Me-Me-Mea Culpa

A friend of mine here in San Diego had to deal with some of the things many of us have had to deal with in early sobriety and I told him I'd say a prayer for him. Immediately I remembered this blog post, which I wrote when I was maybe four months sober. It's short, but it says so much about me.

Originally posted circa January, 2008

Please Stay

When someone we care about dies unexpectedly, the feeling is the emotional equivalent of a kick in the nuts. In addition to the pain and low-level nausea experienced, there are the added components of shock and disorientation. That’s because no one ever really expects to get kicked in the nuts; it’s almost impossible to prepare for it in advance or process it immediately afterward. (I know this analogy is only visceral for men, but I’m sure most women at least have an intellectual understanding of how physically traumatic that is.) Sudden death is also one of those things that doesn’t hurt less because we’ve experienced it before.