My only son, Tom, died at the end April 2020, in the middle of the first pandemic lockdown, just three days after his 37th birthday. I spoke to him on the night of his birthday. It was the last time we talked. He said he was having a BBQ outside with a close friend. They were having ‘a few cans’. On the morning of his death, I had a phone call from his mum (she and I had separated amicably when he was less than 2 years old, but always kept in touch, and I saw Tom regularly throughout his life). The close friend he’d spent time with a few days before had found his body.

The full inquest has yet to take place because of Covid, but the preliminary findings indicate that his death was accidental, but drug-related. Having been ‘clean’ for a substantial period of time, his body over-reacted to whatever he took, and that included heroin and MDMA. Apparently it’s quite common. The police initially classified his home as a crime scene, and removed his laptop, phone, tablet and address book. After a week, they said they were ‘satisfied’ that Tom’s death was accidental, and I was allowed to collect his belongings from the police station. But they could tell us nothing more. And, having decided that Tom wasn’t a dealer, and that ‘foul play’ wasn’t suspected, they didn’t seem at all interested. 

I imagine that many parents who have lost a son or daughter in similar circumstances will be all too familiar with that awful sense of not-knowing; that dreadful feeling that so much of his life was – and always will be – hidden from us. It is one of the many consequences of the stigma and shame created by the criminalisation of drug-taking. 

There is so much we don’t know, so much that we can never know – partly because of the long delay in the inquest, but also because Tom only spoke openly about drugs when he wasn’t taking them. So the story I tell here is very partial and bitty. But I imagine that many parents who have lost a son or daughter in similar circumstances will be all too familiar with that awful sense of not-knowing; that dreadful feeling that so much of his life was – and always will be – hidden from us. It is one of the many consequences of the stigma and shame created by the criminalisation of drug-taking. 

We think that Tom started taking drugs at university. He had been in a relationship with a girl for nearly a year. She went to a different university, and they split up within a few weeks of the start of the first term. Much, much later, he talked eloquently about how his experimenting with drugs at uni had been both an escape from his own distress at this break up and an initiation into what he perceived at the time as an exciting new world. 

This is not the place to give a detailed account of the years from that early dabbling with drugs and drug culture to the time of his death. But I do want to speak of Tom’s strengths, to remember the joys he brought to people’s lives as well as to speak of our loss. In childhood and early adolescence, he was blessed with a delightful and infectious sense of humour. Despite being an only child, he made friends easily. I met Hilary (who became my second wife) when Tom was twelve years old. Hilary had two children by her own previous marriage, Jasmine and Mike, a year and two years younger than Tom. It was remarkable how quickly they became very close. Tom’s funeral had to take place during the first pandemic lockdown and Mike, his step-brother, now lives and works in New Zealand. But Mike sent this to be read aloud: ‘Tom was so full of love and empathy for others, he was one of the most selfless and non-materialistic people I have ever known and in this world that’s a harder way to live. I’ve had no one else in my life like that…’

I do not know for certain what caused the collapse of Tom’s self-esteem, but it certainly coincided with his experiences at university, when he began drinking heavily as well as taking drugs. He dropped out after a year. And took on a series of low paid and relatively unskilled jobs. That phrase ‘I do not know for certain’ is at the back of my mind constantly as I try to write this.

Tom’s mum and I regularly offered to help him financially, but he was determined to seek his own way in the world. And he spoke passionately and articulately about needing to pay his own way as a means to rebuilding his self-esteem. He saved up and used his own money to train and become a driver of Heavy Goods Vehicles, and then to get his Class 1 HGV licence (enabling him to drive the biggest articulated lorries).

The more ashamed he felt, the more isolated, the more attractive the release offered by drugs and alcohol. And all of it made far more difficult to break out of because of the criminalisation of drugs, and the pressure from the suppliers. 

He still struggled with binge drinking from time to time, but he found it easier to talk about that (probably because alcohol is legal) and he did seek help in dealing with it. He saw counsellors and joined a support group. But he was very reluctant to talk about his drug-taking until he felt he had put it firmly behind him. In the last eighteen months of his life, however, he had started talking to me about his use of drugs. He talked articulately about the paranoia he felt at times – which he was convinced came from having smoked too much skunk. On another occasion he talked about how ashamed he felt about his drug and alcohol use, and that he realised how this feeling of shame had made him feel alienated from friends and family. It is, of course, a terrifying vicious circle – which he was well aware of. The more ashamed he felt, the more isolated, the more attractive the release offered by drugs and alcohol. And all of it made far more difficult to break out of because of the criminalisation of drugs, and the pressure from the suppliers. 

I tried to make it possible for him to talk, but not to press him, as that usually resulted him retreating into himself. But on one long car journey he told me that he had taken most drugs at some time, although I had no idea he had ever taken heroin – which probably reveals more about my naiveté than it says about Tom. But on the last occasion when I saw him in person he was proud of having been ‘clean’ for three years. He was extremely fit, and he had signed up for a long term course to become a personal trainer. Everyone who knew him said that they thought that he was physically extremely healthy. And it seemed that for him lockdown was an unexpected blessing. He was making excellent use of it, in touch with me and his mum regularly, and reaching out meaningfully in all sorts of ways that he hadn’t done for a while. He was fitter and healthier than he’d ever been – working out, and taking long runs and cycle rides. We were talking regularly on the phone, and he was optimistic for the future. 

Long before Tom died, I worked on several theatre projects in prisons, and became acutely aware of how many young men (and no doubt women, although I only ever worked with male prisoners) were being held in prison because of their involvement in drugs. Their imprisonment and criminalisation did nothing to deal with their problems, nor to make wider society a ‘safer place’. It stigmatised them, alienated them and brutalised them. 

I want to see a society in which cycles of blame and shame can be broken, not constantly reinforced; in which the root causes of social and mental health problems are addressed. and those suffering are given support – not driven into the margins. And that’s why I wholeheartedly support the work of Anyone’s Child.