes and monitors coming out of everywhere (he recovered from this and was taking a medication to stop the urge for drinking)…We started again and we would now phone and message each other and started seeing each other as well it felt amazing then the dreaded day came well days…My brother went missing because him and his wife had an argument…The police were involved and phoned each day to check that I had not seen him etc and it was put in papers that he was missing etc,I got my hopes up on the Monday as someone thought they had seen him, his wife had messaged so i kept everything crossed…I was online and then to my horror someone had put on my comment about I’m sorry for your loss I was like what on earth is going on I messaged his wife and got no reply I then had a call from the Police all I remembered was screaming and crying no…My husband ended up speaking to the police who then blue lighted to us and well that is just a blur being given a cruse bereavement leaflet but No-one had told my parents I knew they had to be told so we went over to my parents with the police to tell them…He was found in a disused garage he had crawled through a slight gap…I can remember my mum the noise she made was totally and utterly devastated.
I know this is long winded but I need to get everything off of my chest… Last Monday we attended my brothers inquest so it took over 2 years to finally get answers so it has brought everything flooding back in my brain and I just feel like im running on autopilot…The coroner concluded that he had been drinking and he had a heart attack which made him grab his chest and he fell forwards and banged his head which caused a skull fracture…We heard everything that had happened the fact that a lady had heard him in the early hours calling for help (but where he was found was a known place where drug users go so obviously she was scared and she didn’t know my brother was missing)…I am just broken again.
I’m so sorry for the loss of your brother, @Star75 - that is devastating. You are not alone. You might want to chat to @Julie22 and @Hrartbroken, whose brothers also suffered with addiction. You may understand some of what each other is going through.
I hope you’ve been getting some support through the inquest process, which can be so tough. If you need some extra support, please do think about speaking to your GP. If you’re interested in counselling, we offer free online counselling, too.
Keep reaching out and take care,
Seaneen