Grief After Loss from Overdose, with Glen Lord

Losing a loved one to substance use overdose is nothing short of heart-shattering. That's why we're joined by special guest Glen Lord, who turned his personal tragedy into a support network for others experiencing the same grief. Glen shares his journey with us, shedding light on how the loss of his loved one led him to create a program called "Walking with Grief." Together with his partner, Franklin Cook, they formed Support After a Death by Overdose (SADOD), a unique haven that intersects empathy, understanding, recovery, and hope amidst the pain of loss to substance use.

How do we show up for those who are navigating the turbulent waters of grief after losing a loved one to substance use? We discuss this and more, exploring the "River" support model — a compassionate approach that stresses relating, inviting, validating, empowering, and reassuring those grieving. We also touch on how organizations like SADOD and Peer Grief Support Org offer resources and support groups to ease the journey. As we navigate the challenges of the COVID-19 era, the rise of virtual support groups has been a silver lining, offering hope and connection in isolation. So, let's take a step back from statistics and remember that each number represents a human life. Join us as we strive to be present, listen, and remind ourselves that even in the depths of grief — there is always a path to healing.

Contact: 

www.asiliveandgrieve.com
info@asiliveandgrieve.com 
Facebook:  As I Live and Grieve 
Instagram:  @asiliveandgrieve 

To Reach Glen:
Email:  glen@peersupportcommunitypartners.com
Website:  PEER SUPPORT COMMUNITY PARTNERS - Home

Credits: 
Music by Kevin MacLeod 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to, as I Live in Grief, a podcast that tells the truth about how hard this is. We're glad you joined us today. We know how hard it is to lose someone you love and how well-intentioned friends and family try so hard to comfort us. We created this podcast to provide you with comfort, knowledge and support. We are grief advocates, not professionals, not licensed therapists. We are you.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Good morning everyone. Welcome back again to another episode of as I Live in Grief. I think you're really going to be encouraged by today's guest. It's another topic that we've touched on here and there, but I have someone today that I think is really going to offer some huge insight for us in the area of losing someone by substance use overdose. So with me today is Glenn Lord Glenn, thank you so much for finding time to chat with me this morning.

Speaker 3: 0:54

Oh, thank you for having me.

Speaker 2: 0:56

Absolutely my pleasure If we could take just a moment before we get started with my questions, which I can sometimes have many, if you could just tell our listeners a little bit about your background, please.

Speaker 3: 1:07

Certainly Well. My journey. I'm going to start it and I promise I'll speed it up a little bit. But I'm going to start it back in the 1990s. In 1990s I graduated from college in 1992 and I graduated with a degree in marketing and operations management and my goal was to be involved and hopefully at one point in my career to run a Fortune 500 company. Things were progressing very well, had a son in 1995 and all was well progressing, moving up the corporate ladder. Everything was as I planned and in many ways I had had an idyllic life.

Speaker 3: 1:47

And then, in June 14th 1999, my son, noah, died from complications of a tonsillectomy and when that happened it flipped my world upside down. I had grown up in a family where it was a very death-denying family. In fact it sounds kind of odd and for people who didn't live it they might not understand what I mean. But people didn't die, and I don't mean they didn't die, they did, but they just kind of disappeared is kind of how people happened. And even to the point when my grandmother died. I found out about her death because I answered the phone and one of my relatives asked when the funeral was and I had to ask my dad had grandma died and that's how I was informed that my grandmother died, to which I did not go to her funeral or anything of that nature. It's just, yes, she died and we moved on and that was the discussion. So I kind of grew up in that world.

Speaker 3: 2:41

But when that happened I lost interest in doing everything I was doing and struggled for a few years, just kind of getting my own feet under me and figuring out who I was, where I was, what I was doing. And I found peer grief support as what really helped me. I found the compassionate friends and got involved with the compassionate friends and found that it offered me a lot of hope. And through all of this I met some of the some you know really fine people in the grief and loss world and realized about 2004, 2005, that I didn't want to do anything with corporate America. I dropped out of corporate America and I created a peer grief support program called walking with grief, which is run in a variety of different hospices and churches and it's actually run by the military too and in a variety of different ways it's out there and I formed the grief toolbox. I got very involved with the compassionate friends.

