How do you keep going when your world falls apart? It is a question even adults struggle to answer, so imagine what it is like for a child. For many, the pain of losing someone they love becomes unbearable. In the search for something, anything, to numb the hurt, they turn to alcohol or other substances. When grief is left unspoken and untreated, that path becomes even easier to fall into.
Ellen Ingraham knows that pain. She lost her father when she was just two years old. As if that heartbreak were not enough, her older sister, her best friend, was fighting a life-threatening condition. Like so many others carrying quiet grief, Ellen turned to alcohol to cope.
In this episode of Grieving Out Loud, Ellen shares her story, how she faced her pain, found her way toward healing, and what she wants others to know if they are struggling too.
If you enjoyed this episode, check out these ones next:
The silent crisis of alcohol and women’s liver disease
Telling Everyone’s Story While Hiding Her Own: A Journalist’s Battle with Addiction
Broken Heart Syndrome: 4 Ways We Grieve
Ellen Ingraham with her sister Maureen 
Ellen Ingraham with her sister Maureen 
Ellen (Sophomore year) 
Ellen Ingraham (2024) 
Maureen (left) and Ellen (right) with their Great Grandmother 
Ellen’s daughter Maureen (left) and husband Dave (middle) and son Andrew (right) 
Ellen Ingraham – yoga 
Ellen with sisters Maureen and Laura 
Ellen Ingraham
MEET THE GUEST
Ellen Ingraham
Ellen is a 69-year-old Jersey girl who moved to Colorado in 2019 with her mountain-loving husband. Married since September 1988, she is the proud mother of two children, Maureen, 34, who is named in honor of her late sister, and Andrew, 29. Ellen has explored 30 different careers and is now looking for her 31st. She has been sober and active in Alcoholics Anonymous since 1990 and continues to be deeply involved in the recovery community.
