Chapter 23
AVERY
The hardest part of this whole player assistance program thing was being away from my teammates.
Peyton came by a lot, and we texted. I texted with some the guys, too.
They kept asking me to come to practice and hang out, or come to a game, or go golfing, but I just…
couldn’t Even facing Peyton was hard, and he’d seen me at my absolute worst. The other guys hadn’t, and I didn’t want them to.
I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to look any of them in the eye when I was done with the program and back on the ice.
That was a bridge I’d cross when I came to it.
Right now, I was too damn embarrassed to see anyone except that stubborn son of a bitch who kept coming over.
Which I appreciated. Even if I sometimes wished he wouldn’t.
The program itself was less terrible than I’d convinced myself it would be. The therapists were great, and as much as I didn’t like the idea of sitting in a room and making myself vulnerable with someone, it was doing me some good.
It helped that I’d managed to avoid the group therapy sessions.
I’d told the people in charge that, with my high profile, I wasn’t comfortable opening those wounds in front of other people.
No matter how confidential they were on paper, I just wouldn’t be able to relax knowing someone else could repeat something I’d said.
After my second solo session with Shannon, the grief counselor and the therapist I saw most often, I’d admitted the deeper truth: “I’m having a hard enough time saying any of this out loud.
The thought of doing it in front of a room full of people—even four or five people—makes me literally sick to my stomach. ”
I’d cringed, fully expecting Shannon to shake her head apologetically and tell me that I really did need to do it, high profile be damned.
Instead, she’d given a subtle nod and told me, “If a form of therapy gives you that much anxiety, then it’s probably going to hinder your recovery more than it’ll help it. If you decide later that you feel comfortable with it, that’s something we can revisit down the road.”
I’d actually wavered a little, caught off guard by the comment but also by the alien sense of relief that followed. I’d piled so damn much on my own shoulders—so much more than I’d realized—that I wasn’t used to what it felt like when someone else took some of that weight off.
So… no group sessions, and no guilt over avoiding them.
I also saw a substance abuse counselor three times a week.
He was confident that I probably wouldn’t relapse with the drinking.
Given the totality of circumstances, he didn’t think alcohol would be a serious problem for me going forward.
Yes, I’d been self-medicating from the grief and trauma, but even as I’d begun the painful prospect of unpacking all that, I hadn’t felt compelled to drink.
“We’ll still approach this as an addiction,” he’d assured me.
“It can be an insidious thing. Someone who’s used opioids after an injury can become addicted even after they’re not in pain anymore.
The same can happen after using alcohol to numb emotional pain following a traumatic experience.
So we’ll take this as seriously as we would a well-established, long term addiction, and you’ll always have access to any of us should you relapse or think you’re going to. But I’m confident.”
“What happens if I do relapse?”
He’d offered a gentle smile. “Honestly? Most people do at some point. We do everything we can to avoid that, of course, but the reality is that it’s very common. It’s not a failure of the person or of the rehab—it’s just a setback that we can work through.”
“So… like when an injury is healing, and then I push too hard and hurt myself again?”
“Exactly. There’s no shame in it. We’ll do everything we can to help you, and we’ll give you all the tools we can to prevent a relapse. But if it happens, then all isn’t lost.”
As determined as I was to never relapse, I appreciated that.
“Does this mean I can’t drink at all?” I’d asked another day. “Like, socially?”
“We’ll figure that out over time. Some people do find they’re able to drink socially without relapsing.
Others…” He’d shaken his head. “For some, they can’t control the compulsion to keep drinking or to get drunk, and it’s too destructive for them.
I’ve also had some patients who found the process of quitting to be so miserable that just thinking about having to go through it again makes them abstain. ”
Something told me that last one would be me.
The withdrawal had been relatively mild compared to the dire warnings they’d given me, but it hadn’t been a picnic.
As much as I’d enjoyed drinking with the guys, I couldn’t even think about having a drink right now without imagining that miserable handful of days.
Maybe I’d just be better off not drinking.
Especially since the only time I really missed it was when the grief was hitting hard, like during a particularly intense therapy session or when I was trying to sleep.