Speaker 3: 3:39

I became the ultimately became the president of the board of directors of compassionate friends and through this I kept learning more and more about peer grief support and even though it's not a formal practice you can't go to any university in America and get a degree in it I was getting a degree in it by working in this field and working in it day in and day out with a variety of different people, and through this I met my partner in the organization men right now. His name is Franklin Cook, and we met at ADAC, the association of depth educators and counselors, and when we met we decided there was something there. Well, 10 or 15 years later we figured out what that something was and that formed, that formed Saturday, which is support after a death by overdose. And we, franklin, had been doing some work with the state of Massachusetts in kind of doing some exploratory work, and it became very clear that, in order, one very large aspect of the epidemic that was not being addressed was the grief that was being left behind by all of the people who were unfortunately dying.

Speaker 3: 4:51

And so our organization is is sad OD support after a death by overdose, but it's kind of a misnomer and you know that and so we formed support after death by overdose, because what it is? It's support after a death by any kind. So it doesn't matter whether the person died by overdose or whether they died by medical complications or it was a car accident or homicide or suicide. That the means of death is irrelevant. And the substance is also irrelevant it might be alcohol, it might be fentanyl, it might be heroin. It doesn't matter If the individual died from a substance use related cause, and they have and and there with the root causes, substance use related. We're here to support the people of Massachusetts, whether they are have lost their loved one, whether they work in this field or whether they're themselves are in or seeking recovery.

Speaker 2: 5:48

Wow, that's quite a background, Did you then? Oh, before I do that, let me ask one question. In your description, in your word usage, I know that you used substance use and not substance abuse, which, with my background, jobs I've worked and everything like that it's always been substance abuse. Is that a conscious change?

Speaker 3: 6:15

It is very conscious. There's a lot of stigma associated with with substance use and once you define it as abuse, you are now creating kind of this judgments there, and the truth is there isn't a person on the planet that doesn't use a substance. You know what is that substance? Well, in some cases it might be alcohol or it might be heroin. In other cases it it. It might be coffee, it might be cigarettes, it might be pizza, but we're all using. We're all using substances. It's a very natural part of being human and the people do use it and you know it, it they. What we want to do is try to fight that stigma, because stigma is really nothing but a form of discrimination and it really is. You know, part of what I didn't share in my introduction is is my personal relationship with with substance use is my son, vladik, is currently in chaotic use and has been in severe chaotic use for about three years and has been in use for about for about three years and you know, as a upper middle class white male, I don't usually experience discrimination. Yet taking him to the hospital a couple of crimes throughout this process I have been treated like a criminal. I've literally had to, even though I'm sitting there calmly and quietly, just politely, I've had the security guards of the hospital stand on both sides of me as I'm waiting at the rating room. For no apparent reason, and there's just little things like that that you see, this discrimination that exists all over the place.

Speaker 3: 8:01

It's the only medical condition. It's both called a medical condition and yet they don't really treat it as such. They will say that it is medical but yet while you're still high, you are released from there. They don't try to put you into. Some programs do offer support, but for the most part, often the answer is please leave our emergency room once there's no longer that immediate emergency. And if somebody were to go there with a hard condition or something else, they wouldn't say oh well, we got your heart out of the way, now move one out of here and we'll get you done. They would want to help solve the overall underlying condition and work with that, and yet that's the discrimination that exists. So the word use is really to help to fight some of that stigma and it's to make it you know that we're thinking about it in a different way. I guess is what it boils down to.

Speaker 2: 8:59

Well, you have said so many insightful things, so let me try to pull them out one by one and hope I can get them all. First, thank you for clarifying that Again, in my experience I've always been it's always been termed substance abuse. I will now make a conscious effort to change that to substance use. I agree with your explanation and I supported 100 percent, so I will try to change my habit. That's the first thing.

Speaker 2: 9:27

When you mentioned stigma, that is definitely one thing I wanted to touch on today. First, I respect that your organization and I applaud your organization for going beyond just that very niche topic. But for today, if we could just concentrate on that for a little bit, I have some friends that are very near and dear to me who lost their son by suicide and that's also another word that I don't like because of the stigma attached and he was one who was, as you term it, in chaotic use, a phrase I have never heard in the relationship to substance use, again, a phrase that I think is so accurate. The stigma you encountered in the hospital I know from my work with hospice and the elderly, from taking care of my mother herself and even with my husband when the decision was being made can he come home or not?

Speaker 2: 10:29

There was always a discussion about are they safe? Is it safe for them to go home? What does the floor surface look like? Is it something he can trip on? They were just going out of their way to make sure he would be safe, but, as you describe it, all they want to do is get rid of you. They might treat an emergent symptom or issue, but then they just release you without any concern at all for safety. So not only does that person get judged, but anyone who is there with them gets judged as well. Is that correct?

