Grieving and Addiction
Kubler-Ross and Kessler define grief as our response to loss. It is the healing process that will bring comfort to our pain from that loss. Those of us who have lived with the disease of addiction ourselves or in our families know that whichever side of the fence you sit on, you have experienced loss. The loss of dreams, health, family and friends, personal possessions and finances to name a few. Grief can be what turns someone down the path to addiction, but it can also be the saving grace that brings a person into recovery.
As Melody Beatty says, “Some losses happen to us.” That might be the death of a loved one, a broken relationship, an accident or an illness. But she also says, “Other losses we participate in creating. An example of that might be alcoholism.” The losses we help create happen when we make bad choices, break the law, or not pay attention. When we don’t know how to handle the pain that comes with our loss, we keep ourselves from our feelings and the grieving process. Some try to escape the pain and can end up in addiction. Addiction can then help us create a cycle of ongoing losses that we otherwise would not have experienced. So how does the grieving process help us in recovery?
Grief serves a purpose in bringing our lives back in balance after a loss. We all feel and process our loss and the resulting pain differently. If a loss is what brought us to addiction, and we have continued to create more loss, we may have many things to grieve over. The stages of grief may come in a different order or time depending on the loss and who is working on it, but here are the five general points that people reach during their processing time:
- Denial, the first stage, can help us survive a loss when we are overwhelmed and in disbelief. But the disease can take that denial and twist it around to numb our feelings against reality. We stay stuck due to fear of feeling our pain. When we reach out and no longer deny the loss, it releases us to continue healing.
- Anger usually comes next. We need this to heal, and it is a feeling we have before we can look at the underlying feelings of sadness or pain. Anger, when used correctly, helps us to take action. Some believe anger is the intensity of our love for someone or something. It is what starts to reconnect us to reality.
- Bargaining is the part of the process when we want things to be the way they were. Guilt and shame are companions that do their share of the talking when we bargain. This stage can come and go (relapse), until we have worked our grief long enough to recognize our bargaining is not working. We are then more willing to live life on life’s terms.
- If we are feeling depression (not the mental illness, according to Kubler-Ross), it is an appropriate sign of great loss. The “loss fully settles into your soul.” We are truly feeling and dealing with the pain.
- Acceptance is the final stage of grieving. We have worked through the pain of our loss, and accept it as part of our reality. We may not like it, but we have found a way to live with it. For addicts/alcoholics and their loved ones, this can be a trying time. There are many wounds that everyone is trying to heal from. We are learning to re-adjust and reorganize ourselves into healthy relationships with others. There will be ups and downs.
Once we reach acceptance, we have done a lot of hard work. We are having more good days than bad. There are new connections and relationships blossoming. We are no longer denying our feelings and have learned how to do it differently the next time the pain of loss hits us. We are growing and changing. We are not doing it alone. We are finding comfort and balance. We are working out our recovery.