If the only time I wanted to drink were the times I needed to self-medicate…
yeah, maybe avoiding it altogether wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
Today was one of those days when a drink sounded good. Probably because my therapy session was scratching closer and closer to the bone. The thought of stepping behind closed doors, opening up a bottle, and falling the hell apart was more appealing than it should’ve been.
Shannon studied me for a long moment. “I’d like to know your thoughts about something I’ve been noticing during our interactions.”
“That I’m a trainwreck?” I asked dryly.
“No. I’m sure you feel like one—that’s more normal than you might think.”
I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be comforting or not.
She went on, “You’ve spoken a lot about wanting to keep not just your substance abuse, but your grief out of your team’s sight.”
Shifting uncomfortably, I stared down at my hands and nodded. “They already saw me collapse once. They don’t need to see that again.”
“Did they respond negatively to it?”
“Not…” I chewed my lip. “I mean, they didn’t get mad at me or anything? But I could tell it messed with all their heads. Seeing me lose it like that. I’m the captain, you know. They’re all struggling with what happened to Leif. They need someone in the room to keep it together.”
“Do you think they expect that someone to be the person who was closest to Leif?”
The sudden lump in my throat almost made me choke. “I… I don’t know. But I also… I mean… I shouldn’t be this much of a mess. Not just in the locker room or in front of my teammates, but—I mean, Leif was my friend.”
Shannon tilted her head slightly as if she were trying to read me. Something she was scary good at doing most of the time. “Leif was your friend,” she acknowledged. “So everyone—yourself included—should fully expect you to be grieving.”
“But this hard?” I hated how my voice shook. “It’s been months and I feel like it’s still the night he died.” Those last two words slammed into my chest, and I had to close my eyes and pull myself together.
“You feel like you should be back to normal by now.” It wasn’t a question. I almost took it as an accusation, but rewinding it in my head—no, it was just a gentle observation. I wanted it to be an accusation. I wished it was. Wasn’t that what I deserved for being such a broken mess?
“I feel like I should be…” I chewed my lip as I gathered both my thoughts and my composure. “Like, Leif was my best friend. We were really, really close. But the way I’ve been since he died—” I sniffed and swiped at my eyes. “Should I be this much of a mess over him?”
Shannon was quiet for a moment. “Do you think you shouldn’t be?”
“I think it would make sense if he’d been my boyfriend or a family member or something, you know? Rachel—of course she’s struggling. She lost her husband. Her kids lost their dad. I lost…” I had to fight back the lump in my throat, not that it helped much. “I lost my friend.”
Again, she was quiet, this time as if she expected me to continue. When I didn’t, she asked, “Am I understanding that you think you shouldn’t be grieving this much for someone who wasn’t a family member or a romantic partner?”
“Exactly,” I whispered.
She nodded slowly, then folded her hands on her tablet. “I have to say, Avery, this is one of those unfortunate areas where society has failed everyone. Especially men.”
I blinked. “You—wait, what?”
“In our culture, we’re expected to mourn different people in different ways. And to some extent, we do. You might feel sad over the death of a colleague you didn’t know well, but you won’t grieve like you would if you’d lost a spouse or a sibling.”
“Right,” I said, nodding but still not sure where she was going.
“When we lose a friend—whether because they’ve passed, moved away, or there’s been a falling out that ended a friendship—I think we’re often blindsided by just how hard that grief hits.
And people around us often don’t expect it either.
They don’t honor it or know how to deal with it.
” Shannon sighed. “Probably because another area where our society often falls short is when it comes to non-romantic and non-familial love.”
I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”
“The bond of friendship can be as important as a romantic or familial one,” she went on.
“People love their friends, but we don’t realize or acknowledge how much we love them.
And then when they’re gone… we don’t know how to grieve that love, and the people around us don’t know how to support us through it.
Thanks to toxic masculinity, that problem is even worse for men—you’re not allowed to acknowledge how much you love your friends when they’re here, and you’re certainly not allowed to when they’re gone. ”
My throat was getting tight again, and I swallowed hard. “So this… It’s normal?”