Grief and Substance Abuse

Learn about the relationship between grief and addiction, including how substance use affects grief, how grief can lead to addiction and how to treat co-occurring grief and substance use disorders.

Griefcan be an unspoken bond between people who are intreatment for substance use disorders. People have often suffered many losses by the time they enter recovery. Drug and alcohol addictions can devastate relationships, careers and even a person’s sense of identity. Losing a loved one compounds these other losses, especially when substance use delays the expression of grief.

Some people start using substances for the first time to cope with a loss. Other people suffer losses in the course of addiction. Emotional numbing and other effects of substances can block the grief process and prevent people from resolving a loss. Unresolved grief can develop into complicated grief disorder, a psychological condition with many risks.

The combined effects of unresolvedgrief and substance abusecan freeze a person’s emotional life and cause them tobecome depressed. To heal, people have to connect with and express their feelings, find meaning in what they have endured and rebuild a sense of hope. Fortunately, the rightgrief treatment programcan help people grieve their losses and heal.

Effects of Drug Use on Grief

People often respond to loss with an initial period of shock or denial, then a period of sadness. As they accept the reality of the loss, people start to work through the emotional pain of grief, eventually resolving and coming to terms with the loss. The grieving process is complete when a person finds a way to preserve a sense of connection with the person who has died while moving forward in life with plans that do not involve them.

Grief researchers call the middle phase of grief in which people feel intense sadness theacute phaseof grief. The length of this phase can vary, but it usually ends within six months to a year. People with complicated grief disorder remain locked in this phase for much longer. In addition to the pain of grief they already feel, they can develop other serious symptoms like obsessive thinking, depressed mood and even adesire to die.

When people usedrugs for grief relief, they often end up trading temporary peace for long-term suffering. Using substances can cause unresolved or complicated grief that can persist for years, locking people in a cycle of grief and addiction.

Alcoholism and Grief

Many people turn toalcohol to copeafter a loss. For some, the period of combinedgrief and alcoholabuse is short-lived. For others who are ingrief,alcohol abusecontinues to escalate over time. When people drink to soften, avoid or suppress feelings ofgrief alcoholismcan develop and become quite severe.

Does alcohol make grief worse? While drinking does not always delay or complicate the grieving process, it often does. Grief does not resolve if it is not felt and expressed. Failing to complete the grieving process can cause cumulative grief, in which each new loss releases emotions linked to the losses that came before it. This can make the grief for each new loss increasingly painful.

Chronic, delayed and cumulative grief are risk factors for complicated grief disorder, which resembles, and can sometimes also cause, amajor depressive episode. These co-occurring conditions increase the risk of hospitalization andsuicide, especially when a person uses substances while symptoms are present.

Related Topic:Complicated grief treatment

Grief and Marijuana

Like alcohol,marijuanahas a sedative and calming effect that people sometimes use to soothe physical or emotional pain. Unfortunately, the immediate relief marijuana provides can make negative moods worse in the long-term. Using marijuana reduces short-term levels of anxiety and depression butexacerbates symptomsover time. This is especially true for people who use marijuanaheavily.Marijuana and griefcan combine to prolong and delay the emotional work required to move out of the acute grief phase.

Grief and Stimulants

Many people associatestimulant drugslikecocaine,methamphetaminesand prescription amphetamines likeAdderallwith extroverted, energetic behavior and bursts of productivity. However, many people use stimulants tonumb emotional pain. Unfortunately, mixinggrief and stimulantsincreases the risk of addiction as well as the risks of complicated grief disorder and long-term depression. One of the most commonstimulant withdrawal effectsis depressed mood, which can linger and intensify over time.

Statistics on Grief and Addiction

Grief and substance abuse statisticsshow that there is a significant overlap between major depressive disorder, complicated grief and substance use disorders.One studyshowed that men were twice as likely to have an alcohol use disorder two years after a loss than men who were not grieving.Another studyshowed that men and women who had complicated grief and major depressive disorder were more likely than others to meet criteria for alcohol dependence at some point in their lives.

This connection may be due to the effects ofsubstance use on the brainor thehigh rates of traumaamong people who develop substance use disorders. Exposure to trauma, whether in childhood or later in life, significantlyincreases the riskof complicated grief disorder as well.

Can Grief Lead to Drug Addiction?

Grief and addictionare so deeply linked that grief work is often a significant part of recovery from substance use disorders. For many people, a loss they could not accept set them on the path to addiction.

The risk of developing a substance use disorder is even greater when a loss was traumatic or occurred under traumatic circumstances. For example, people who lose a parent to an act of violence often do not receive the support they would need to mourn and make sense of that loss. They live with unresolved pain that they may try to soothe by using substances.

As people continue to use substances to numb or alleviate grief, they often accumulate other losses. They may lose friends tooverdose, lose relationships or lose dreams for their future as they struggle with the impact of addiction on their careers and finances. As the losses continue to build, substance use can intensify even further.

Dual Diagnosis Treatment: Grief and Substance Abuse

Because of the special relationship between substance use and loss, many substance abuse treatment programs already incorporatedual-diagnosis interventionsforgrief and addiction recovery. People often spend time in treatment groups examining and coming to terms with the losses they have suffered. Sometimes, group sessions are dedicated entirely to the topic of grief and loss.

Individualaddictions counselorsoften focus their work with clients on addressing unresolved grief. Agrief treatment planusually incorporates one of the processes or stage models of grief and includes progressive goals to help people progress from one stage to the next. First, a person must accept a loss, then express emotions related to it. To complete the grief process, they must find meaning in what happened and incorporate it into their personal narrative.

People who have substance use disorders and co-occurring complicated grief disorder or major depressive disorder usually require additional interventions. Many substance abuse treatment programs offer integrated treatment that allows people to address dually diagnosed disorders within the same program.

In an integrated program, a person can often participate in individual mental health therapy,medication managementwith a psychiatrist,group treatmentfor substance use disorders and complementary therapies. This approach ensures that people receive the help they need so mental health conditions don’t prevent progress in recovery from a substance use disorder, and vice versa.

If you are struggling with a substance use disorder and also need help addressing grief, depression or other mental health issues, there is help. The Recovery Village operates integrated treatmentfacilities across the United Statesthat can treat dually diagnosed disorders. Pleasecontact The Recovery Villageto learn more about these programs and how treatment can help you overcome the cycle of addiction and grief.