What is it about?
Bereavement following a drug and/or alcohol-related death has been neglected in research and service provision, despite its global prevalence and potentially devastating consequences for those concerned. Researchers have drawn attention to the suffering experienced by families worldwide who are coping with a member’s drug and/or alcohol use. This article highlights the predicament of those families should the person die from their drug/alcohol use. To this end, it reviews literature drawn from addiction and bereavement research that sheds light on this type of loss. The article also considers how general bereavement theory may help us understand bereavement following a drug/alcohol death. We argue that available understandings of bereavement do not take account of this type of loss, but rather make assumptions based on what is considered to be 'normal grief'. The article concludes by considering how findings from existing literature can guide future research.
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Why is it important?
Our research has found that people bereaved by substance misuse are a particularly marginalised, unsupported and highly vulnerable group. This article provides an introduction to this kind of bereavement and its impact on those left behind in relation to other kinds of bereavement.
Perspectives
Writing this article has been important in flagging up the extent to which these bereaved people are neglected and misunderstood/stigmatised, not only in the media, but by friends, even family members, and also by services and the practitioners who deal with substance-related deaths, i.e. those who might be expected to support them. The article is the first of several other articles based on a large research project that interviewed 100 family members bereaved in this way.
Christine Valentine
University of Bath
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Bereavement Following Substance Misuse, OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying, January 2016, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0030222815625174.
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