My ex died of alcohol-related causes. Maybe it was his hemoglobin, maybe his heart stopped, could have been too much blood lost from internal bleeding. Doesn’t really matter; it’s not a mystery how he got there.

So now comes the work of contextualizing this for my children, ensuring they know they’re not alone in this experience, giving them a narrative and providing the resources they need to move forward. And the context part of it may be hardest of all to do…

For my children’s sake, I assert that their father died of a disease. Indeed, he was very sick. And yet, it is difficult not to also see that he was on a path, a path that appeared deliberate and premeditated. While on this path, he was given many opportunities to accept help, to leverage the multitude of resources available to him. He chose not to. When alcoholism  / addiction takes hold, what appear to be choices are not real choices. Addiction lies — and it took his life.

Thus, I must ensure my children do not go through what I went through:  believing that I somehow wasn’t enough, that their father continued to choose a bottle over me.