I poured out the bottle I had already opened

Dear Delyara, I had been sober for eighteen months when my mother died. After the funeral, I bought whiskey and carried it home inside my coat. I opened the bottle, poured a glass, and sat at the kitchen table staring at it. Every part of me argued that grief made the relapse understandable. I even lifted the glass. Then I called a woman from my recovery group. She did not lecture me. She asked me to describe the room, the bottle, and what I believed drinking would give me. I said it would make the night shorter. She replied that it might make the rest of my life longer in the wrong way. I poured the whiskey down the sink while she remained on the phone. The smell filled the kitchen, and I cried harder than I had at the funeral. Today marks six months since that night. I still miss my mother. I still sometimes want to drink. Recovery did not make grief easier. It allowed me to survive grief without becoming another loss my family had to bury.