The Stigma of Being a Survivor of an Addict's Death

    Like family members of people who commit suicide, there is an unspoken stigma attached being a survivor of an addict’s death. Death by addiction is slow suicide. There may be a question of intent and control, but it is self-destructive behavior nonetheless. Whether it is acknowledged or not, in both there are unrelenting internalized feelings of blame, shame, guilt, and impotence. We could not change the course of the action our loved one took but we are still on the hook for it. These deaths never make rational sense, therefore, we are left pondering why. But it is the responses created by our peripheral network that condemn us more. Even if we work through the horror of it, our judgmental society obsessed with grisly details will not let us forget the tragedy. Every time the nightmare is shared with someone new, we relive the hellish story, gearing up for another round of sharing the morbid details. We are indicted by association of somehow being complicit in their death. It may not be directly implied, but every family member who has lost a loved one to either of these causes is vigilant to the nonverbal cues indicating our moral failing as the survivor. It's as if we could have done something, anything to stop the course of their decision making. 

     My friend Kathleen is a retired chemical dependency counselor. I have known her affluent family for years-I have always thought of them as a ‘Leave It to Beaver’ clan. Several years ago her drug addicted gay grandson deliberately took an overdose of narcotics rather than face another stint in rehab. He was only twenty-three years old. This young man was very bonded to her and left her a parting message in his final letter. To this day, she has been unable to read his departed note. Given her previous occupation, she lives with the grief that all of her knowledge and training could not have prevented his death. Over the years I have seen how her grandson’s suicide left her bereft with unresolved mourning. Though she puts on a brave face, I know she will go to her grave feeling a sense of failure for his death. Kathleen does not share her abject grief with many. She knows how painful it is to watch the reaction in others, let alone discuss her raw feelings about it. We have something in common. 

    Twenty years ago my ex-husband John died of the consequences of an addiction to alcohol at forty-seven years of age. To this day, even though we were divorced at the time of his death, I bear the same scrutiny when someone asks how my first husband died. Somehow his addiction is an indictment of my moral character. People have bizarre ideas of what he was like as an alcoholic and my role as his wife. Stupid questions I have had to withstand are, ‘Did he beat you?’, ‘Was he violent?’, ‘Didn’t they have rehab back then?’. What’s worse is when there are no questions but dead silence. I can see the wheels spinning nonverbal judgments which I cannot combat. The gory story of my ex-husband’s death by addiction and the conjecture about it is far more compelling than the reality. I no longer discuss it or offer any details. People frequently will assume I had been some doormat codependent wife who bailed my alcoholic husband out of every predicament, enabling him to continue his downward spiral. The truth is irrelevant. I have learned an honest discussion about this is futile unless the person to whom I am speaking has an addict in their life. It doesn’t matter, I am on the hook for it. My only saving grace is that John was not famous when he died.

     Whenever a celebrity dies from an addiction, I wonder how their family is coping. Recently, in Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s death, I was struck by the barrage of speculation by the media delightfully unflinching in its quest for the gruesome details. All I could think about was the loss of this brilliant actor and how his loved ones did not deserve the punishing glare into their private loss. He has young children who will wrestle with this sorrow for the rest of their lives. To see it spilled across the media so callously had to have been brutal for them. And we call ourselves an enlightened society.

     Currently the National Institute of Drug Abuse estimates the annual cost of addiction to be over $400 billion dollars a year. Last month 9.2% of our population has used an illegal substance. Sounds epidemic to me and I’m not even taking into consideration other addictive behaviors like porn, gambling, shopping, etc. Addiction is classified as medical condition not a disorder of will power. Then, where does that leave us as the survivors of addicts who die from their addiction? With stigmata.