10 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me Before Losing Someone to an Overdose

1.) Grief doesn’t play fair

Grief doesn’t care about your plans or whether you’re ready to deal with it. It’ll knock the wind out of you when you least expect it—like in the middle of the cereal aisle because you saw their favorite snack. Or during a perfectly normal day when your brain decides it’s a good time to remind you of something they said years ago. It’s inconvenient, messy, and relentless.

The truth is, you can’t outrun it, so let it hit when it needs to. If you need to cry, cry. If you need to scream, scream. Grief doesn’t follow rules, and it doesn’t care if you’re trying to keep it together.

2.) The guilt will try to swallow you whole — but it’s lying

The “what ifs” will haunt you. What if I’d called them that night? What if I’d pushed harder for them to get help? What if I missed something? Here’s the truth: you didn’t cause this, and you couldn’t have stopped it.

Guilt is going to show up whether it’s deserved or not, and it’ll try to convince you that you failed them. But listen to me: you didn’t. You did what you could with what you knew at the time, and that’s all anyone can ask.

3.) People will say the dumbest, most hurtful shit

“Oh, they made their choices.”

“At least they’re not suffering anymore.”

“You can move on now.”

These comments are a special kind of gut punch, and they’ll make you want to punch back. You don’t have to put up with it. You’re allowed to walk away. You’re allowed to tell them to shut up (politely or not).

Most of the time, people don’t mean to be cruel - they just don’t know what to say. That doesn’t make their words hurt any less, but it does mean you don’t have to waste your energy explaining your pain to someone who doesn’t get it.

4.) It’s okay to be angry with them

You’ll feel it, the white-hot anger bubbling up. “Why didn’t they stop? Why didn’t they care enough to stay? Why did they do this to me?” Let yourself feel it. Anger doesn’t mean you didn’t love them. It means you’re grieving something you can’t fix, and that’s infuriating.

Punch a pillow. Write them a letter and burn it. Scream into the void if you have to. Just don’t keep it bottled up - it’ll eat you alive.

5.) They were more than their substance use

The world will try to reduce them to their substance use, to the way they died. But you know better. You know their laugh, their favorite foods, the stupid jokes they told. You know who they were before substance use took hold, and that’s the part worth remembering. Talk about them. Share their stories. Don’t let their struggles erase the rest of who they were.

6.) Some people won’t get it—and that’s on them

People are going to treat your loss differently because it was an overdose. You’ll hear whispers, see judgment in their eyes, and feel like you have to justify your grief. You don’t.

Your loss is just as valid as any other. Their life mattered. If someone can’t understand that, it’s their problem, not yours. Surround yourself with people who see the whole picture, not just the way it ended.

7.) Small wins count

There will be days when getting out of bed feels impossible. Days when brushing your teeth or eating something more substantial than coffee feels like climbing a mountain. Those days, celebrate the little wins.

Did you make it through the day? Win. Did you eat? Huge win. Did you smile, even for a second? That’s a victory. Grief doesn’t leave room for big goals, so focus on the small stuff.

8.) You don’t owe anyone the details

People are curious in the worst ways. They’ll ask how it happened, what they used, where you were when it happened. You don’t owe them anything. “I’d rather not talk about that” is a complete sentence.

Protect yourself. Set boundaries. You get to decide how much of your story to share, and with whom.

9.) Healing doesn’t look like what you think it does

Healing isn’t some magical moment where you wake up and everything’s fine. It’s slow. It’s ugly. It’s one step forward, three steps back. Healing means learning to carry the love and the loss together without letting it crush you.

It doesn’t mean you’re forgetting them or moving on. It means you’re finding a way to keep living while keeping them with you.

10.) You deserve to heal.

You’re probably used to taking care of others — of carrying everyone else’s grief along with your own. But now, it’s your turn. You deserve rest. You deserve love. You deserve to be kind to yourself.

Talk to yourself the way you’d talk to them if they were hurting.

“It’s okay to feel this way.”

“You’re doing the best you can.”

“You deserve peace.”

You don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to keep going, one step, one breath at a time.