Spiritual Seeker:
As a young woman of 21, my father became a casualty due to his years of alcoholism. He committed suicide with a gun in the basement of the home I grew up in. My mother found him. I cannot imagine what images she had in her brain for the rest of her life. I was not living at home, but I was doing my job at the local police station. That job was answering the phone for police assistance, and I was on duty when my partner took that call from my mother. That very personal event in my life then became the news all over the police station with all its gory details.
I look back and see that I plunged into a pit for years after that. But at that time I did not have any recovery program or connection with God as i understood Him.
Now fast forward to my son and his addiction. I know that I know that I know the reality of the death part of this disease. And I think that colors my interpretation of recovery in general and also in the way that I respond at the 12-step tables and in these forums.
I pray for you in a special way because I know that you are now in the depths of grief even more than when this tragedy first happened. Now all the cards have stopped, people are not asking as much how you are doing, and you are stark raving alone in all of this. I had a co-worker send me a "thinking of you" card months and months after my father died, and even now I am choking up at how that meant more to me than the cards and condolences that came at the very beginning.
This is a big one to come to grips with, this you know. Please know that you are not journeying this one without those around you who have been where you are at. It took a dear friend of mine (who lost her young daughter to cancer) over a year to get to where she could drive to and from work without sobbing in the car the whole time. Yours has the added depth of this being your one child. That does not go unnoticed or unforgotten by me.
Sojourner