None of us is immune from grief; grief is a part of the human experience. We grieve when we lose something we love or believe we should get to keep always—a person, a beloved animal, an experience, an important possession, or even our own self. All of us will suffer what the Stoics called attacks by Fate.
The greater the loss, the greater the grief. But we can get lost in grief. It may overwhelm us like a rogue wave. It may pull us away from what we know and love like a riptide. Grief can take so much from us when we do not grieve well.
For people in recovery from addiction—especially early in recovery—the grief from a loss may feel overwhelming. It may feel so uncomfortable, disorienting, and painful that the first impulse is to dull it or even better, escape from it. Alcohol and other addictive substances and behaviors are ready at hand and provide a promise of a reprieve from all the pain. Some will pick up again seeking that relief, which may prove both elusive and illusory.
Others will pick up again to amplify all their painful emotions and make them even more powerful. They may not just care about anything given the magnitude of their loss. They are willing to burn everything down because of their grief.
Deflecting grief
How do people grieve well and appropriately? For those in recovery, how do we grieve without our addictive substances and behaviors? We find a remarkable resource in Stoic philosophers, especially Seneca (4 BCE-65 CE) who wrote to his own mother (Helvia) to console her that he has been exiled and his own son has died.
Stoics are often portrayed as maintaining a cool indifference to life’s events. Some see the Stoics as being hostile to all emotions, which is simply inaccurate. The Stoics are concerned with feeling our emotions in the appropriate ways and to the appropriate degrees. They understood that a person’s emotions may become so big and so unruly that they come to dominate that person’s life.
Writing to his mother from political exile, which was regarded by many Romans as a fate far worse than an honorable death, Seneca counsels her:
It is better, therefore, to conquer it than to cheat it; for a grief which has been deceived and driven away either by pleasure or by business rises again, and its period of rest does but give it strength for a more terrible attack; but a grief which has been conquered by reason is appeased forever.
Too many people suggest that a grieving person stay busy, take a holiday, take up new hobbies, focus on work, or find some other route of escape. Doing these things, Seneca argues, not only fails to respect grief but can supercharge it.
Grief can only be deferred or deflected for so long before it rears up stronger than ever. Deflected grief’s bill will always come due with compounding interest.
Grieving appropriately
But what does Seneca mean by conquering grief by reason? Conquering lends itself to the view that an emotion needs to be subjugated by cool reason. But this isn’t accurate. When we lose a loved one, something has been taken from us. That hurts and Seneca would not deny we need to grieve.
But some people are especially prone to grief when they fail to accept that everything good we have is on loan from the universe. We are deluded when we think that good fortune lasts forever or that we deserve to be immune from loss and Fate’s attacks. When these are our starting points, our grief will be overwhelming, Seneca notes.
We can befriend grief by acknowledging what has been lost to us while also appreciating all that a person, pet, or experience continues to give us. We can still learn lessons from beloved parents who have died. We can still find joy in memories of friends who are no longer with us. We find meaning in continuing to cultivate interests and talents that were nurtured by others. Some of those people taught us how to love and experience joy.
It may be challenging after a loss to feel gratitude when the grief is so fresh and vibrant. It seems too much of a stretch. But fragile tendrils of gratitude can strengthen. And this is as it should be, Seneca says. Having gratitude for that which you had but have lost may expand gratitude for all that you do have. Seneca was quite clear to his mother that she ought to enjoy his brothers and not lose them in her grief for him and his son.
Beloved people and pets who made us happy deserve our gratitude long after they are gone because they have made so much possible for us in the past but, just as importantly, now and in the future. Marcel Proust (1871-1922) advises, “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” We will lose charming gardeners, but we don’t need to lose their gifts to us.
Grieving well and wholly is healing. Things may never go back to being the same, but they were never meant to stay that way. One of the greatest gifts, especially in sobriety, is being able to grieve fully and appropriately and not lose ourselves to grief. By not losing ourselves, each of us may become a charming gardener for others.
Originally published on psychologytoday.com June 17, 2026