Grieving Friend Becomes Support Group Facilitator
By Luke Schmaltz, VOICES Newsletter Editor
Everyone lost something during the pandemic – whether it was a job, a home, a friendship, a marriage, health, sanity, dignity, or worst of all – life itself. Chloe Brosnan knows this all too well. She lost her best friend, Iris.
“I met Iris in kindergarten,” Brosnan begins. “We went to all the same schools together through high school. We were like sisters. She was someone who would say hello to everyone, from the man pumping your gas to the woman walking down the street, she was always looking to build connections with other people. Even when she was in recovery during the pandemic, she was visiting halfway houses to deliver supplies like water, paper, and pens and she paid for them with her own money. She always left an impression on everyone.”
Compounding Problems
“Iris struggled with mental health and was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder,” Brosnan explains. “The pandemic was really hard for all of us, but especially her. She was deeply affected, isolated, and in a not-so-great relationship. She started using Oxycontin and was in active addiction for only a few months before she reached out to myself and her parents for help. She was in a rehab facility and was clean until the day she passed away.”
“It was out of the blue. She was at my house the night before, only 12 hours earlier. When she explained the addiction to me, I thought I understood how hard it was. Her parents were told by the doctors that she took only one fentanyl pill, which killed her. We all wondered how that was possible. I knew nothing about fentanyl, which led me to do a lot more research, and that’s when I found The Sun Will Rise (TSWR) and started going to a grief support group.”
“I was grateful to be close to her family and have so many of the friends we grew up with in my life, but I still felt so isolated because of the stigma attached to a substance use-related death. But, with TSWR, I found people who were not going to judge. Right away, at my first meeting, I felt really connected.”
Multiple Losses
“Unfortunately, I had another friend, Peter, who passed away on Dec. 29, 2021. He died from brain cancer, which is a different kind of loss, but I found it was easier to talk about in public because people understand cancer. We are in a society where people don’t know what to say if they don’t know someone who has struggled with addiction.”
“I had a third friend named Natalie who died in early February 2023 from complications with alcohol. Again, her death felt too taboo to talk about with people other than parents and close friends. Luckily, with Natalie and Iris – just like with Peter – I don’t remember them as people who had a disease, I remember them for who they were. It is something that goes unsaid in our world – it is acceptable to have cancer, but it is not acceptable to struggle with substance use, even though they are both diseases.”
A Pervasive Issue
“In a recent meeting, I talked about stigma,” she explains. “Before Iris, I was definitely judgmental because I didn’t know anyone who struggled with addiction. In my head, I was like, ‘Why don’t they just get over it? What’s the big deal?’ But I recall Iris explaining to me that it is a craving you cannot control. It physically takes a toll on you in ways I did not understand. To me, addiction and cancer are very similar. I would not wish them on anyone.”
“I don’t know where the stigma comes from, but as a country, anything we can’t put a black and white answer to we get nervous about, so we start judging. When addiction affected someone I love, it changed my whole perspective. I had a horrible attitude and I have really grown in my ability to sympathize with those in active addiction and with those who have lost a loved one like I have.”
“Iris felt so isolated when she was using because she was so ashamed of herself and embarrassed. How can you get help for a disease if you’re going to get judged if you tell someone? It is a cycle of shame in asking for help, then if it doesn’t work right away, you encounter more shame.”
Reaching Out
Looking back on 2020, Brosnan is able to see a silver lining that helped make circumstances a bit more bearable. Because of the pandemic, all of her and Iris’s close friends were back in town, so she didn’t have to face the initial shock alone. “As time went on, I was over at Iris’s parents’ house almost every day to support them and that’s when I realized I also needed to find my own support. I didn't want to burden them further with my grief. A month later – once I had gotten out of the initial shock phase – I went to a grief support group. It was really hard, at first, to reach out for support. I felt like, as soon as I said it out loud, it would be true. That was really hard to face, that’s why I am so grateful to TSWR.”
“Talking about Iris in the support group brought up memories in a positive way. Of course, some sessions are really heavy, but it is always nice to hear someone say, ‘I had a dream with my loved one,’ and I will think, ‘Wow, I had a dream about Iris the other day too.’ Also, I thought I was going to hate talking about grief over Zoom, that the connection would be horrible, but it felt very natural.”
Stepping Up
In 2023, after three years of attending grief support meetings, Brosnan reached out to Robyn Houston-Bean at TSWR about becoming a group facilitator. As the opioid crisis was continuing to escalate, Brosnan was compelled to give back. “I wanted to be a facilitator to allow for more people to have access to support,” she says. “I realized this is not something that is ending anytime soon, and there is a growing need for more support.”
“I like that TSWR groups are run by people who have also lost a loved one rather than there being a therapist in charge. The first meeting I attended, someone in the group who had lost their child five years prior said something really great, that they have grown around their grief. I am a special education teacher in Boston Public Schools, and I was wondering how I was going to go to class and not cry my eyes out. That person explained that there are still moments like that, but it will not be forever that you are sobbing all day. Hearing that was really powerful for me.”
Chloe Brosnan facilitates the Northampton Zoom Group for The Sun Will Rise on the second Thursday of the month from 5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. ET. This meeting is for anyone over 18 who has experienced the death of a loved one to substance use. Pre-register here.