Loss, Grief & Ambiguous Loss Through Addiction
Addiction can bring the painful sense of losing someone who is still physically present. You may find yourself grieving for the relationship you once had, the future you imagined, or the person you remember.
Rebecca Mistry offers therapy for the grief that addiction can bring: grieving someone who is still here but no longer feels like the person you knew, or someone who has died through addiction. Partners, parents and other family members can see her in person at The Blossom Tree Clinic, Suite 2, 6A Love Lane, Pinner HA5 3EF, or online. A first consultation of 15–20 minutes is free, and the fees page lists what later sessions cost.
Living with loss and uncertainty
This experience is sometimes known as ambiguous loss, and it can be difficult to talk about because others may not recognise it as grief. The person may be physically present — sitting at the dinner table, sleeping in the next room — but the relationship, the connection, the person you knew, can feel as if it has gone. Or it comes and goes unpredictably.
Unlike bereavement, there may be no funeral, no sympathy cards, no socially recognised moment where people rally around you. The loss can feel invisible and ongoing, and it may come in cycles — you grieve, then they get better, then you hope, then it happens again.
Therapy offers a space to make sense of these feelings and to look for ways to live alongside both hope and uncertainty.
What makes this grief different
- It can feel unresolved — there's no clear ending, so the grief may have no natural resting place
- It can be cyclical — hope and loss may alternate with each relapse and recovery
- It can feel stigmatised — people may not understand how you can grieve someone who's alive
- It can be layered — you may grieve the relationship, the family life, the future you planned, and sometimes your own lost years
- It can coexist with love — you may not have stopped loving them, which can make the grief more complicated, not less
Working with ambiguous loss in therapy
In therapy, we name the grief. We acknowledge that what you're experiencing is real loss, even if the person is still alive. From there, we explore:
- Making sense of the grief, including what ambiguous loss means for you
- Finding ways to hold both hope and grief at the same time
- Adjusting expectations without giving up on the person
- Building meaning and connection in other parts of your life
- Processing bereavement if someone has died from addiction, including any guilt, anger or stigma you feel
Hope looks different here
Over time, your hope may shift. The hope that someone will stop using may give way to smaller hopes — for a good day, for a conversation that doesn't end in tears, for your own peace of mind.
This isn't giving up. It can be a kind of hope that doesn't depend on someone else changing — and it's something we can work towards together.
Common questions
Can you grieve someone who is still alive?
Yes. This is sometimes called 'ambiguous loss' — the person is physically present but psychologically absent, or they've become someone you barely recognise. The grief is real, even if no one else acknowledges it.
I feel relieved sometimes. Does that make me a bad person?
No. Relief, guilt, anger, love, and grief can all exist at the same time. Feeling relief — that they're in rehab, that a crisis has passed, even that they're no longer in your daily life — is understandable in an impossible situation.
What if they've died from their addiction?
Bereavement after addiction can bring guilt, anger, stigma, 'what if' thinking, and sometimes relief. Therapy offers a space to talk about all of this without judgement, and to look for a way to grieve that honours both your love and your pain.
Your grief deserves to be heard
If you're carrying a loss that no one else sees, therapy can give it a place.
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