OM DENNE EPISODE
What happens when staying busy becomes the only way you know how to survive grief?
After losing his son Zachary to an overdose in January 2020, Jim Horton kept moving. He read more than 50 books a year, worked out almost every day, taught skiing, and devoted 60 to 80 hours a week to the foundation he created in Zachary's memory.
For years, staying busy helped keep the grief at a distance. But when Jim's wife retired and he began slowing down too, there was suddenly space for everything he had been carrying.
Jim has joined KL several times over the years. In their last conversation, he couldn't imagine ever feeling joy again. This time, something is different.
Episode Summary
In this deeply personal conversation, KL Wells welcomes Jim Horton back to Thrive While Loving an Addict to talk about what has changed in his grief since losing his son Zachary to an overdose.
Jim shares how constant activity became part of his survival. Between exercise, reading, teaching skiing, and pouring himself into the Zachary Horton Foundation, there was little room left to sit with the pain. When life finally began to slow down, Jim found himself confronting grief he had kept at arm's length for years.
KL and Jim also explore an experience that often receives far less attention: how fathers grieve the death of a child. After more than six years of co-facilitating groups for parents who have lost children, Jim has repeatedly seen rooms filled predominantly with mothers, often with only two or three fathers among a group of twelve.
They discuss the messages many men receive about being strong, returning to work, protecting their families, and keeping painful emotions private. Jim also shares how a four-day retreat with other grieving fathers at a farm for rescued animals gave him a different way to understand and experience his grief.
Most importantly, this conversation offers something Jim once wasn't sure he would experience again: the possibility of joy. Not because the grief disappeared or Zachary became less important, but because Jim began learning that grief, love, and joy can exist alongside one another.
Key Discussion Points
- Losing Zachary to an overdose and living through the years that followed
- How Jim used constant activity to keep grief at a distance
- What happened when retirement created more space and fewer distractions
- Why grief doesn't follow a predictable or linear timeline
- The difference between moving forward and being told to "move on"
- The particular challenges fathers can face after losing a child
- Cultural expectations that encourage men to suppress vulnerability
- What Jim learned during a four-day retreat with other grieving fathers
- Recognizing a grief trigger and asking, "What do I need right now?"
- The fear that allowing yourself to cry means you may never stop
- Learning to experience painful emotions rather than immediately escaping them
- Why grief and love can sit beside one another
- Finding people who understand the path instead of trying to walk it alone
- Helping children understand that saying "I'm hurting" is safe
- Jim's continued work through the Zachary Horton Foundation
- Discovering that joy can return without diminishing the love for the person who died
Some Questions KL Asks
- What changed since the last time Jim and KL spoke?
- How did staying constantly busy affect Jim's grieving process?
- What happened when Jim finally had enough space to experience his grief?
- Why do so few fathers participate in grief support groups?
- What messages do men receive about how they are "supposed" to grieve?
- What did Jim learn from spending four days with other grieving fathers?
- What happens when we stop running from painful emotions?
- Can grief and joy exist at the same time?
- How can parents teach children that vulnerability and asking for help are signs of strength?
In This Episode, You Will Learn
- Why constant busyness can keep grief at arm's length for years without resolving it
- How grief after losing a child can feel more like a rollercoaster than a series of linear stages
- Why many fathers may feel they don't have permission to openly grieve
- How asking "What do I need right now?" during a triggering moment can create a different relationship with grief
- Why the fear that "if I start crying, I'll never stop" often keeps people from allowing themselves to feel
- How grief and love can exist side by side
- Why finding people who understand your experience can make grief feel less isolating
- How vulnerability and asking for help can become important lessons to model for children
- Why joy returning does not mean forgetting the person you lost
Notable Insight From The Episode
Grief does not have to disappear for joy to return.
For years, Jim stayed in motion because motion helped him survive. But slowing down eventually gave him the opportunity to experience what had been waiting underneath all that activity.
His story is a reminder that grief doesn't operate according to a schedule. There may be periods of functioning, distraction, intense pain, connection, laughter, and even joy. One does not necessarily erase the others.
The love remains. The grief may remain too. But over time, there can also be room for life again.
About the Guest
Jim Horton is the founder of the Zachary Horton Foundation in Fresno, California, which he created in memory of his son, Zachary, after Zachary died of an overdose in January 2020.
Through the foundation, Jim works to connect people with support for substance use disorder and mental health challenges. He gives drug-awareness presentations to middle school, high school, and college students, provides community education on the use of Narcan, and helps fund scholarships for people transitioning from inpatient treatment into sober living.
For more than six years, Jim and his wife have also co-facilitated a support group for parents who have experienced the death of a child.
Resources Mentioned
- Zachary Horton Foundation
- Hinds Hospice, Center for Grief and Healing in Fresno, California
- Selah Care Farm
- On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
- Brené Brown
- Lewis Howes
- Ed Mylett
- Narcan (naloxone)
Connect With Jim Horton
Jim invites listeners who need support or would like to learn more about the foundation's work to reach out through the contact information available on the Zachary Horton Foundation website.
