Detaching With Love – A Mother’s Story
Margaret Searle is a mother; a mother whose son, David, developed the disease of addiction. In the last month of David’s life, he became a missing person, walking out of his home and out of the lives of all who loved him. Devastated – fighting for his life against those in society who should have been there to help vulnerable people like David – social services, the medical profession and local authorities – all of whom failed him at the end, Margaret chose to tell their story using testimony taken from the diaries David wrote while in rehab. She titled it, Detach With Love. But Margaret’s book goes further than that. It not only challenges a rethink on the accepted wisdom of non-intervention, but also on society’s view of addicts, challenging society to see them not as dropouts but as people who are ill, perhaps someone’s child, needing help and understanding.
Margaret Searle shares her family’s story in her new book, Detach With Love.
Margaret – who lives in East Sussex, England – shares a day her life in her guest post below. To learn more about the work she’s doing – which also carries the name of her book, please visit her, Detach With Love, or email her at queries@detachwithlove.co.uk. To purchase her book in paperback via Amazon UK, please click here and in Kindle, please click here.
A Day in the Life ……(of Parents of an Alcoholic) by Margaret Searle, Author of Detach With Love
Margaret Searle founded Detach With Love “determined that David’s short life and experiences of addiction should not be in vain” wanting to help others in their situation, to help doctors understand the disease, to help society as a whole learn what alcoholism is and is not.
Now 4 years on, David, having been dry for several months and recently returned to his flat in Brighton, was embarking on a series of benders; slowly destroying himself yet again.
It was an unusually hot Saturday and we had a call to tell us our son had been found on the seafront, that he was drunk but far more worryingly he couldn’t see. It seemed that days of drinking had literally made him blind drunk.
By the time he had been treated at the hospital and traveled back to his flat it was very late and we found him sitting on the floor, his face inches from the TV. To all intents and purposes he was blind.
The good news was that the doctor was convinced that as long as he kept off the drink his loss of sight would not be permanent. That, as they say, was easier said than done.
However it gave us the chance to talk about ‘the problem’- the elephant in the room – with David. For once he agreed that his drinking was not going to get better without outside intervention and we discussed what our next move should be.
We had recently heard about a drop in centre in Brighton where, we were told, there was immediate help on offer for desperate cases. To our surprise David agreed to visit it next morning.
We arrived at his flat early the next day and could immediately see things were not good.
David was still in bed, unable and unwilling to get up. Like many alcoholics, knowing he might be detoxed the next day, he had decided to go on a bender soon after we had left the previous night. Things had moved from bad to worse in the last twelve hours. Eventually after a lot of hard work and persuasion, we got him dressed, out of the front door and into the car.
Slowly my husband manoeuvred through the busy Brighton holiday traffic as we searched for the drop-in centre. David’s physical state was very unstable and deteriorating fast and we could only hope that there would be someone at the centre who would know what to do and could get help quickly if he had a seizure.
We parked and managed to half drag, half walk David along to the narrow flight of steps which led to a small basement room. We sat and waited and I looked anxiously at my boy. He started to shift around, his hands shaking uncontrollably and beads of sweat appeared on his nose and forehead. He leant heavily against us. He begged me to get him his drink which I realised we had stupidly left in the car. There was nothing for it. I ran all the way back and grabbed his life saving bottle of vodka. I was desperate. My only aim now was to get the vodka down David’s throat as quickly as possible before he collapsed.
I almost threw myself back into that horrid little basement room. David reached for the bottle and slugged down the liquor at full speed.
After what seemed an eternity we were called into a little back room, somewhat grandly called an office. David sat down and we stood, looking now at the man we hoped might be our son’s salvation.
He was a large West Indian Rastafarian with a rainbow tea cosy on his head and the brightest shirt I have ever seen. He had a broad toothy smile and listened intently, sometimes nodding sometimes staring at David as we told him our story.
When we finished he just grunted and said there was nothing he could suggest immediately. That he heard cases like this every day and started to look up addresses in a book on his cluttered desk. All he could offer was an out-patient counselling session for David – probably, and he stressed probably, in six weeks time. I do not think any of us could believe the futility, given the situation.
We looked at the state David was in and thought he could be dead in six hours how on earth could he hold on for six weeks? We left in utter despair.
We got David into the car, his condition had deteriorated and he was vomiting badly and we realised that he needed expert help fast so we headed for the hospital.
Whilst Keith was desperately trying to find the right road I rang our family doctor to get advice in case we needed to give David emergency treatment ourselves.
