For most of my life, I mourned the loss of a friend who died in a motorcycle accident the year I graduated high school. I thought I was grieving, but I was stuck in the shadows of that loss for a very long time. I cried without processing anything. I didn’t truly grieve his death until I got sober at 42. As a teenager, I was already hormonally irrational; add alcohol, and it tipped me into chaos. Drinking kept me numb enough to avoid the full weight of loss, yet clear enough to sit in the misery of it. I mistook suffering for healing and believed that the more I cried, the more I was honoring his life. I refused to move on, circling the same sadness for over twenty years, mourning but never truly grieving.

A few years ago, I lost a lifelong friend I’d known since fifth grade. He died from alcoholism. For a year and a half, I couldn’t listen to music without breaking down. Eventually, I had to move the grief. I put on my running shoes, went to the local sportsplex, and ran until I was out of tears while I blasted music in my ears. That’s when I truly grieved. It was painful and almost unbearable, but it moved through me. 

In sobriety, grief transforms loss into gratitude for the love I shared. I used to believe that part of me was taken with those I lost. Now I know part of them stays with me, and that can’t be taken away. The ability to grieve is a gift that I didn’t always have. Sobriety has taught me how to live through grief.

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