Speaker 3: 11:06

Well, I think it's very, very true. I think the judgment goes all the way around. There's, I think, still a very much a misnomer that it is a moral or ethical failing, that somehow someone has done something and thus because of that they don't deserve the treatment. Well, even that, to me, is a very false premise. I mean, how many people end up in the hospital with heart conditions because of a lifelong choice of lack of exercise and over-reading, and yet we treat them with full honor and respect and everything and for them to help them medically? But there is this less than mentality, and that less than mentality, to your point, spreads well beyond the individual. It spreads into the family, it spreads into the community, it spreads into all aspects of how people are treated and how it's dealt with. It's beginning to change a little bit, but sadly there's still a lot of stigma and thus discrimination that really exists in this world, right, right.

Speaker 2: 12:12

So anything we can do to help affect that change is going to be well worth our time. So how then, if you lose someone that you love by overdose, whether intentional or not? How does that stigma work in the grief journey for those left behind?

Speaker 3: 12:33

Well, I think it complicates it in many potential ways. I mean, I think that one of the things that happens is that there's this kind of feeling like, well, the person kind of deserved what they got, and so the society as a whole may not necessarily turn towards the person hurting, they may turn away from the person hurting the person than people hurting may also be afraid of what they're going to encounter if they share that their loved one died. So they isolate more and they're in a situation where they're not able to express their feelings and express their concerns. And you know, the fact is is if someone died from an overdose, they died from an overdose. That is one fact of their lives. There are literally millions of other facts, and how many of us would want to be judged by one fact in our lives? And so you know, that's it's just so wrong.

Speaker 3: 13:36

And one of the things we also do is we have a site called honoring the many dot org, where we try to allow people to express the full impact of who people were and are as human beings. You can share a picture of your loved one, you can share a story of your loved one. There's no charge to do so, and the concept is, is that it's a lot harder to discriminate and stigmatize against a person. Oftentimes, when the epidemic is spoken of if you listen to it on the news or you follow it they talk about it in terms of numbers. They talk about it in terms of statistics. It's often not spoken of much differently than you'd hear someone talk about what's happening in the economy, and that's not true. It's human beings, it's lives, it's people who mattered and made a difference, and we all too frequently fail to focus on that in terms of what's really happening.

Speaker 2: 14:33

Okay. So in the case of, for example, my friends, they have, in fact, in many ways, isolated themselves. They did tell people what happened and the father actually was the one who found their son, and that has really complicated everything for him to an extraordinary amount. But how might someone like me, when you know of something like that, when the people have been honest and straightforward about the situation, how can we do a better job of supporting them in their grief?

Speaker 3: 15:08

Well, we have a, we have a peer-reviewed support model we call River, and that has to do with the. River has five intentions and the five intentions although River is a mnemonic that helps us remember it the intentions don't have to occur in this order and in fact don't they overlap and occur in multiple words, but it's relate, invite, validate, empower and reassure, and by doing that we can connect with people. We can let them know that they are not alone. We can better understand where we're they're coming from and what their story is, to the degree that they want to share it. We can help them understand that what they're doing and wherever they're at is understandable, it makes sense. They have this event that occurs in their lives and, of course, they're feeling the way that they're feeling and at the same time, they can do this. They can go where they want to go with it all, and it will be a lifelong journey. Whatever that journey is, it's going to be a lifelong journey and we can walk with them, not ahead of them, not not in front of them, but walk beside them and truly listen, whole heartedly and truly make ourselves available and be willing and able to to let them go where they wish to go, but be willing to go there with them and be willing to hear them and be willing to speak of Whatever it is they wish to speak of, not what we want to speak of, not because we believe it's important, but where do they want to go with it.

Speaker 3: 16:41

And you know, if your friend wants to talk about the, the substance use and the stigma and all of that, then go there. If they want to talk about the wonderful life of their, of their, of their son and the impact that he had great. If they want to talk about the frustration and challenges they had while he was struggling, great, talk about that. You know, wherever that is, be with them in their journey, where they're at in that moment. And you know, sometimes we just need to be willing to sit in the mud with someone, because that's okay too. It's not always about, you know, it's not about Solving anything. It's about letting someone know that they're not alone.

