Losing Someone To Addiction: What To Do
The death toll due to alcoholism and drug addiction is showing no signs of slowing down. The United States is dealing with an opioid epidemic and 63,632 Americans died in 2016 due to a drug overdose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Alcohol poisoning, meanwhile, claims 88,000 lives per year.Losing someone to addiction is an almost impossible grief. There’s no universal method to coping, everyone will have to deal with the loss on their own terms. This is not to say that you should be swallowed by your own grief. The pain of losing a loved one to addiction can be debilitating but still, you need to move forward, especially if there are also others who depend on you.
How to Cope With Losing Someone to Addiction
1. Allow Time for Grief
Everybody grieves differently in the face of death. Some can move on almost immediately, while others sink into depression. Time is a great healer. However, if you think that you are heading on a downward spiral with no means of stopping then it’s time to ask for help from your family, friends, and even professional counselors who can help you process your grief.
2. Don’t bury your feelings
If you are guilty because you feel that you didn’t do enough to help your loved one deal with drug addiction or alcoholism, don’t try to bury it deep inside where it’s bound to come out as a complex. This is where all the problems start when we don’t acknowledge how we feel. Unlike what others may tell you, there’s nothing wrong with feeling a pang of guilt. The earlier you acknowledge this, the earlier you can seek help. Eventually, you have to forgive yourself.
3. Know that you couldn’t have control of the outcome
No matter how you replay all the events leading to the death of a loved one due to drug addiction or alcoholism, you can’t change the outcome. Recognize that this is a fool’s errand and will only result in unnecessarily damaging your psyche. Losing a loved one to drug addiction may be difficult but trying to second-guess your actions is downright impossible. What you can do instead is to honor their life. Bring them flowers, cook their favorite food, frame your favorite photo of them, and really know them through the eyes of their friends. Everybody makes mistakes but it’s not what people do that defines them.
4. Take stock of your life and find a motivation
Losing a loved one to drug addiction will drive you to exist on auto-pilot, and that’s fine, at least in the beginning. For parents who still have other young children to care for, they need to understand their responsibilities. Yes, they are grieving but there are others who rely on them to be strong. Their children are probably grieving, too, and they don’t even understand why all these things are happening. They need a lot more of care and love from everybody to make a sense of what’s going on.
5. Take a vacation
You may feel guilty about taking a vacation right after losing a loved one to addiction, but you desperately need a distraction. It’s better that you bring your close friends or family members with you on the trip. This is a good opportunity to talk about your loss, process your guilt, fears, and grief. It’s also a good way to feel that you are not alone in this. You can also take a vacation alone. For instance, did your loved one have a dream destination before their death? That could be a good starting point for where you will travel next.
6. Pursue an advocacy
Don’t let losing a loved one to addiction become the end of the chapter. You can create a foundation on their behalf or take up an advocacy against the dangers of drug addiction and alcoholism, using the death of your loved one as a cautionary tale. If you feel that you are not ready, there are non-profit organizations that are in desperate need of financial support to continue their assistance to people struggling with substance use disorder. You can help raise funds or make a contribution yourself. Another way is to raise awareness on the benefits of seeking alcohol or drug rehab treatment because that decision could save their lives.
In that way, losing someone to addiction wasn’t for nothing.
7. Make a Bucket List
Losing a loved one to addiction doesn’t mean that their legacy is finished. Make it your responsibility to complete what they’ve always wanted to do when they were still alive. Did they want to go bungee jumping? Did they want to visit the Vatican or the Caribbean? Did they want to go parachuting? What were the dreams your loved one shared with you before their death or before their drug addiction?
8. Share yourself
If you feel a large amount of grief after losing someone to addiction, you can share your love and time with others who are in a similar situation. There are countless cases where people pursued a career in counseling and therapy after a death in the family due to drug addiction and alcoholism. When you see that some people face a bigger problem than yours, you gain a new perspective on life.
9. Accept people’s generosity
The death of a loved one because of drug addiction or alcoholism may shatter the safe cocoon you have built around yourself. This could drastically change the way you look at other people, especially if you have no idea that your loved one was struggling with substance use disorder. However, don’t expect your friends to just change the way they look at you because of what happened. When others ask you out for coffee, bowling or dinner at their house, take them up on their offer. You might be surprised just how good people really are even if society does have its dark side.
