In this episode of the Recovery Rebirth Podcast, we begin a discussion on grief. Grief is an unavoidable part of the human experience. We all experience grief over the course of our lives, whether it’s heartbreak or death. In recovery, we encounter with a wide array of grief and oftentimes complicated grief due to the complexity and difficulty of relationships.
We delve into the Five Stages of Grief devised by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Kübler-Ross groundbreaking has written several books on grief and death, the first being the seminal On Death and Dying. We also make very clear that grief is far from a linear process. Grief has no timeline.
We discuss how we’ve learned to feel uncomfortable emotions through recovery vs. repressing or stifling our emotions. This can help to get us unstuck from stages such as denial and depression. While we may never get over a tremendous loss, we can get through it. We can integrate our grief as we heal.
We can experience many types of grief: death, the loss of relationships, the loss of someone to addiction whether through death or a lifetime of active addiction, and even anticipatory grief.
We talk about multiple resources to support us in our journey toward acceptance. Whether it’s grief support groups, therapy, antidepressants. While grief is an individual experience, we don’t have to go through it alone.
Resources
Support Groups
https://www.griefshare.org
https://www.hom.org/our-services/grief-support-groups/
Books
On Death and Dying–Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
On Grief and Grieving–Elisabeth Kübler-Ross & David Kessler
Websites
https://grief.com/the-five-stages-of-grief/
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/5-stages-of-grief/
https://www.psycom.net/stages-of-grief
TED Talks
The journey through loss and grief
https://www.ted.com/talks/jason_b_rosenthal_the_journey_through_loss_and_grief
How to support yourself (and others) through grief
https://www.ted.com/talks/nina_westbrook_how_to_support_yourself_and_others_through_grief