Speaker 2: 17:19

Right, I love that perspective and I love the phrase sit in the mud with them, oh, but one of the things that that I hear with all your words is that the sit with them, be with them, but listen. Maybe don't direct the conversation necessarily, but see what they talk about and support them in that Telling so. Yes, I like that a lot. Now let's talk a little bit about the organization support after death by overdose. You have a great website with tons of resources and also so the um. I think you have workshop or workshops to help peer group, peer grief group facilitators. I probably didn't say that correctly, but tell us a little bit about your website and about the resources available and your mission.

Speaker 3: 18:11

Well, support after a death by overdose specifically focuses in the state of Massachusetts. So we are. We are funded by these ask the beers of substance fiction Fiction services and we do focus in Massachusetts. And our website has a variety of different resources. It has a peer grief support group locator Now there are, if your listeners, who are not in the Massachusetts area. It has the ability to sort by virtual groups and the virtual groups do meet and we welcome individuals who are not physically located in Massachusetts To attend those virtual groups. We also offer a variety of different articles and resources on how someone can find help.

Speaker 3: 18:56

We produce a Monthly newsletter which anyone can subscribe to that has a variety of different Outlooks on the grief journey. We have tools and resources for what we call direct service providers. These are individuals who, by the nature of their profession, are regularly affected by substance use loss. It may be a very personal loss but it may be just the cumulative losses of having those individuals that they work with Die from substance use. And we offer peer support groups specifically for people who are Direct service providers that they have. We have a variety of different groups that some are tied into Might. It might be a men's group. It might be, you know, it might be a group specifically for someone who is LBGTQ. It, whatever the the focus is, we try to create peer groups that are as pure as possible, and all of those different tools or resources Are there. We also have the ability for someone to go on and order a Booklet that is basically surviving the death.

Speaker 3: 20:03

That give the. We will ship out to anywhere in Massachusetts. We can ship them out to organizations, and that's shipped out free of charge. That has some of the basics of what is this journey all about and where does it go. We also have another site that I want to also talk a little bit about, though. That is, we have what we call a peer grief support org, which is a sister site of our site, and, and if you go to peer grief support org, what you'll find there is, very specifically, if you are bereaved by substance use, it is a gateway for you to let us know who you are and we will connect you with a One-on-one individual who will help guide you Finding the tools and resources that you need, whether that be one-on-one peer support, which we offer, or whether that be a grief group, or Whether it be finding other tools and resources so that we're able to help you through that journey and whatever, whatever that looks like, and so we have a variety of different tools, trainings and resources really on our website.

Speaker 2: 21:10

Okay, that's super and I'm so glad that the state of Massachusetts is supporting your organization in that way. How did your group grow from just that niche of Overdose and substance abuse, substance use I'm very sorry substance use? How did it expand to cover the other areas and if you could maybe just again kind of give some examples of other types of support?

Speaker 3: 21:39

Well, it really started. It started there from the very beginning. You know, one thing is is that the organization that runs Saturday is an organization called peer support, community partners, and that's actually the organization that I'm the CEO of. And we do work in other places. We work with organizations in in Indianapolis as well, as we're working, trying to work, in a couple of other states. We'd love to bring what we're doing in Massachusetts and two other areas.

Speaker 3: 22:09

But from the very beginning we found we were trying to think of a good name, and sad OD was kind of a catchy name that we thought would be easy for people to remember it on. You know, one of the things is people get, you know, grief brain. You probably, you know, may have experienced that yourself when things that you think are incredibly easy or simple all of a sudden become very challenging. So we wanted to kind of say something, if we could get something that might stick in someone's mind that they would remember, even if they couldn't remember that moment, even if it wasn't something they need it right then that they could remember. So we called it sad OD.

Speaker 3: 22:48

Support after a death by overdose is what the SAD OD stands for. But from the very beginning, the mission has been to support individuals bereaved by substance use in the state of Massachusetts and we serve three audiences with that. We serve the, the general public, which we serve with the. What I shared with you, one of the you know the tools would be that peergriefsupportorg, as well as the allies and the groups. We also serve the, what we call direct service providers, or those people who are in this profession. And we also serve individuals who have some unique needs, who are themselves in her seeking recovery and yet at the same time are, are still having grief, and by recovery. I even want to be careful with that word, because recovery is a word that has many different meanings and I want to take it in its absolute, broadest meaning. Recovery, as we define it, is if someone themselves would define themselves in recovery, and that does not mean abstinence. That means that they themselves are, are, are trying to find recovery, and that may be a very harm reduction form of recovery, and that's fine. We welcome individuals and we want to provide that support. So from the very beginning it was all of those things and it was all of the.

