This is not my story it came from talk to frank.

Sam* was more than a brother in law to me. He was funny, intelligent, successful and, more than anything else, caring.

I knew straight away that he took coke. It wasn’t covered up. It was just one of those things. He worked in the entertainment business. What do you expect? It wasn’t a big deal – he’d been doing it for years – so what?

But Sam started to change. His weight started to drop off. He started drinking extraordinary amounts of mineral water. Again our naivety was all too evident.

Why would we know he was saving the bottles to use to smoke crack?
My sister booked a family holiday overseas with Sam and the children. But the night before they were due to fly, Sam confessed. He knew he wouldn’t pass immigration. He had a string of drug convictions and a serious drug problem.

He said he would check into rehab. Ever the player he even managed a line DURING the consultation. He agreed to go in and we thought the worst was over.

The thing is, no one could tell Sam what to do. He was his own man.
But he tried. He would go to Cocaine Anonymous meetings religiously and we all enrolled in groups held by the clinic.

This was our closely guarded secret and we were going to get through it without the world out there knowing.
My own job – and health – was suffering. I got calls most nights from my sister. Sam was missing. Sam had been arrested. Whatever. She couldn’t leave the children so I’d get up and drive in the dead of night trying to find him.

Sam couldn’t be trusted to look after the children; his dealers were regularly turning up at the house. His business had collapsed and he was becoming a danger to himself and those around him. Reluctantly my sister and Sam split up. He vowed to clean up his act.

He complained that unless we started to trust him then he’d never get back to normal. We felt so guilty. He embraced CA’s mentor programme and, let’s face it, fooled the lot of us.

Two years later he was found dead in his car. He was miles from anywhere.
His death certificate stated the cause of death was heart failure and secondary drug ingestion. He never did make it off the drugs.

What a waste of a good man.
* (name changed)