Key Takeaways:
- Grief and addiction can feed each other, making both harder to deal with.
- Alcohol or drugs may numb grief for a while, but they don’t make the loss disappear.
- Grief isn’t limited to death. Relationships, homes, careers, and other major changes can bring real loss.
- Prolonged grief disorder is a recognized diagnosis, not a sign that someone has failed to “move on.”
- Overdose loss can come with complicated feelings, including anger, guilt, relief, and stigma.
- Getting sober can bring old grief and unresolved trauma back to the surface.
We often talk about grief as if it follows a set of stages. You feel this, then this, then this, and eventually you come out the other side healed. Real grief rarely works that neatly. You can feel okay for months and suddenly get knocked over by it again. You can feel angry and relieved at the same time. And sometimes you don’t even realize that what you’re feeling is grief.
We also grieve much more than death. Divorce can bring grief. Losing a job can. Moving away from a place you loved or watching an important friendship end can leave you grieving a life you thought you were going to have.
Loss changes us. The goal isn’t necessarily to get back to “normal,” because that version of normal may no longer exist. It’s learning how to change with what happened and make room for the feelings that come with it. And when those feelings hurt badly enough, alcohol or drugs can start to look like a way to make them disappear for a while.
That’s where grief and addiction can begin to get tangled together.
How Grief and Addiction Feed Each Other
When someone you love dies, people understand if you need something to take the edge off. There may be alcohol at the funeral or someone encouraging you to have a drink because you’ve been through something awful. In those moments, wanting a little relief is completely understandable.
And if that drink makes you feel better for a little while, of course you might want that feeling again. Grief can be exhausting. Sometimes you just want a break from being sad or angry, or from thinking about what happened every second of the day. Alcohol or drugs can give you that break, at least for a little while.
But grief and addiction can feed each other in both directions. Research has found a connection between substance use and more difficult or prolonged grief, especially when someone’s substance use was already increasing before the loss.
So waiting for the grief to go away doesn’t always make the drinking or drug use go away with it. At some point, you may be dealing with both. And when every painful feeling sends you back to the thing you’ve been using to avoid feeling it, it can get really hard to separate one from the other.
Prolonged Grief Disorder and What Makes It Different
There’s no deadline for grief. You don’t move through seven stages, check them off one by one, and wake up one morning healed. You may feel okay for a while and then have a terrible week. A birthday or a song can bring everything back. None of that automatically means something is wrong.
But sometimes grief stays so intense that it becomes very hard to move forward with your life. You may spend much of your time longing for the person who died or thinking about the loss. You might avoid things that remind you of them or struggle to accept that they’re really gone.
When that kind of grief continues and significantly interferes with everyday life, it may be prolonged grief disorder, a recognized mental health diagnosis in both the DSM-5-TR and ICD-11.
And having a name for it doesn’t mean there’s a right way you should have grieved or that you somehow didn’t handle your loss well enough. It means what you’re feeling is real, and you may need more support carrying it than you’ve had so far. You don’t have to keep waiting for yourself to “get over it” when that clearly isn’t happening.
Why Numbing Delays Grief Instead of Ending It
There’s a reason people use the word numb. Alcohol or drugs can turn the volume down on feelings that seem way too big to sit with. For a few hours, you might think about the person you lost less. You might finally sleep or get a break from the pain.
But a break from grief isn’t the same as working through it. When the alcohol or drugs wear off, the loss is still there. And if using becomes the way you deal with every painful wave, you don’t get much of a chance to learn what to do with those feelings.
Over time, you may need more of a substance to get the same relief. Something that started as a way to get through an unbearable night can become a problem of its own.
Grief changes you because losing someone or something important changes your life. You don’t have to like that, and you don’t have to rush to find some silver lining in it. But trying to numb yourself back to the person you were before the loss can keep you stuck. Part of grieving is slowly learning how to live with what has changed, without needing to make the feelings disappear every time they show up.
The Losses Nobody Acknowledges
Death isn’t the only thing we grieve. You can grieve the end of a marriage, losing a job, moving away from a place that felt like home, or a friendship that disappeared. Sometimes you’re grieving someone who is still alive but no longer part of your life.
Grief can show up even when what happened is good. Your child can leave for college, and you can be incredibly proud while missing the kid who used to be down the hall. You can land a wonderful new job and still be sad about leaving people behind. Buying a new house can be exciting, while packing up a longtime home can bring a surprising amount of sadness.
There’s a name for grief that other people may not recognize or give you much space to feel: disenfranchised grief. It can happen after the death of an ex-partner, an estranged family member, a pregnancy, or other losses people around you may not fully understand.
And when nobody sees what happened as something you should be grieving, you may not see it that way either. You just know you’re not okay, and you may not understand why. It’s a lot harder to deal with a loss when you haven’t given yourself permission to call it one.