Speaker 3: 24:07

When you say the examples, you know sometimes someone dies directly from an overdose, they have a fentanyl or heroin overdose and they die. But in many cases that's not necessarily the case they may complete suicide due to their complications of their, of their substance use and that may be where things end up. They may be involved in a homicide that is associated with their, their being involved with substance use is they may be involved in an automobile accident where they, you know they may have medical complications, oftentimes someone, you know it, just over time they may have. You know, the use of the substances affects people's organs and over time, you know, someone may have died from a heart attack, or they may die from a heart attack, or they may die from a heart attack. They may have died from kidney failure or something of that nature. But it was really caused by years of complications of utilizing the substance. You know, my, my grandfather technically died from sclerosis of the liver, who died from 35 years of heavy alcohol to use. That's what he died.

Speaker 2: 25:11

That makes so much sense when you put it that way. Our time is kind of getting short and I don't want to forget again that many times we focus on the parents, but the grief can be just as difficult, just as complex if you're a sibling or child of a parent, anything like that. If you are connected in any way and lose someone that you love, you're going to be involved in grief. You also mentioned COVID. Did COVID I know it complicated so many things, but maybe not did it? But how did COVID complicate this whole topic of substance use and death?

Speaker 3: 25:56

Well, you have two pieces there that I want to kind of take separately. One is we support someone, no matter what their relationship is. It doesn't matter if it was a child or a parent or a significant other or a good friend or a coworker or a sibling all of that, as long as it is a person that you had a significant relationship with, that that mattered to you and you were affected by them. That's all that's important. And in the direct service provider, it may not necessarily be that you had that relationship with them and maybe that you just are having all of this.

Speaker 3: 26:31

You know you're being affected by, you know on Monday, you saw someone and on Tuesday you did it and you may not know what happened to them. So I agree the relationship, but we do, at the same time, have groups that are very specific, because I have also had my sister die and it is very different being a sibling than it is being a parent and I've had both of my parents die and there's differences. And there are differences for someone who identifies as a male and how they grieve versus someone who does not, and so all of these pieces and we try to offer those unique realities. When you asked how COVID complicated this, well, it did two things. One is COVID did did no favors for the epidemic. The isolation that was caused led to additional substance use, which led to additional deaths. So you know it complicated things that way. It also complicated people's grieving journeys in terms of if someone died in the height of COVID, they may not have even been able to have a funeral, they may not have been able to be with their loved ones. So there were all of those complications.

Speaker 3: 27:46

But how it specifically affected us, was it we had primarily been focusing on in person meetings and groups and things prior to COVID, and we, you know one of the, I guess I would say gifts of COVID. That has come out of this is we now have a large virtual group that we came from, because there for a while it was the only way to do it. We had a group that support could be provided, and what we came to then realize was that it actually works well for people there. We have in person groups and that works well for people too, but there's a place for both and we offer both, and then that's one of the things that has kind of come out of this.

Speaker 3: 28:28

The other piece of it is a company we have. We've grown virtually so we have people. You know we have people in massachusetts, but we also have individuals who have Specialized skill sets that were able to have help and support and work with us, that are necessarily located in massachusetts because of the all of the technological advances you know, like the zoom and even this, you know, even where, how we're connecting right now, have all been improved through coven. So it had many, many negatives, but at this point where I think, beyond the negatives and now we're able to focus on how it is his impact with us and hopefully will allow us to offer Greater support to a greater number of individuals, and, you know, there are many people who are still working through those emotional effects, though, and that will be, for many people, a lifelong journey to work through those emotional effects.

Speaker 2: 29:20

I love everything you said, and especially when you talk about taking some of the negatives that we all experienced and now we're finding some positives in that. Is it your opinion that people who are grieving if they find a virtual group, which for many people would be easier for them to Check into, for example, instead of going face to face can they get as much help from that, from a virtual group as from face to face?

Speaker 3: 29:50

The short answer is yes. The longer answer, I think it depends on the person, the nature of the personality of the person. You know the the the wonderful part about it is if you and I are able to make eye contact, whether we're making contact over a computer or whether we're making contact in a room, our body has emotional responses that tie into that. So our virtual meetings are done over zoom. Where I contact is made, you're not isolated. You're able to have that connection. You're able to connect with people you're able to share, you're able to make friends outside of that. So all of those things are very real, very true, you're not necessarily able to get the hug that you might want, her need, and so there are those pieces that are different, and for some people that is a big difference. For other people it's it's not as much.

