Grieving Father Says It Out Loud
By Luke Schmaltz, VOICES Newsletter Editor
“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.” – C.S. Lewis
Gordon Bullard equates his grief over the loss of his son, Cory, to a blur of thick fog. He explains how bereaved men, who tend to hold it all in, can find their way through the haze by vocalizing their feelings about their loved one who has died.
Understanding Is Key
“Cory had used on and off for a number of years,” Bullard begins, “When we discovered this, we started going to Learn to Cope where we began learning about the disease of addiction. I had a lot to learn, and it took a while to grasp the connection between the knowledge in my head and embracing it in my heart. When that connection was finally made, all the anger I had towards him about what he was doing to himself, what he was doing to his future, what he was doing to us and everybody else, all that anger was released. I started viewing it as, 'this person is sick and they can’t really help themselves.'”
Eventually, Cory went from intensive inpatient treatment to a halfway house, to a sober house, and then back to college. He changed his major of study to substance use counseling. The day before starting his first job in his chosen field, he relapsed and the substance at hand was fentanyl.
Navigating the Fog
“After he died,” Bullard continues, “We lived in the fog of grief, and we had a lot of questions we’ll never have answers to. It helped that we had so many years of peer support at Learn to Cope, but it was almost like complete numbness. You’re going through the motions of getting up every day but nothing has an impact. This went on for several months, but it lessened over time.”
Bullard’s time at Learn to Cope taught him important principles, among them was the value of peer support groups. “They are really powerful and can help you get through a lot,” he says. “Without that organization, you would not have gotten me within 100 yards of a group support meeting. Colleen, my wife, had gone to a couple of meetings. Some were just general grief but it was really strange how some people would develop a hierarchy of how their person died. Like, one person’s type of death was more important than another’s. So, it became really clear that we needed to find grief support groups for people who have died of substance use. They get what is going on and we don’t have to deal with uneducated biases about overdose deaths."
After attending various types of meetings, with their experience as facilitators at Learn to Cope, the Bullards decided it was time to start their own meeting. “We wanted to talk about what people are doing, what their experiences are, and whether something they are doing is working for them. That was the tone of our meetings and that’s what it has been since we started in 2018,” he says.
Men Grieve Differently
“Most of the time at meetings, I’m the only guy,” Bullard continues. “People say there is no right or wrong way to deal with grief and that isn’t necessarily true. The wrong way is to not express your grief. For me, saying all the things that are going on in your head out loud is healing. It makes you become closer to your grief and it helps you, over time, to manage and live with it. I’ve seen it in our grief groups, that someone coming in new can’t get a word out without getting incredibly emotional. But, the more you talk about it, the easier it gets. The more you talk about it, the more you understand where you are with it.”
Bullard offers insight into why most men are reluctant to discuss their grief. “I think, for guys, when you get emotional you are very vulnerable,” he says. “At first, after somebody dies, you feel like you’re on the shore getting pounded with waves, getting knocked over, and as soon as you get up you’re knocked over by another one. Over time, that storm subsides but then out of nowhere that storm comes back and knocks you down again. Being able to allow that to happen builds the strength to see that wave coming, to let it wash over you, and move on.”
As a man who is vocal about his grief, Bullard’s journey has given him valuable insight for those who are reluctant to express theirs. He reflects on the early days of his grief when he would be working through his emotions while sitting in traffic. “I had a long commute home and sometimes I’d be weeping and I’d occasionally find someone looking over at me wondering ‘What’s going on with that guy?’” he says. “I thought, ‘It’s OK, I don’t know them, they didn’t know me, I can do this.' It was a release and if it starts off with saying these things that are going on in your head out loud, even if you’re by yourself, it helps. For men, we need to do that. It’s not going to go away.”
A Holistic Vision
In their research, the Bullards found that once people get out of recovery, there is not a lot of support for building basic life and social skills such as how to handle finances, how to cook, and how to get a job. As a result, the all-volunteer CCB Foundation raises money to support regional treatment programs including North Cottage, The Gavin Foundation and Link House. “All three of those share our philosophy of having a holistic approach to treatment and recovery,” Bullard says. “The money we gave them was specifically for things that insurance and social service programs don’t cover like health and wellness programs, yoga, nutrition classes, GED classes, vocational training, and Charlie Cards for transportation – things to help people reintegrate in a healthy way.”
“We wanted to do something more, something tangible. We talked about creating a wellness center where people could come in, get help with job applications, learn how to write a resume, learn how to use MS Office, and talk to other people. It’s a community of people in recovery, a safe sober place where you don’t have to worry about guarding yourself or protecting yourself because there is something threatening your sobriety.”
Gordon and Colleen Bullard submitted proposals to state funding agencies and were awarded a contract which allowed them to open the Core Peer Recovery and Resource Center. The first word in the name is an homage to their son, Cory. “This recovery center has never been more important than it is now because of all the synthetic opioids that are on the street and how strong and powerful they are,” says Bullard. “If somebody relapses, they’re probably not going to get another chance at treatment. There’s a high risk of it being a death sentence. If you can keep people in recovery so they don’t relapse, that’s how you stop it.”