People talk about supported living like it’s a last resort, but for me, it was a choice — a deliberate step away from a path I knew too well. When my brother died, something inside me cracked. Grief has a way of pulling you back toward old habits, old escapes, old ways of numbing the pain. And I knew myself well enough to see what was coming.
If I had stayed at home, I would have been drinking again.
Not because I wanted to. Not because I didn’t care. But because grief is heavy, and alcohol was the coping mechanism I’d leaned on for too many years.
Supported living wasn’t about giving up independence. It was about protecting it. It was about putting myself somewhere safe before things spiralled. It was about choosing a future instead of falling back into a past that nearly destroyed me.
Here, I have structure. I have people around me. I have routines that keep me steady. I have space to breathe without reaching for a bottle. And slowly, I’ve started to rebuild parts of myself I thought were gone — my creativity, my confidence, my writing, my plans for the future.
Supported living didn’t save me. But it gave me the chance to save myself.
And sometimes, that’s the bravest decision a person can make.