Bereavement through substance use: findings from an interview study with adults in England and Scotland

Abstract

Background: Deaths associated with alcohol and/or drugs belong to a category of ‘special’ deaths due to three characteristics: traumatic circumstances of the death, stigma directed to both the bereaved and the deceased, and resulting disenfranchised grief experienced by the bereaved. These factors can impede those who are bereaved in this way from both grieving and accessing support. In response to a lack of research in this area this paper reports on an interview study that has aimed to better understand the experiences and needs of this neglected group of bereaved people.

Method: Interviews with 106 adults (parents, children, spouses, siblings, nieces and friends) bereaved through substance use in Scotland and England.

Results: Five themes describe interviewee experiences: possibility of death, official processes, stigma, grief and support. These findings suggest what is dominant or unique in this group of bereaved people; namely, that living with substance use (including anticipatory grief), experiencing the subsequent death (often traumatic and stigmatised) and the responses of professionals and others (more likely negative than positive) can disenfranchise grief and negatively impact bereavement and seeking support.

Conclusions: This article describes a large and unique sample, the largest in the world to be recruited from this population. Our study raises awareness of a hitherto largely ignored and marginalised group of bereaved people, highlighting what might be particular to their bereavement experience and how this may differ from other bereavements, thereby providing an evidence base for improving the availability, level and quality of support.

Keywords:

• Death
• alcohol
• drugs
• qualitative
• stigma
• families

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all our interviewees for sharing their experiences for the benefit of the study. We would also like to thank the professionals from a range of services who supported study recruitment. Grateful thanks to Ryan Paden, from the Centre for Public Health and Liverpool John Moores University, for his assistance with the preparation of some of the tables in this paper. Our study is dedicated to a core member of our team, Joan Hollywood, a bereaved family member who advised on all aspects of the study but who died in March 2015.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Funding information

The authors thank the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for funding this study (ES/J007366/1).

Notes

¹Any names used in quotes are pseudonyms; ‘E’ refers to interviewees in England and ‘S’ refers to interviewees in Scotland.

²See Valentine & Walter (2015).

³See Walter et al. (2015).