GRIEF
Grief is the emotional, physical, intellectual, behavioral and spiritual
process of adjusting to the loss of someone or something of personal
value.
Grief is a process, not an event. Grief has no end point. We can still
feel intense despair over a loss, especially if triggered by being in an
area where chemicals are used.
Grief is a unique experience for each individual. Even though there
is no one way to grieve our losses, there seems to be certain stages of
grief that we all go through.
These stages seem to follow a particular pattern, i.e.:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression/Sadness
Acceptance
Question: Can we go back and look at the losses we have suffered
due to chemical dependency and our responses to those losses, i.e.,
can we follow the stages of grief as we tried to come to grips with our
losses.