Making Amends After a Loved One Dies by Guest Writer Suzanne K
Losing a loved one is always painful. It doesn’t matter if the person you care about so deeply was in a long-term illness or died suddenly. When they’re gone, you’re left with a void that seems so deep that it can never be sealed over. The bereavement process, while different for everyone in the length of time it takes to go through various stages, is still a similar journey. It all takes time. But what happens when you’re an addict in recovery and your loved one dies? Now it’s impossible for you to make amends, right? No, it isn’t impossible, but it is a bit more difficult. Making amends after your loved one dies involves changing your strategies, your approach and, possibly your beliefs.
Dealing with Loss
Naturally, the first thing you need to do is recognize that the grief process is just that: a process that takes its own time. There is no predetermined timetable for how long it will take until you feel anything other than numbness or anger or devastating loss. Nor is there a single path that works for everyone.
For the individual in recovery, now is the time when you need to rely on your support network more than ever. They may not have suffered a loss such as the death of a loved one, but they are your allies. Through the dark days of early recovery, to times when relapse seemed almost inevitable, through the moments of triumph and victory – sobriety markers for a month, 6 months, a year or longer – they have remained constant. In fact, now that you’ve suffered a loss of your spouse or partner, parent, child or other loved one, you need them even more.
The truth is that you will want to shut yourself away, to avoid people, to beat yourself up over your failures and shortcomings. This is a natural response, but it is also one that is counter-productive to your long-term health. A few days of self-imposed isolation may be your way of coping with the immediacy of your feelings, but any longer and you run the risk of falling deeper into depression. The old cravings and urges will return with a vengeance and you will feel powerless to resist. If ever you needed your 12-step sponsor and fellow group members, it’s now.
You first need to make it through the initial days and weeks following the death of your loved one. You cannot even hope to think about making amends while you’re still in the active initial grieving phase. You’re in too much pain. And people don’t think correctly when they’re hurting so much.
Again, it doesn’t matter how your loved one died. Whether it was the result of a lingering illness, an accident, or suicide, death is an end to life for everyone. You can’t change that fact. None of us can. The only thing that we can do is to go on living, to try to make the best use of our own time on earth that we can.
Forget Booze, Drugs, and other Addictive Behavior
For some of us in recovery, life after the death of a loved one involves a few steps forward and a couple back before we finally get to the point where we feel somewhat whole. And, no, falling back into the bottle or drugs or other addictive behavior won’t assuage the pain. It may make you forget your pain temporarily, but you’ll feel even worse afterwards. If you do slip, redouble your efforts at regaining and maintaining your sobriety.
The reality and finality of death of someone we love is definitely one of the worst things that can happen. As a life stressor, it doesn’t get much harder than this. You’ll need all the coping mechanisms and strategies and support from others who care about you that you can get. If you feel yourself ready to give into the urges, call your 12-step sponsor. Go online and immerse yourself in a meeting. Call another friend from your 12-step group. Get out of your home environment. Do whatever you need to do to weather the urge to use again.
Do not ever feel that by calling your sponsor or friends – those individuals who have pledged to be there for you whenever you need them – that you are burden. That’s simply not true. They wouldn’t have volunteered if they felt so. The best tip: Go to your sponsor first.
Recognize the Stages of Grief
Key to your own recovery from the loss of your loved one is to understand and recognize the traditional stages of grief. Each person will go through his or her own experience of bereavement and what happens to one will not necessarily happen to another. For some, a stage of depression and isolation may occur many months after the loved one’s death, while for others this may occur much earlier. The point isn’t when the stages occur, but the fact that there are typical stages that most individuals go through when dealing with the death of a loved one. Here, then, are the 7 stages of grief:
Stage 1: Shock and Denial – At first, you may feel numbness or a sense of disbelief. At some level, you will have a tendency to want to deny the reality of what just happened. This is a way of trying to avoid the pain. This numbness is actually a protective mechanism, like shock, that keeps the body from being too overwhelmed all at once. Stage 1 can last for weeks.
Stage 2: Pain and Guilt – At some point, the shock and denial fades away, only to be replaced by unbelievable pain. You think that you cannot bear it, but it is important that you acknowledge and feel this pain, and not try to deny it or avoid it by escaping into alcohol or drugs. During this time, you may also experience incredible feelings of guilt or remorse over things you did or didn’t do or say with or to your loved one. Accept that this time of your bereavement is a very frightening, scary and chaotic place to be, but know that it will eventually pass.
Stage 3: Anger and Bargaining – After your frustration, you will likely begin to feel intense anger. You may find yourself wanting to retaliate by lashing out at others who are just trying to help. It is important to release your pent-up anger, but do so in healthier ways than hurting others. Engage in physical exercise, utilize meditation, prayer, and going to your 12-step group meetings. At this time, you may also find yourself asking unanswerable questions such as: “Why did this happen to me?” Or you may start irrational bargaining, such as: “If you just bring her (or him) back, I will never again….” While this is perfectly understandable and often happens, you know deep in your heart that the person who died cannot come back. Again, don’t try to deny or avoid these feelings at this stage, but don’t allow them to push you into self-destructive behavior, either.
