Recovery Community Embraces Peer Grief Support
Part Two: Kristen Esson, Wey of Life Peer Recovery Center
By Luke Schmaltz, VOICES Newsletter Editor
This ongoing series explores the growing role of peer grief support across the Massachusetts recovery community.
Kristen Esson is Program Director of Wey of Life Peer Recovery Center in Weymouth. She offers insight into the growing popularity of peer grief support, and the positive effect it is having on the recovery community.
“We are brand new,” Esson Begins. “We are still in our first year. This is my hometown – a place near and dear to my heart. We need the recovery supports in Weymouth.”
Poised for Progress
“I was the Addictions Nurse Liaison for South Shore Health when they received a private donation from the Graykens" Esson says. "The directive was to open an in-hospital bridge clinic and an office-based addiction treatment program (OBAT) within primary care. My role was to connect patients from emergency department to ambulatory care and community. Through those community connections, I was introduced to South Shore Peer Recovery, where I was a group facilitator of their first peer support group called Faith Finders."
“The executive director, Mark Mulhern, myself, and a couple of board members shared a vision to expand recovery outreach, and Weymouth was identified as a community that desperately needed support. At that time, the money wasn’t there, but we developed a five-year plan to open a center in Weymouth. Thankfully, Mark wrote a grant through BSAS (Bureau of Substance Addiction Services) and we were able to do this in under two years.”
“I have been working with Mark from day one, Esson continues. “I transitioned out of my other job and came on as Program Director here. For the first three months, we weren’t even open because there were all sorts of criteria that needed to be met such as an ADA-accessible bathroom upstairs and other pieces of minor construction.”
"I did not build the center's calendar based on what I wanted for programming, because it is a peer-to-peer model based on what the community wants and needs," Esson says. "This is assessed through community meetings, which was where the need for peer grief support first emerged. It is not what was asked for the most, but it is clearly what was needed."
"I had to educate myself on this, so I took some boot camp workshops through Faces and Voices of Recovery to learn about exactly what peer-supported recovery is.”
The Role of Peer Support
“AA does not work for everybody,” Esson says, “Recovery is not a one-size-fits-all situation. Connecting people to peer-based alternative pathways to recovery is huge.”
“We found that what the community needed most was more grief support,” Esson continues. “We are neither clinical nor medical, so I don’t wear my nursing hat here nor do I wear my therapy hat here. I am a peer in recovery.”
Esson champions peer grief support as a game changer for many people who are struggling. “There are so many different layers that people need support with,” she says. “The fact that peer-led groups are being offered with greater frequency and availability is amazing. While AA is a vital aspect of my recovery, it does not address the right support in terms of grief – especially over my father’s death. I am learning a lot more about peer grief support through my role here.”
“One of the glaring topics that comes up with people in recovery is that they are grieving,” Esson continues. “Everybody grieves differently. Some people push it down while others express it outwardly. I have learned that you can’t set a time limit on it, and if someone is feeling it, that needs to be acknowledged. I am 54 years old. I lost my father 30 years ago and I still grieve his loss – I am still feeling it.”
“You’re getting something different from these grief workshops and peer support groups. The people facilitating and leading them are specifically informed on the topic. Unfortunately, a lot of these supports we have access to now came out of tragedy. But it warms my heart to see how far we have come.”
Currently, Wey of Life’s calendar of events offers an array of grief support groups based on specific types of loss. Group themes include grief in early recovery, the six needs of the grieving, and how grief manifests in the body.”
An Ongoing Journey
Esson has endured the deaths of numerous loved ones and reflects on her reaction to those losses from a recovery standpoint. “When I was 24, my father died by suicide and my drinking was amplified by that event,” Esson says. “I never got support for my grief. In 2014, I lost several family members and friends, one of them was my lifelong best friend, Billy, who passed away from AIDS. He experienced a horrific death, but thankfully I remained sober because I was deeply plugged into my faith at the time.”
“I have been sober for over 20 years,” Esson continues. “Shortly after I graduated from high school, I was in a significant drinking and driving accident. That was the beginning of my journey of struggling. I was 19 years old, and I chose to get in a car and drive while intoxicated. 10 years later, I had gotten sober and had been in school for several years to get my nursing license, but that drinking and driving conviction on my record almost stopped me from being able to do so. I had to go through a lengthy appeals process, and I encountered a lot of blowback for something that happened 10 years prior.”
“I had no idea about alcoholism until I got sober" Esson says. "I did not know it was a disease. Even when I first became a nurse, I thought it was a choice I was making. When I got sober, I had to address my grief because I had just been drinking it away. People don’t like to feel pain. When you start to feel your emotions again, it can trigger a relapse.”
Modern Solutions
“Today, education and prevention are so much different than they were when I was a teenager in the late 1980s. Back then, there was nothing. No one was talking to kids about drinking and drugs or sharing their stories. Now, there are a lot of public speakers who specialize in telling their stories to young people. It is great that high schools are allowing that and bringing that into their program. Some schools have mandatory assemblies for all students where a speaker will focus on education and prevention.”
“Now, there are treatment centers everywhere. We have come a long way. There are so many more options for recovery today, which clearly demonstrates the need and the reality of the disease.”
“The beauty of peer recovery today is that we support all pathways while providing additional options for support. When I first wanted to get sober, my only option was to open the Yellow Pages and there were just a few providers under “Alcohol” whom I could reach out to for support.”
“If grief groups were available to me then, I could have used the additional supports. Also, in February of 2025, I was able to sit with my 100-year-old grandfather during his last 10 days of life while in hospice. I was grateful to sit on his bed and hold his hand as he took his last breath. Grief, yes – but a bittersweet experience as well.”
“AA has been wonderful for me,” Esson says. “I am still a member, but there are many layers to recovery, and they vary from person to person. Wey of Life provides support for the individual who is in recovery while also providing support for the families and allies of those in recovery. We offer groups which are open to everyone such as peer grief support, yoga, mindfulness, and meditation – and everything is free.”
Proof Positive
Esson is assured of Wey of Life’s impact on the community by examining the monthly attendance data. “Last April when we opened, we had 86 people who attended events at the center,” she says. “By August we had 329 people, by December that number was up to 469, and by April of this year we had 625 visitors. We have 15 support groups that meet on a weekly basis for a total of 405 hours.”
Esson attributes Wey of Life’s growth to word of mouth and social media, but more importantly to building relationships. “The most impactful thing is maintaining relationships, fostering them through other organizations, and building our network,” she says. “I belong to several coalitions, including Safe Harbor Cohasset and Weymouth Prevention Alliance.
“We recently spoke at Weymouth High School, and we will do so anywhere they will let us come in and explain what we are doing. Today, we volunteered at a shelter cleaning up their yard and building some furniture and we also volunteer at Weymouth Food Pantry. We are doing anything we can to get out into the community and put a positive light on recovery while working to break the stigma.”
Esson highlights breaking the stigma towards recovery as one of the main focuses of her work. “It is so important to show up in a volunteer capacity,” she says. “Although we are 18+ at this recovery center, we are aware that young people struggle as well. That’s why we talk to the kids at the high school, and we are in touch with organizations that provide resources and treatment for youth.”