Mar 26, 2014
“Grief and Loss in Addiction and Recovery” was presented on Tuesday March 25, 2014; by Janice Firn, LMSW; Clinical Social Worker on the Adult Palliative Care Consult Team, University of Michigan Medical Center; and Barb Smith, author of Brent’s World. The culture of addiction is rife with experiences of grief and loss for the person with addiction and for family and friends. The nature of these experiences combined with the stigma, shame and general lack of understanding of addiction can make grief and loss associated with addiction exceptionally lonely and difficult to heal from. This program will describe theories of grief and grief recovery, losses that the chemically dependent individual and his/her family experience throughout the addiction and recovery processes, and how recovery program tools can help individuals cope with grief and loss. It includes a personal account of addiction-related grief, loss and recovery from a mother who lost her son to addiction-related causes.
This program is part of the Dawn Farm Education Series, a FREE, annual workshop series developed to provide accurate, helpful, hopeful, practical, current information about chemical dependency, recovery, family and related issues. The Education Series is organized by Dawn Farm, a non-profit community of programs providing a continuum of chemical dependency services. For information, please see http://www.dawnfarm.org/programs/education-series.