Once again she was utterly hopeless, freezing as she realised that she had to deal with a potentially dangerous situation and was unable to help us. She made no effort to calm our fears, in fact made things far worse as she panicked.
What seemed like an age, we found the hospital and dragged him in. I explained to the nurse the severity of his symptoms and the certain outcome if he did not have medical intervention very quickly. She calmly told me to sit down and that David would be treated as soon as possible. We waited and waited and eventually my anxiety overtook my natural reticence. I went up to the nurse and demanded that David was seen and said that if he was not given diazepam or some other stabilising drug quickly he would fit very badly.
At last, after what seemed an interminable delay a doctor prescribed medication. As it took effect David gradually calmed down and the danger receded.
After a couple of hours he was seen by a second doctor who discussed his drinking. He said David would be seen by an in-house psychiatrist before he would be allowed to go home. He told us that there were no facilities for David to remain in hospital and he would be discharged that day.
The psychiatrist filled in a long form covering the history of his drinking, and said it would be passed on to a local addiction counsellor in Brighton. We never heard or saw someone from that source again.
That was it and we returned to the car, helping a still very wobbly David to get in and started the long drive to our home.
The symptoms of his withdrawal from alcohol were worse than ever. We had been given drugs to stop him fitting but they were not enough and by the evening he was begging for help. He could still barely see and he lay on the bed sweating and shaking, desperately pleading for his next tablets even though it had not been long since the last.
We looked at each other, feeling powerless and very frightened. We needed reassurance – somebody to tell us that it was going to be all right. One of us suggested phoning NHS Direct and after an interminable time we got through to a doctor who for once was so comforting in his advice. Nothing I told him fazed him. He understood completely how we must be feeling as parents. He calmly told me it was safe to increase his medication to help alleviate his symptoms. What a relief.
This time it was not just his medical advice that felt so good. He was the first person in a very long time that had taken a genuine interest in David and was prepared to listen.
Towards the end he told me something which of course I’d heard many times before.
He said that as soon as David felt better his best chance of lasting recovery was for us to let him go – to detach with love.
I felt that we had metaphorically travelled a long way that day yet got nowhere. We had faced the hopelessness of the drop-in centre in the morning, the despair and anxiety as we waited in the hospital, and now a faceless doctor talking with such kindly compassion.
On this day alone, our struggle to deal with the complexities of an illness like alcoholism at times seemed insurmountable. The frustration of getting people to understand the urgency of David’s predicament and his treatment and taking some sort of action to help him, both then and for the rest of his life, was an uphill struggle which I think we never really overcame.
We went to bed, that night nervously waiting for the next chapter in this story to unfold.
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What a heartbreaking story Margaret. I cried for your loss and felt angry at the lack of understanding of alcoholism in a city where addiction is a massive problem. Brighton is full of alcoholics. I know because I was one of them. And reading you post and website has made me so grateful for my sobriety today.
But it’s raised a big question in my mind as to how one person can be offered treatment whilst another can be dismissed. I know that an alcoholic is more likely to be taken seriously if they can show commitment to becoming sober, but of course it is so hard to get sober without some sort of help initially.
I could sense the frustration in your post about going from one place to another when clearly your son needed inpatient help. And there is a real sense that his life could have been saved if only someone would have been willing to do something. My sadness is that he was treated as ‘yet another drunk’. Seen as someone who had brought it on themselves and was somehow not worth investing time or trouble in. With tragic consequences.
I was one of the fortunate ones who was admitted to hospital and was funded for rehab. It saved my life. How I wish your son could’ve been treated the same.
Your son is now at peace and no longer facing that daily torture of addiction that occupied every second of his life. Your determination to share your family’s story is so courageous but so powerful.
Take care.
Carolyn Many thanks for your inspiring email. I am so pleased that you are continuing on the road to recovery. What I found very interesting was the fact that you were funded for rehab and whilst I understand if you do not want to discuss this I would be interested to know how and the route you took because we tried everything and the several GP practices in East Sussex we met would not ( or could not) help. We need to make sure we publicise the success stories and praise those responsible for providing it so that we encourage positive action.
