Do You Feel Like You’re Simply Existing?

Hi, I’m Andrea Magder. I lost my son, Ethan, in 2017 to an opioid overdose after a decade of addiction. That kind of loss stays with you in ways most people don’t understand.

I know how disorienting it can be. The ruminating. The second-guessing. The constant mental noise. I get it. And it doesn’t stop when our loved one is gone.

After my son’s death, I founded The Artist Lives, a nonprofit that preserves the creative work people leave behind. That work helped me begin to rebuild my life, but it also showed me how many families are left managing this grief with very little support.

That’s what led me to focus specifically on addiction loss. While losing a loved one, no matter how they passed, is unbearable, losing a loved one to addiction adds another layer. For many of us, we’ve been grieving long before they were gone. We’re left not only with unanswered questions, but also with a kind of scrutiny and stigma that doesn’t seem to follow other types of loss.

This isn’t about quick answers or learning how to move on. It’s about having a place where you can talk openly, without having to explain or defend your grief.