Richard’s reveal in the Grey’s Anatomy season 20 premiere’s ending solved a season 19 mystery and fully proved how far he had gone since the medical drama’s earliest seasons. As a central character since Grey’s Anatomy season 1, the various facets of Richard Webber’s story were delved into multiple times, whether they entailed his relationships with Ellis and Adele, his extended family, or his career struggles. However, Richard’s sobriety and his challenges to maintain it was probably the storyline that cyclically returned the most often over Grey’s Anatomy’s twenty seasons.
Richard’s storylines in Grey’s Anatomy season 19 took a huge toll on him, as he had to support his wife Catherine through her decision not to aggressively treat her cancer and see Maggie and Meredith leave Seattle, losing those he viewed as daughters in a matter of weeks. The bad turbulence on the flight to Boston led Richard to grab a drink before Bailey pushed it away, but it was his ordering an alcoholic drink in Grey’s Anatomy season 19’s finale that questioned Richard’s sobriety. Grey’s Anatomy season 20 revealed Richard didn’t drink it, but that wasn’t his biggest confession.
Webber’s Request To Bailey Proves How Better He Got At Managing His Sobriety
Grey’s Anatomy season 19 finale’s events startled him but he handled it better
Richard asking Miranda to take over his surgery at the end of the first day back from Boston proved how much better he had become at managing his sobriety because of the accountability he was able to show. Indeed, Richard admitted he had thought of having the drink he ordered and that he couldn’t stop thinking about it. While he would have shoved the thought under the carpet in past Grey’s Anatomy seasons, Richard took responsibility for everything that occurred and made plans so that he could handle what almost happened in the best possible way.
His accountability wasn’t only visible with Bailey, but also through his words at the AA meeting. Asking to cancel his years of sobriety and requesting a one-day-sober chip because entertaining the thought of drinking alcohol was enough for him to consider it a break in his sobriety showed how he wasn’t afraid to face the truth, with those closest to him and strangers. This marked a huge milestone for him because, through his choices, Richard proved that not only he was upfront about what happened with many, but he also took care of his sobriety with intent.
Richard Has Come A Long Way Since Grey’s Anatomy’s Past Seasons
He operated under the influence in season 6 & destroyed a bar in season 15
Taking a day to reflect on what to do in Grey’s Anatomy season 20, Richard’s actions proved him consistently wiser in a way he had rarely been before when his sobriety was involved. The stress of his job as chief coupled with the problems with his wife Adele eventually led Richard to drink again in Grey’s Anatomy season 6, damaging many of his relationships and even his career, temporarily losing him the chief of surgery position and stopping his surgeries after he unintendedly clipped a patient’s bile duct.
While Richard fell off the wagon onscreen only in Grey’s Anatomy season 6, season 15 tested his sobriety with personal challenges and prompted Richard to become volatile, destroying a bar with a bat after learning it exchanged sobriety chips for shots. The pattern Grey’s Anatomy established for Richard’s reactions when challenged by career difficulties or the threatened well-being of his loved ones over the years could have easily turned the events of Grey’s Anatomy season 19 into another possible relapse. Instead, Grey’s Anatomy season 20 managed to show Richard’s hard-won choices to protect his sobriety, portraying his tremendous improvement.