Loss is something each person experiences differently, often with unhealthy coping mechanisms as a result. Substance abuse is just one, but addiction can cause further harm to a family already suffering. Are you struggling with loss and addiction or love someone who is? We can help.
Understanding the Relationship Between Grief and Addiction
The powerful emotions that come with loss are often too much to bear. Alcohol and drugs can temporarily provide a welcome escape, however, it's easy to slip into patterns of substance abuse when they provide the only relief from intense emotional pain. This is particularly true for individuals who have experienced trauma in the past or have a mental illness, but anyone can become an unwitting victim of grief and addiction.
The Importance of Developing Healthy Coping Mechanisms
Coping skills are something everyone develops in response to disappointment and tragedy. Many of them are healthy and bridge the pathway to healing, like self-care and counseling. Others, like addiction and self-harm, are also coping mechanisms. However, these are unhealthy and detrimental to the individuals who use them. No one is born with coping mechanisms; they are learned and developed over time. Replacing unhealthy coping mechanisms with healthy ones is crucial to your lifelong wellbeing, but it's often difficult if not impossible to do it alone when you're in the midst of grief and addiction. Having a strong network of support is needed.
What Circumstances Cause Grief?
While grief is typically thought of as resulting from the loss of a loved one, this is only one circumstance that can cause a person to feel deep, intense feelings of sadness, despair, anger, and loneliness. Here are several more:
- Job loss
- Divorce
- Serious illness of oneself or a loved one
- Physical, sexual, emotional, or verbal abuse
- Accidents
- Injury
- Money problems
- Problems with sexual intimacy
- Legal issues
- Major life changes
Types of Grief
There are many different types of grief that a person can experience after a loss, including:
- Normal grief
- Delayed grief
- Complicated grief
- Chronic grief
- Traumatic grief
- Anticipatory grief
- Absent grief
- Exaggerated grief
Understanding the type(s) of grief you may be experiencing and getting help processing the shock, denial, depression, anger, and other complicated emotions that accompany loss.
Top Tips for Managing Loss and Addiction
If you're overwhelmed with grief and engaging in substance abuse, you're not alone. Understanding that you're using unhealthy coping skills and need help replacing them with healthy ones is the first step. You can also:
1. Talk to a Trusted Friend or Family Member
If you have someone you can trust, like a good friend or a family member who supports you, talk openly with them. Let them know that you've been having a hard time and the challenges you're up against, and let them know that you're ready to make a change.
2. Ask for Help Getting Help
When you're suffering, taking the necessary steps towards getting help like making appointments, dealing with insurance coverage, and other red tape can be an impossible task. Ask for a friend or loved one to help you get the professional help you need. You can take these things over again when you're feeling better.
3. Eliminate Opportunities to Engage in Substance Use
Remove opportunities to easily get ahold of drugs or alcohol. Throw bottles away and let friends who enable you know that for your own health and safety, you need to move away from the friendship.
4. Work on Processing Your Grief
Loss and addiction often go hand-in-hand, with one perpetuating the other. Addressing addiction alone when grief is its cause will do little but provide a temporary bandage until the grief drives an individual to use again. Get help processing your loss through psychiatry, counseling, group therapy, and other options for grief management.
5. Focus on Addiction Recovery
Grief counseling cannot resolve the physical issues presented by addiction, so it's critical to also treat substance abuse in tandem with loss. In addition to mental health services, ask for help getting into an addiction recovery or rehabilitation program.
Get Help Coping with Substance Abuse After Loss
At NFA Behavioral Health, we understand the intricate relationship between grief and addiction. If you've suffered a loss and have subsequently turned to substance abuse to cope or you love someone struggling with addiction after loss, we can help. Contact us today to learn more about the rehab admissions process, and our inpatient and residential treatment programs.
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