Speaker 3: 30:39

I would recommend for someone that you know, try what works for you, because you know in some cases Geography or timing or you know life circumstances may say that your, your, the virtual, is the right answer and I think you'll find that you get a lot from virtual. But with any group, any group support, you have to be, I think, willing to try it more than once, because oftentimes it's not going to be everything you imagined that first time. Oftentimes you may wake up the next morning feeling Worse than the day before because you've let all of these emotions out. But if you're willing to find this, something you're able to keep going back to, my experience has been that the people get a lot out of the virtual and we have people who have been continuing to go now for you know, coming up on four years on the virtual meetings and find great support and great connection and great community and great relationship and find hope in healing through them.

Speaker 2: 31:37

Again. You said some great things and you have offered so much insight for people in our session today. I appreciate you so much. It's time now that I have to wind down, but before I do, I want to turn the microphone over to you. I know we've spent some time already talking about your website and everything, but perhaps you have a message and you want to speak directly to our listeners. We do have listeners around the world, by the way, but just tell them what's ever in your heart, and this is your turn, without me interrupting you.

Speaker 3: 32:08

So go right ahead, yeah well, I think the main message I would say to everyone is is you're not alone. You are not alone. Yeah, one of the big lies of grief is it wants you to believe you are alone. It wants you to believe that what you're experiencing is unique and only yours. And the fact is that grieving is the most natural and normal and real part of being human and when you're grieving, what you're doing is having evidence, showing evidence of your humanity. You're proving that you're a human being by grieving and reach out to find that support.

Speaker 3: 32:50

You know, the saddo d dot org is a wonderful place for for someone you've had died from a substance use related death, the peer grief support dot org that's another wonderful place. Honoring the mini is another place that I would recommend that people look at but also look out for you know, if your loss is not substance use related, there are other organizations to whatever that looks like, whether it's your church or your religious family, or whether it's an organization like the compassionate friends or or modern widows or whatever the organization is. Reach out because there are people who love you, care for you and for me. I have built a wonderful community of brief people and I find it to be a Wonderful, loving community, that you can find your way through this journey, whatever that looks like, and you can find meaning and purpose. It doesn't mean that the missing is going to go away. I miss my son every day. I miss my sister every day, but the hope, the purpose, the mission, the value of your life is all there and it can be found. So please reach out.

Speaker 2: 34:02

Thank you again so much the word I'm going to cling to that you said, and it wasn't. I don't know that it'd be really obvious to people, but one of the things in my grief that would always seem to pull me a bit more forward instead of Miring me where I was on the couch, was anything hopeful, anything that gave me just a nugget of hope. And you use that word hope. So I'm going to venture forth and say to all of our listeners Even if you have lost someone period, that's it if you've lost someone, forget the situation for a moment, just a moment, and Visit, say, at OD's website. It of course, will be in the podcast notes because their website is filled with hope and even if you read the articles in their newsletter which also is great, by the way they will give you hope and anything that you can read.

Speaker 2: 34:59

And we have to if we're grieving in that initial phase Especially, and have that grief brain. There's just too much going on in our heads, so it's nice to read small articles. Just reach out, just start by doing that. Reach out Somewhere and that will start helping you reach out the next time maybe to something that's a little more focused With your situation, but reach out and find hope, and where you find hope, keep moving toward hope. I hope that made sense. It did to me, at any rate.

Speaker 2: 35:32

It's time to say goodbye, farewell. I want to remind everyone to take care of themselves. We do promote self-care and, obviously, finding yourself a peer support group is one of the best means of self-care I can think of when you're grieving. It takes a little effort on your part. It may not be the first group you go to, it may be the second or the third one, but just keep trying and eventually you will find somewhere that you feel you fit and, and fitting in a group like that can help you grow in your grief tremendously. So take care of yourselves this week. Please return again for our next episode, as we all continue to live in grief.

Speaker 1: 36:21

Thank you so much for listening with us today. Do you have a topic that you'd like us to cover or do you have a question from one of our episodes? Please email us at info, at. As I live in grief, calm, and let us know. We hope you will find a moment to leave a review, send an email and share with others. Join us next time as we continue to live in grief together.