Hi Margaret, I am more than happy to answer any questions you have. Please don’t hesitate to contact. The system for funding may well have changed since I was funded. I went into hospital in 1998 (Brighton General psychiatric ward- which I know is now closed) following an alcohol induced suicide attempt. (Six months previously, I had also been admitted for a week’s detox which I asked my GP to arrange. He was more than willing to listen and refer me on, which he did that day and I was assessed at home and admitted to Brighton General within 48 hours. I stayed in for a week and was then discharged with a Community Psychiatric Nurse follow-up. The CPN really wasn’t helpful in that she had no insight into addiction so her advice was simply ‘Don’t buy it. Problem solved.’ Obviously that wasn’t going to cure my alcoholism and my drinking became worse). When I was admitted to the secure ward, obviously the concern was for my mental health, but my depression was greatly affected by my alcohol use. I was on the ward for several months and I did have to take the initiative myself to find out about rehab. The doctors didn’t seem to think it was necessary, but the ward nurses were fabulous and helped find information on different rehabs. They also helped arrange the visit to the Kenward Trust in Kent and referred me to Social Services who funded my six month stay. I imagine rehab is now funded (or not funded) by the health trust. But without rehab I would certainly have died.
Writing this makes me realise just how incredibly fortunate I was to receive the help I did. I don’t think any of the professionals understood alcoholism, but they could relate to why I had chosen drink to self-medicate. And I have to say that anytime I asked for help, I got it. My problem was that I my shame and guilt to stop me asking for help sooner.
Your son’s story is so tragic because he had you in his life clearly begging for help for him, but it sounds like you were dismissed. I know that there were probably factors in my case that impacted on the help I was offered ( I’m more than happy to discuss these more with you Margaret), but everyone deserves a chance to get well. Your story really highlights the negative perceptions most people have of alcoholics. And sadly that includes medical professionals. The reality is that there are so many young men like your son who are going to be denied help because they are perceived as having a self-inflicted disease.
You may not have been able to save your own son’s life Margaret, but I do believe that through your work and raising awareness in Brighton, you will prevent the death of others.
Carolyn Thanks for the response and for your frankness and intelligent insight. There are as you say a number of issues and the main one was that you asked for help whilst our David simply refused to acknowledge he needed anything. Yours is a fascinating and brave story which is all the poignant because it took place at about the same time and location as our son’s.
Margaret I am so sorry. Your website and post will undoubtedly help those who are seeking help for their loved ones and hopefully will encourage those in the addiction and medical field to do better and look for real answers. Our son is 32 and has been suffering from addiction for 15 years now. Much of what you have written about on your website has also happened to us. There is indeed serious need for addiction be treated with a uniform protocol. It seems that too many ‘professionals’ have no idea what to do. And there are not enough treatment facilities that provide real care for addicts. There is one treatment center in Italy called San Patrignano http://www.sanpatrignano.org.en which offers a minimum of three years of treatment for free. San Patrignano is a model for recovery….it seems the world could learn so much from them. Here in the states, treatment is mainly 12 step based and when it comes to helping someone who is more in need of medical care because of many years of addiction, very little help is available. Thank you for all the work that you are doing in raising awareness.
Thank you for your kind comments and for the link to San Patrignano which looks very interesting indeed. I am struggling to make my mind up about “12 steps” as the accepted and often the only route because I believe there needs to be medical intervention right when it is required and requested. I realise that 12 steps is a powerful agent and one that so many people have benefited from but I also saw, first hand, how it got in the way and delayed treatment that was desperately needed. I wish you and particularly your son a safe and successful journey.
Margaret, you brave lady, you! Thank you so much for sharing about your experience with your son. I’m so, so sorry to learn of the story. In my family, I love several alcoholics and drug addicts who’ve been passed around from charity to government agency to the streets. No one takes leadership. I appreciate your great bravery in sharing the story so that others will, too, and important changes will be made.
Thank you so much for your kind comments. I hope we can make a small difference and people can learn from the mistakes that were made which cost us so dearly.I will keep trying. – keep the conversation going as they say.
It is only now, with clear, sober eyes, that I can realise the pain and anguish my parents must have felt trying to deal with my drinking. They felt, as I sadly believe you do too, that there was something they had done, or not done – some magic trick – that could “help”. Alas, no. You tried everything against a disease that is cruel and unnerving. David did too. He also knew you were doing all you could. To crave and NEED the very thing that is killing you is a terrifying place to be. It is all encompassing and, awfully, supersedes all other emotions – including love. I was lucky enough to be hospitalised ( the day blood vessels in my throat exploded ), after being found by my dad, where a forced detox happened. That, and the aftercare I have received is the only reason I am still here today – Luck.
Thank you for responding and for your wonderfully comforting words. It’s the first time anyone has told us what David might have felt form a position of knowledge. We always felt that if only he could get into the “system” and be hospitalised he might just make it. Like you he faced a life threatening situation but unlike you he refused to take the path to recovery.