Dear Prudence,
My brother and I were always close. He was a generous, compassionate, intense guy who chose a career working with vulnerable populations. He worked really hard, going above and beyond at work and in his neighborhood. He loved his clients, but systemic issues regularly broke his heart. Over the past few years, he slid into drinking heavily to deal with work stress. Last year, I told him he couldn’t see my kids until he got sober.
After the inauguration, he hit new lows, and I told him my husband and I couldn’t be in his life either until he started making an effort toward sobriety. I didn’t care if he got into an annoying church or became one of those people who talk nonstop about diets, if it helped him stop drinking. His drinking had already burned bridges with our other two siblings. I know that his employer knew he had a drinking problem, but even when he became a risk to clients, they did nothing. I believed that he would recognize that the excuses weren’t working and he would talk to his doctor, go to AA, or take up CrossFit for stress. He’d always been so stubborn and strongly disciplined—a marathon runner, a guy who set himself crazy challenges just to see if he could meet them. I believed we would fight, he would get better, and we would make up. I know alcoholism doesn’t go away, but I hoped he’d get into recovery for the long haul.
Instead, he died driving drunk a few months later. It was stupid and selfish, and I’m so sad and guilty. My parents want to pretend the drinking didn’t happen, my siblings don’t want to talk about him at all, and my husband is just angry at him. But I’m haunted by all the what-ifs about our last conversation, and all the ways he could have survived if things were different. I’m grieving but not in a way I can talk about with anyone else who knows him, and I don’t know what to do.