Susannah Constantine: How Alcoholism Brought Her Back to Reality

WAKING UP IN SOBRIETY –

Oct. 22, 2022 – “One of my great regrets is not keeping in touch with her after I split up with David. But she gave a dinner for Sten [Bertelsen, Constantine’s husband] and I when we got engaged. That was so generous spirited.”

She has been married to Bertelsen, the Danish entrepreneur and businessman, for nearly 28 years. They have three children and live in a sprawling West Sussex home within 127 acres of land.

Looking back to her beginnings as the daughter of upper crust, wealthy businessman Joseph who, she says, always wanted to be an aristocrat, and manic depressive mother Mary-Rose, an alcoholic who may have used booze to try to hide her mental state and shyness, it’s clear all that privilege came at a price. They used a ‘hands off’ approach, she recalls, dividing their time between their gentrified farmhouse in Lincolnshire, owned by the Duke and Duchess of Rutland, and a pied de terre in London. The young Constantine was largely looked after by staff and was later packed off to boarding school.

Leonard Buschel