My name is Abigail Orobello and I have the honor of speaking at the 10-year anniversary of the Run for Recovery.

The date was January 8th, 2024. Just one day prior, I’d broken my ankle, a clean snap while ice skating with a friend, laughter turning to pain in an instant. The phone rang in the distance. It was Lawrence Memorial Hospital. All five of us kids had been born there, our lives quietly beginning in its yellow, pale walls. But this call wasn’t a beginning.

The nurse spoke to my parents in a calm voice, like she was tiptoeing on ice. I remember how time folded in on itself. How the world suddenly sounded underwater.

My parents packed bags, kissed me goodbye. They drove through the grey of winter, chasing down a crisis none of us saw coming.

Everything changed in a single second.

The next morning brought no comfort—only the kind of news that punches the air from your lungs.

I was told: If you want to say goodbye, get to Yale New Haven Hospital.

He had been airlifted there. A brain bleed.

There was no time to think—only act. I slid down stairs on my butt, healing leg dragging, hobbling between rooms. And then—suddenly—it hit me: a permanent marker.

Strange, I know. But it felt necessary. I stuffed it into my bag without knowing why.

The drive, with my two dogs, was long and heavy. But somehow…I felt my brother with me. Like he was riding shotgun, DJing my playlist from somewhere just out of reach.

Every song that played felt like a message. A memory. A reminder.

When I arrived at the hospital, my breath caught in my throat. There he was—but not the way I remembered him.

Gone was the strong, endlessly joking Nick. Silence wrapped around the room like a heavy blanket.But I knew what to do—just like he had done for me earlier that day. We needed music. Nick’s music.

I queued up his favorites, and as the songs filled the sterile room, something incredible happened—his toes began to move, lightly tapping against the metal frame of the hospital bed. Still him. It was like his spirit was trying to dance one last time.

When the nurses pulled my parents away for a moment, I reached into my bag.

The permanent marker.

I leaned close and carefully drew a small heart between his thumb and pointer finger.

A mark of love. Of presence. Of goodbye… or maybe see you later.

They say some people wear their hearts on their sleeve—but my brother carries his in his hands, always giving pieces of it away. You’d never know it just by looking at him—he had this tough exterior—but inside, inside was a heart that beat louder for others than it ever did for himself.

Nick’s heart wasn’t just big, it was bold. It held space for broken people, for misfits, for anyone who needed protection, laughter, or someone to sit with them in silence when things got too heavy. His love was quiet sometimes, but it was constant like background music you don’t realize you’ve been dancing to until it’s gone.

That’s the kind of heart Nick had. The kind that didn’t ask for attention—it just showed up. Every time. For family. For friends. For strangers. For me.

You see, I’m here to tell you all this because my brother and I were bonded by this disease. Alcohol was our vice, our silent tether. We knew each other in a way no one else really did—not just as siblings, but as co-conspirators in this quiet war. There was pain we didn’t always speak of, but we understood.

It didn’t matter what he using or if he was using. He didn’t die from an overdose, not from liver failure, or a car crash. A brain bleed. The kind that comes without warning. Like a thief in the night.

In the days that followed, I was asked to create Nick’s memorial video.

As I searched through his phone, something stopped me cold.

In all the photos of dinners he’d made with the crockpot I gave him—chicken noodle soup, hearty stews—I noticed something.

Hearts. In nearly every dish—hearts formed by carrots, celery, noodles.

Never mentioned. Never pointed out. Just quietly placed there.

Like secret messages. Meant only for me.

Nick drifted in and out of recovery, often finding his way back to it during the times he was incarcerated. It was in those quiet, confined spaces that he seemed to reconnect with a sense of faith, with God. There, he found moments of clarity, even hope.

Maybe that’s where our paths diverged. Even in the spaces where he struggled, he was still my brother. Still someone who loved fiercely, who gave what he could, when he could. And while sobriety may have eluded him, the love he left behind—the moments, the meals, the hearts—remain.

What my recovery looks like today hasn’t been linear—far from it. I’ve collected more 24-hour chips than I can count. Each one a reminder that starting over is still part of the path. Today, I stand before you with 111 days of sobriety, and while the number matters, it’s the journey behind it that means the most.

My recovery has given me something I never expected: community. A support system. Structure, routine, and actual tools to cope with life. I have a sponsor who I truly believe was meant to be mine—someone I look up to and hope to be more like, not just in sobriety but in life.

My recovery led me to the Bulldogs—a group that kindly, but firmly, expects me to “just show up,” even on the days I feel like disappearing. It’s brought me back to movement, to art, to expression. These days, I run. I paint. I write. I grieve. I heal. I try new things. I feel what’s mine.

And I carry my brother with me. Not just in memory, but in the quiet language of love he taught me—celery hearts in soup, toes tapping to music, an inked heart between thumb and finger.

There is a ruthless nature when it comes to addiction, a disease that doesn’t take survivors—it takes prisoners. But recovery? Recovery gives us keys.

Thank you for allowing me to share his story—and mine.

 

The cost of silence

Addiction—it whispers.

Persistence.

Addiction—it threatens.

It takes, it steals.

A clown of a thief,

bragging with deals—

a cup of false vows

that numbs what is real.

Swallow your values,

sink into pride.

Choke down the silence

you carry inside.

False motivation,

fleeting joy,

grave consequences

disguised as a toy.

 

Addiction—it dances,

a soft, bitter lure.

It sings like a siren,

so certain, so sure.

It cradles, then crushes.

It lifts, then it drowns—

a mask for the lost,

a crown for the clowns.

 

Addiction—it lingers,

a shadow, a chain.

A comfort that poisons,

a balm that brings pain.

It pulls at your strings,

rewrites your own name.

You play by its rules,

then shoulder the shame.

 

It muffles the sweetness

you once used to feel.

It teaches you hunger

then steals every meal.

Addiction consumes—

becomes your whole fight.

A thief in the day,

a ghost in the night.It echoes in silence.

It howls in your head.

It takes what you love,

then it leaves you for dead.

But sometimes, somehow,

we claw toward the day—

not because fear is gone,

but because we can’t stay.

We reach for a breath,

for a voice, for a hand.

For moments that tremble

but still try to stand.

Not healed, not whole,

but willing to try—

to sit with the truth,

to not need the lie.

We rise from the wreckage,

we crawl toward the light.

The shadow still whispers—

but we learn how to fight.