Grieving Someone Lost to Overdose
Losing someone to an overdose can bring so many layers of grief. You can miss someone terribly and still be angry with them. You can be devastated they’re gone and also feel relief that you’re no longer waiting for the next phone call or wondering whether they’re safe. Grief doesn’t make you choose just one.
Then there are all the questions. What if I had noticed sooner? What if I had called that day? Could I have done something differently? When a death feels preventable, it can be incredibly hard to stop going back over what happened.
There can be stigma, too. People may ask questions they would never ask after another kind of death or judge the person you lost. And if you’re in recovery or still using substances, their death can bring up complicated feelings about your own substance use.
You’re allowed to grieve the whole person and relationship, including the difficult parts. If you’re struggling with an overdose loss, specialized bereavement groups can connect you with people who understand the anger, guilt, relief, and other feelings you may not want to explain.
Grief can also get unbearably heavy. If you’re thinking about hurting yourself or don’t feel safe, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You don’t have to wait for things to get worse to reach out.
The Grief Nobody Warns You About in Early Recovery
Getting sober can come with a kind of grief people don’t talk about much. You can know alcohol or drugs were hurting you and still miss them. Maybe drinking was how you relaxed at the end of the day. Maybe using helped you be around people or made things you didn’t want to think about easier to ignore. When something has been part of your life for a long time, giving it up can be hard even when you know you need to.
Then there’s all the stuff you weren’t feeling before. An old breakup can suddenly hurt again. So can unresolved trauma or things that happened while you were using. Sometimes you don’t realize how much you’ve been carrying until you aren’t numbing it anymore.
That can be pretty unsettling when you thought getting sober was supposed to make you feel better. You might even wonder why you’re doing this if you feel worse than you did before.
But feeling grief in early recovery doesn’t mean recovery isn’t working. Some of this stuff may simply need your attention now. And this time, you can learn how to live with those feelings instead of having to make them disappear.
What Treatment Looks Like When Grief Is Underneath
If alcohol or drugs have been helping you avoid grief for a long time, the idea of suddenly facing all of it sober can be pretty scary. You may even wonder if you can handle it. Nobody expects you to walk through the door and immediately start unpacking the most painful thing that’s ever happened to you.
First, you get steadier. At New Leaf Detox & Treatment, medical detox typically lasts 3 to 9 days, depending on the substance and degree of chemical dependency. Nurses are available around the clock, and your vital signs are checked regularly. Residential treatment can continue at the same address after detox.
As you start feeling better physically, there’s more room to look at what’s underneath. Different kinds of therapy can help with different parts of grief:
- Individual therapy: gives you a private place to talk about the loss.
- Group therapy: can help with the isolation grief often creates.
- Family therapy: can help when the whole family is grieving.
- CBT and DBT: can help with painful thoughts and emotions that feel overwhelming.
You may come into treatment thinking alcohol or drugs are the problem and realize there’s more underneath. You don’t have to untangle all of it at once. Treatment gives you a place to start dealing with what hurts without having to numb it.
Talk to New Leaf About Grief and Substance Use
Maybe you started drinking or using because you were grieving. Maybe you’ve been using for a long time and getting sober has brought grief you weren’t expecting right back to the surface. Either way, you don’t have to know which problem came first before you ask for help.
When you call New Leaf, a coordinator will ask what you’ve been using, how much, and what happened the last time you stopped. We can also check your insurance benefits and have the clinical team look at what kind of support you may need. Checking your benefits is free and doesn’t commit you to treatment.
New Leaf is open 24/7 in Laguna Niguel for adults 18 and older. You’ve been carrying a lot. You can start by telling us about it.
Frequently Asked Questions About Grief and Addiction
Is it normal to drink more after someone dies?
It’s not unusual. Pay attention if drinking is becoming your main way of coping with the loss or you’re finding it harder to stop.
What is prolonged grief disorder?
Prolonged grief disorder is a recognized mental health condition where intense grief continues to interfere with everyday life. It doesn’t mean you’re grieving “wrong.”
Why is my grief worse now that I’ve stopped drinking?
Alcohol may have been numbing feelings you weren’t ready to deal with. When you stop drinking, those feelings can come back, sometimes more strongly than you expected.
How do I grieve someone who died of an overdose?
Overdose-specific bereavement groups can connect you with people who understand this kind of loss. If you’re thinking about hurting yourself or don’t feel safe, call or text 988.
Should I deal with the grief or the drinking first?
If you’re physically dependent on alcohol or drugs, getting medically stable comes first. Once you’re stable, treatment can make room for the grief, too.
Can grief counseling happen during addiction treatment?
Yes. Grief can be addressed through individual, group, and family therapy. New Leaf also uses trauma-informed care, CBT, DBT, and psychiatric assessment when appropriate.
