The Healing Journey

June 6, 2025

In an article titled, “When Grief Comes,” which appeared in Grapevine, the Journal of Alcoholics Anonymous, an “old-timer” with many years in the 12 Step program wrote about losing his wife … and preserving his sobriety.

“My wife, who was also my best friend, passed away one morning recently after a five-and-a-half-year fight with cancer,” he said. “The day she died was hectic, to say the least. That night, I went to my home group meeting. I was confused, shaking, emotional and numb.”

He told one of his friends at the meeting what had happened, and the response was immediate: “He told me he loved me and that if I needed anything at all, to call.”

The traumatic experience of grief brought back many of the feelings he first had years before he came into the recovery program.

“I went home and got ready for bed,” he wrote. “I looked in the mirror and barely recognized myself. I was a mess. I looked like I did when I went to my first AA meeting 40 years before. I realized that there is a distinct similarity in my feelings, emotionally, and the way that I react mentally and physically to how I felt in my first few weeks of sobriety. Back then, I had a difficult time sleeping. I was irritable and had big mood swings. One moment I seemed to be normal, the next moment I was an emotional mess. I had a hard time concentrating on anything. I remember thinking, ‘Is this going to last forever?’”

The difference, he realized, is that he knew he would be able to “walk through” his grief if he leaned on his friends and his Higher Power. He knew from experience that he could get through the emotional turmoil “without a drink, a day at a time.” He also sought professional help and got a bereavement counselor.

There’s a great message for all of us in his story, even those of us who aren’t recovering alcoholics.

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