Stage 4: Depression, Loneliness and Reflection – Others around you may feel that it’s about time you snapped out of it by this time. You can’t allow the judgment of others to guide you. They aren’t in your shoes. It’s your grief, and grief is wholly individual. The truth is that a certain period of sadness and loneliness is a normal part of the grieving process. This period occurs after you’ve worked through the first three stages of grief. It’s when the reality of your loss becomes most apparent. Don’t allow outsiders to talk you out of your grief. That isn’t helpful and will only stall your healing process.
During the stage of depression and loneliness, you will begin to focus on the past. You will recall – in minute detail – all the things that you did or said during your time together with your loved one. Not all of these memories will be pleasant. In fact, for individuals in recovery, it is often filled with intense feelings of regret, sadness over their real and perceived failures caused by their addiction, and anguish over the pain they caused their loved one. You want to curl up into a ball, to isolate yourself from others. You may feel completely empty and full of despair. Acknowledge you have these feelings and understand that it is a perfectly normal stage of bereavement.
Stage 5: Turning Upward – After you’ve gone through the previous four stages, the fifth stage is one of gradual return to normal. No, your everyday life isn’t free from pain. Far from it, but you can expect your life to be a bit more calm and organized. Your physical symptoms (the broken heart, loss of weight, inability to sleep) will lessen, and you may feel your depression begin to lift, however slightly.
Stage 6: Reconstruction and Working Through – As you begin to think more clearly, you will start to create realistic solutions to working through problems that your life without your loved one may pose. There may be financial situations that you need to deal with that you will now be able to at least look at, get help for, and begin to work through. Other practical problems, such as taking care of minor children, attending to your other family or job-related responsibilities will not seem as much of a burden or be as overwhelming as they were in the immediate aftermath of your loved one’s death.
Stage 7: Acceptance and Hope – This is the final stage of grief. It does not mean that you are guaranteed instant happiness. You do, however, accept and deal with the reality of your situation. You will be able to remember your times with your loved one without the wrenching pain you once felt. There will still be sadness, but it won’t undermine your ability to function in your life of sobriety. Gradually, you will begin to find pleasure in doing everyday things, in meeting people with whom to share casual conversation. You will be able to set new goals for yourself, to involve yourself in new activities, broaden your educational, cultural, and spiritual horizons. In other words, you will be able to live and possibly experience hope and joy again.
When You’re Ready to Make Amends
While you should wait until you’ve gone through the stages of grief to devote yourself to making amends to your loved one who has died, this doesn’t mean that you can’t make notes on things you’d like to do, or want to do, when you are able. In fact, this may promote your overall healing.
One suggestion is to keep a notebook where you capture your thoughts on paper. Write how you feel at various points in your bereavement. If you’ve left things unsaid and feel that you can now never say them to your loved one, write them down. Be honest. Unburden yourself of your guilt, shame, remorse, anguish and pain. Write how much you love the person, how you realize now the things that you said or did caused such pain, and how you would do things differently if you again had the chance. By acknowledging the facts and responsibility for your actions caused by your addiction does not minimize the reality that you did what you did. It does, however, allow you to say to this person whom you love the things that you need to say.
Keep writing in your journal. Make it a practice to write something every day. You can use your journal to just talk about your day, as if you were talking in person to your loved one. You can use it to work through problems, or ask questions of yourself for which you need answers. If you find yourself needing to say the same or similar things over and over again, then you need to do so. This is your way of working through your feelings of grief and trying to come to a place of acceptance.
At some point, you may wish to take pages of your journal and read them aloud to your loved one at the cemetery, or after meditation in a place of peace and solitude, or read them silently at church. If it’s important to you to share some of these words and feelings with other family members, you may wish to arrange a small gathering during which each person speaks about his or her relationship with your loved one. But this is only a suggestion. You may have other ideas about how to make your amends.
What does it really mean to make amends, anyway – especially if the person is no longer alive? You can’t take back physical or mental abuse. You can’t wipe away deprivation or financial hardship caused by your addiction. Making amends means that you acknowledge your responsibility in what happened during your addiction. Since your loved one is no longer around, your resolution to continue in your sobriety has to be for yourself – but that is part of you making amends. You resolve to live a clean and sober life and to do the very best you can from this day forward. You will do it first for you, and also to live according to how you would live if your loved one stood before you now.
If your 12-step group has a section or seminar on dealing with grief and loss, and how to make amends after your loved one dies, by all means, attend. Just hearing from others who have gone through this experience will be helpful. Of course, you can buy books and attend other survivors’ meetings or go to see a grief counselor. You can also talk your feelings over with your aftercare or continuing care counselor (if you have one as part of your addiction treatment program). But definitely check out what other resources are available to you in your community.
Other examples of making amends to your loved one who has died include striving to become a better parent, getting your financial house in order, working to improve yourself physically, emotionally, and spiritually, helping others, and beginning to look outward instead of inward. Once you are able to look on tomorrow with something other than pain, you are on the path toward healing.
Some say that healing from the death of a loved one is the worst kind of pain. It makes everything you went through in treatment seem like a blur. If you believe, as millions do, that the spirit never dies, and that death is only a transition to eternal life, this may help you as you work on healing and making amends. If you have another type of belief or practice (that doesn’t involve addictive substances or behavior) that gives you hope and comfort, utilize that as well.
Recognize that you will never forget your loved one. Because he or she is gone does not mean they are out of your thoughts. You can’t get over their death, but you can go on. Do this in their memory, and do it for you. Let the healing begin.
