Justjo, that sounds like a very tough situation and am very sorry for your loss. I have dealt with the loss of a close family memeber twice in my life. The first time I didn't drink and the second time (3 years ago) I was drinking a ton. All I can say is my emotions / feeling were much more rational when I didn't drink. Not to say it was anywhere close to easy I'm just saying, looking back, when drinking it wrecked me.
Again, not a solution to the issue because dealing with this is so hard no matter what you do, but the booze, for me, made dealing with it so much worse.
Best of luck, hang in there...