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Alcohol and Loss

Major causes for chronic drinking, especially in older people are bereavement and loss. Drinking may help to soothe the pain and also evoke the images of more pleasant times.
People describe loss emotions frequently in the process of giving up. Three kinds of loss associated with problematic usage commonly emerge.

• Losses that led to problematic use: frequently clients say, ‘I started using when my mother died,’ ‘It was only after my job broke down,’
• Loss of the drink or drugs itself. ‘The bottle was my friend’, ‘The pubs was my cathedral’, the loss of using friends, missing the taste, the buzz, the sense of freedom. Heroin was the lover who always took me back.
• Losses that came about because of misuse. People lose many things because of their using. They may have missed out on a whole range of types of relationship or opportunities or had them taken away.

If people have had a loss they must be allowed to grieve for that which is gone - this need to grieve may be very unwelcome to the client and the people around her.
This course looks at common models for working with grief and aims to develop ways in which a client who is grieving with drink may be supported.

Rationale

Drinking is a common way of dealing with personal pain and stress. Some clients start drinking because of transitions in their lives and complicated feelings about loss. Many have unresolved loss issues in their pas

Aim

To enable participants to identify loss issues that impact on drinking behaviour

Objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to: -

◦ Describe the inter-relationship between alcohol and loss
◦ Use models of grief and bereavement in their work
◦ Separate their own issues to do with loss from those of the client
◦ Identify issues associated with complicated grief
◦ Use a range of verbal and non -verbal techniques with a client to enable them to move through the grieving process.
◦ Share experiences of working around loss with clients

Length – 2 days

Who will benefit from this course

This course will be useful for all workers who have clients with alcohol problems and counsellors in particular.

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Please note

All our courses are commissioned for groups and organisations. If you have more than three people who would benefit from working together on this topic, use the link at the the bottom of the page to contact me, or click here to find out more about getting us to deliver a programme.

We regret that we do not have an open access programme