Bereavement through a friend or relative’s drug or alcohol use is a devastating, challenging and often isolating experience. 

The emotional intensity of a drug or alcohol related bereavement cannot be underestimated. Intense feelings of guilt, helplessness, regret and self-blame can be experienced. Anger towards their loved one is not unusual but this often makes feelings of guilt stronger.

The traumatic, stressful and sometimes frightening experiences that many families have lived with leave an emotional legacy that can
combine with the impact of grief in an often overwhelming way. Living with addiction can have a serious impact on all aspects of life, such as physical and mental health, financial security and family relationships: many of these issues continue to be an ongoing source of difficulty for family and friends long after the death. Moreover, when the person suffered from a long-term substance use, family members and friends often feel they began to lose their loved one even before they died, describing the experience as a ‘living bereavement’. And often brings a further devastating loss: the loss of hope of recovery.

Some families and friends, by contrast, may have been unaware that their loved one was using drugs or alcohol at all or did not know the extent of their use and so, with their death, comes the additional shock of discovery. Even when drug or alcohol use is known, or the death is feared and perhaps expected, for example when families and friends have witnessed previous overdoses, shock is still present.

Like many other forms of disenfranchised grief, those bereaved through drugs or alcohol often feel that a substance-related death carries a heavy stigma. Bereaved people may either directly experience or indirectly fear judgement from the people around them. This can lead to devastating feelings of isolation and loneliness, just at a time when support, care and understanding are what bereaved people are likely to need. 

There are many other dimensions of drug and alcohol related bereavement which can add to the burden bereaved families and friends face. The death itself is often traumatic; there may well always remain unanswered questions.

Drug and alcohol related bereavements are complex and distinctive. Those bereaved through alcohol or drugs are entitled to grieve without fear of being judged and to receive the support they need, just like anyone else.