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December 2022
ERICSHOUSE
December Newsletter
Dear EricsHouse Community,

Welcome to December 2022! The end of the year is approaching quickly. This year and every year, EricsHouse is grateful to support loss survivors so they do not have to face a devastating loss alone. In 2022 we continued to provide virtual one-on-one services, several support groups and healing events.

  • 377 One-on-one sessions which included Grief Companioning, Reiki, Health Coaching, Life Coaching, and Compassionate Listening
  • 1,656 Client Sessions
  • 1,189 Support Group Sessions
  • 147 Active Group Participants
  • 16 Healing Events including workshops, cooking classes and retreats

Thank you to our members who entrust us to walk alongside them. Much gratitude to our providers, volunteers and donors. Sending you well wishes and healing blessings.

-EricsHouse
A Letter From Our Founder-
Marianne Gouveia
As we look back on 2022, we are humbled by the support from our community EricsHouse inspires hope, healing, and new beginnings for people who have suddenly lost someone they love to suicide, alcohol, or substance use.  EricsHouse is a 501(c)(3) organization, and we rely on the generosity of donations.Year-end giving is an opportunity to support essential programs for bereaved individuals. We are one of the few organizations helping people in postvention and the only organization providing an integrative model including mind, body, and spiritual healing. 

Those left behind after a traumatic loss face unbearable burdens that are too heavy to navigate alone. Unfortunately, self-harm losses are an epidemic that continue to affect people worldwide. The need for postvention services is necessary now more than ever. 

  • Nearly 800,000 people die by suicide in the world each year, which is roughly one death every 40 seconds.
  • Over 350,000 die from alcohol and illicit drug use disorders each year.

These statistics illustrate an urgent and harrowing reality that shatters those left behind. EricsHouse expands each year to enable bereavement support to people across the globe. Next year, we are launching new support groups. Including a group for individuals who lost a veteran or first responder to suicide or substance use. In the Spring of 2023, we will host a workshop-style group to help EricsHouse members transform their grief so they can find meaning and purpose after loss.   

If you would like to support our vision of  bereavement care where loss survivors may achieve emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being, please consider donating before the year ends by clicking here, www.ericshouse.org/donate-today/

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your support and generosity. 

Gratefully,
Marianne Gouveia
Co-founder and Chairman

A Message from Dr. Alan Wolfelt
Surviving Sibling Loss
An Interview with
Billy Harfosh & Robert Gouveia
Robert Gouveia and Billy Harfosh discuss their grief journeys and navigating profound loss of a sibling. They share hope, healing, and memories of their brothers. Click the video to watch the full interview!
Healing for the Holidays begins on December 13! The EricsHouse team is going to share 12 Grief Awareness Tips about surviving the holidays, honoring loved ones, and healing. Follow along on our social media to watch the videos.

Connect With Us:
Meet Mary Bencomo, our new
Spiritual Director!
Mary Bencomo, MA, spent fifteen years in deep prayer and study in the spiritual life during her youth. In addition, she has about 30 years of experience as an educator, psychotherapist and consultant, which includes about 25 years of Enneagram work in the narrative tradition. Over the last eleven years she has participated in a twice monthly spiritual development group studying and practicing Christian esoteric spirituality.  Mary draws on these areas in her work with individuals as they explore deeper levels on the spiritual plain through spiritual direction.  At this time, her focus is on the areas of contemplative prayer and a spirituality inclusive of all aspects of one’s life. Further interests lie in mystical spirituality, the practice of presence and elder spirituality. 
AEISD certified. All religious dispositions are welcome.                                                                                                                  

For more information, email madison@ericshouse.org.
To Be Continued Podcast episode with
Romy Wightman& Marianne Gouveia
In this episode Marianne and Romy discuss a Mothers story of grief, loss, substance abuse, suicide, and helping other loss survivors.

Romy can be reached at rwightman@cox.net or at IG @tobecontinued.podcast
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Book Recommendation:
Reclaiming YOU: Using the Enneagram to Move from Trauma to Resilience
Sharon K. Ball LPC-MHSP, Renée Siegel LISAC ACC

Reclaiming YOU offers a path to healing heartache through being trauma and Enneagram informed. 

The pandemic has brought to light the heartaches that may have gone unnoticed and has highlighted the need for owning one’s trauma recovery and finding resilience. In being trauma and Enneagram informed, one can find their journey to resilience and hope. Reclaiming YOU provides individual stories and facts of heartache, Enneagram type, vulnerabilities and their resilience journey. Reclaiming YOU looks at various types of trauma, through individual stories. Each type is represented in one of the stories. After their story is shared,

* Facts about that type of trauma are given
* Resilience for that type is described
* Vulnerability and resilience for each of the types is provided
* Finally, a simple practice is offered


With Reclaiming YOU, readers can find their story in the heartache and in the resilience by gaining understanding through the facts.
Stay the Course this Season
Barbara Brown, barb@togetheraz.com
Addiction never takes a holiday from wanting to destroy a life. While this time of year is joyful — for many it’s a time of sadness, loneliness, and isolation — that is a danger zone for me.
I did not grow up with many Hallmark Card moments, holidays at my house were anything but peaceful.

There were family outbursts and tears because of my mom’s alcoholism and I dreaded Christmas Eve the most. The drinking started about noon followed by BS excuses for her absence. I vowed to never ever follow in her footsteps — little did I know I’d surpass her with my drinking. She found sobriety in 1978, me in 1990, and only then were we able to develop a beautiful mother/daughter relationship until she passed in 2013.

In my sobriety she encouraged me, as did my dad and siblings. I heard a lot of wisdom from them; and the one saying most important to me in early recovery was to ‘take it a day at time’. Those words might seem frivolous, light and airy, but they were, and continue to be some of the most important words I’ve ever heard.

Stay on the sober course! Reach out and never be ashamed to ask for help.
 
My wish is we all are blessed with another sober day.