Do Drugs Cure Grief
Alan Taplow
Our Guest Writer for this Grief Brief is Alan Taplow,
a bereavement support group specialist with many years of expereince in
facilitation. Here, Alan addresses the controversial subject of using medications
as an aid to grief resolution.
Perhaps you've heard the expression "The only way out - is through." It applies so well to the feelings accompanying the loss of someone who was a significant part of your life. The only way out of grief is to let the natural processes work - to go through the pain and find the door at the other end of the dark tunnel.
Our natural body-system seems set up in a way requiring the externalization of our emotional pain before we can heal. Years ago, I was called to the hospital only to find that my father had already died. This was the first death I had really experienced - I remember sitting in the waiting room crying uncontrollably for nearly an hour. It soon stopped, I got myself together and began functioning.
I wonder what would have happened had someone stopped by, had seen me in such obvious distress, and in an effort to "help", had offered me a tranquilizer or sedative. While I may have stopped crying, I might never have cried myself THROUGH - I might never have begun to find my way OUT of the pain.
All too often in this day of "better living through pharmacology", people are denied the opportunity to work their way through their pain - to externalize their feelings - to get it all out of their system. By the use of tranquilizers and sedatives (drugs), there is a temporary cessation of the pain. Those around the bereaved are not put through the distress of witnessing someone grieving. The bereaved individual is able to mask his/her feelings and to the outside world be considered - "OK".
But where do the natural emotions and feelings go. Since they are not being externalized, they are still present in the body system. When the drugs cease, they will again surface in a natural effort to be expressed. All too many again attempt to shut off the pain with drugs instead of naturally externalizing it. Many thus become addicted to these drugs in a very similar manner to those addicted to alcohol, tobacco, cocaine and other chemical substances - they take away the pain.
So what's wrong with taking away the pain? Well there is nothing wrong with removing pain as long as it doesn't set the body-system up for more pain and trauma in the future. Unfortunately, unless the natural painful feelings and emotions are somehow expressed - externalized - gotten out of the system, they remain - perhaps masked or disguised by the drug, but they remain inside us none the less.
Is it ever appropriate to take drugs? Of course it is, when prescribed by a competent clinician who has specialized training and experience with the grieving process, and who will be following through with the patient during the grieving process. In my humble opinion, it is not appropriate, even when prescribed by a well meaning professional who is only concerned with the cessation of immediate symptoms and who will have no responsibility for continually working with the patient throughout the grieving process. Drugs are certainly not appropriately administered by friends or relatives whose espoused motivation is the griever's emotional stability, but all too often, whose hidden motivation is to make that person more comfortable for them to be around.
The only way out of the pain is to go through it - to fully experience it - and then, putting it behind - getting on with life. This may require counseling or support groups to guide us over the rough spots, but the end result will be a working through and a reconciliation - not a lifetime of drug assisted avoidance.
Alan Taplow lives in Plainfield, NJ. During the past 9 years he has led bereavement support groups at Overlook Hospice, in Summit, NJ and the Center for Hope Hospice, in Linden, NJ. He has taken extensive training in the externalization of grief at the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Center. His most recent activity is the initiation of a grief support group for the inmates of the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, NJ. Alan has published his session plans and handouts for community as well as prison groups. Visit his Web Site or email him directly at:ataplow@bigfoot.com
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