Great post new wings; so true.
My experience has been when losing a loved one while drinking, I got into the "broken record" mode and couldn't get my self out of it. I lost both my mother and father while I was drinking; after that, I spiraled completely out of control. The drinking kept fueling me to stay stuck. The kicker was, when I got sober, I had to grieve those losses all over again; and it sucked. I had to do this with a therapist who also was working with me while I worked on sobriety, and many, many years later.
Ron - the real kicker to me was when I lost my younger brother, who was diagnosed at the age of 18 with cirrhosis of the liver. At 34, he succumbed to liver cancer. When he died, he had seven years of solid sobriety, and it was REALLY HARD for me to be grateful for ANYTHING at the time. The irony of working so hard for sobriety and then be cheated out of time to live his new life was not lost on me. And you are right, it's really hard to see anything that AA could teach you to prepare for that. My "little" brother was the first to seek help for his alcoholism and he prepped the path that helped me find sobriety. He was my little brother in age, but my big brother when it came to helping me see the light. I was about four years sober at the time when he passed.
I think the only thing that kept me sober at the time was the thought that my brother Patrick would absolutely disown me if I picked up that drink. Irrational, I know, but it kept me sober. He wouldn't have wanted me to head down that path again.
I am saying prayers for you and sending you "jiggy vibes".......