Grief & Addiction
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Losing a loved one can be traumatic. Regardless of the circumstances behind a loved one’s death, the emotional loss triggered by someone close to you passing away can affect you to your core. It’s normal to be shaken up after death. And the resulting grief is natural.
It’s hard to tell what grief should look like. Therapists and psychiatrists agree that timelines for grief and the intensity of grieving symptoms are entirely subjective. Some people experience symptoms of grief – such as a low mood, or trouble sleeping and eating – for anywhere between a few months and several years. Some people experience grief more intensely than others. Some people manage grief much more quickly, but even that can feel worrying. They might feel guilty for “getting over it” too quickly.
It’s much more common, however, for people to grieve for longer rather than shorter periods of time. Modern psychiatry considers extended periods of grief as “complicated grief”, a pathology largely characterized by intense feelings of grief lasting longer than normal. But that can be a very troubling diagnosis for any professional to make. Grief is subjective, after all, and it’s difficult to tell how long is “too long” when mourning the loss of a loved one. Pathologizing the normal human reaction to the loss of a loved one can also be alienating, and even disturbing to many people.
Nevertheless, just as grief is normal and natural, it can also be stressful, and difficult, and invite prolonged feelings related to other mental health issues, such as self-harm, suicidal ideation, and even substance use. Research tells us that the death of a loved one can drastically increase a person’s risk of substance use related health issues, and among people with a history of substance use disorders (addiction), the symptoms of grief are more likely to turn into a chronic mental health challenge.
If you or someone you care about has been struggling with drug use after losing someone they love, their grief may be a contributing factor to their addiction. But how do you “treat” losing someone you love? And how do you address an addiction fueled by deep emotional anguish?
Is Grief a Mental Health Problem?
Mental wellbeing is about more than being happy. There is an entire spectrum of human emotions, and plenty of reasons to feel every part of that spectrum over the course of a human lifetime. It’s normal to feel rage, to grieve, to sob, to lash out. An emotionally healthy person will still experience frustration, and sadness.
We only begin to pathologize negative emotions when they become the new norm, or when they occur independent of any identifiable trigger or reason. Feeling deeply sad for no particular reason at all is one of the key characteristics of depression.
Grief, then, is difficult to characterize as a “mental health issue”. After all, even if a person’s sadness lasts for months or years, wouldn’t they be justified in feeling sad if they’ve lost their life partner, or their sibling, or their parent, or someone else very near and dear to their heart?
Another important characteristic for pathologizing emotions, then, is how they affect us. Trauma-related stress symptoms do have an identifiable cause, but they still need treatment, because they don’t tend to get better or go away on their own and can contribute to mental and physical health problems. In the same way, when a person’s grief continues to impact their life to a debilitating degree – such as contributing to drug use to self-medicate the emotional pain of a personal loss – that grief becomes part of a condition that can be identified and treated.
The final consideration here is to think of therapy, counseling, and mental health resources as more
than a course of treatment for a disease.
Talking to someone, being introspective, taking care of your mental needs, and exercising positive thinking through gratitude or mindfulness shouldn’t just be about treating an illness, but a matter of preventative care and lifelong health, as well. Going to therapy after losing a loved one isn’t about conceding that grief is a pathology, but about recognizing that we all need help sometimes, and therapy can be a great way to seek help when we’re overwhelmed by something tragic.
Exploring the Link Between Grief and Addiction
It’s important not to attribute addiction solely to grief, or to think of grief as a single cause for substance use problems. When discussing mental health issues, most professionals tend to use the biopsychosocial model, same as when discussing pain conditions.
Biopsychosocial factors number in the dozens, providing a holistic view that complicated mental health issues, such as drug use and addiction, tend to be the result of many contributing factors compounding over time. Even when the death of a loved one can be identified as a trigger, it isn’t the sole cause.
When a person struggles with addiction, the major contributing factors tend to be:
a) genetic (mental resilience, predisposition towards mental health symptoms, genetic sensitivity to certain drugs, susceptibility to a drug’s addictiveness, and even tolerance and withdrawal symptoms);
b) and environmental (childhood experiences, recurring or chronic stressors such as work, sleep habits, dietary habits, exercise or lack thereof, recent trauma, and so on).
So why turn to drugs to begin with? In many cases where grief and addiction correlate, it’s because substance use becomes a coping mechanism for the negative emotions kicked off by the loss of a loved one.
Treatment Approaches for Addiction at Coastwise
Here at Coastwise, we address substance use disorders in clients through an individualized, holistic, and integrated treatment program. We offer intensive outpatient programming (IOP) and partial hospitalization programs (PHP), utilizing treatment modalities such as:
- Trauma-Informed Therapy
- Psychoeducation
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
- Emotional Transformation Therapy (ETT)
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Family Therapy
- And more.
After treatment, we encourage clients to continue their commitment to recovery through group meetings, peer support, community resources, and continued therapy. We refer clients to nearby mental health professionals and other recovery resources, including AA/NA groups, 12 Step programs, and other addiction recovery alternatives.
Get Started with Us at Coastwise
Grief can be the catalyst for other mental health issues, especially in times of extreme or chronic stress. In the absence of other forms of stress relief, drug use often becomes a method of temporary relief, but with severe consequences. We at Coastwise help people regain control and address their grief in healthier ways. Get in touch with us today to learn more.