Grief & Drug Poisoning Toolkit [Free Downloadable PDF]

Kate – Advice to my younger self

March 11, 2023

Kate explains things being authentic and honest to herself has been very valuable

Kristal – Grieving the Whole Person

April 23, 2023

Kristal discusses the importance of recognizing and grieving the entire person who was lost – not just who they were before they had been using drugs.

Christian – Grieving the whole person

April 23, 2023

Christian talks about how we choose remember people when there has been a loss to drug poisoning

Kristal – Drug Poisoning During Pandemic Stigma

April 23, 2023

Kristal discusses how the pandemic has created additional stigma surrounding those who use drugs. She dissuses how it seems like some losses are treated as more deserving of being mourned than others. Many people have had to grieve privately instead of publically within a community. She touches on the state of the public health system during the pandemic.

Christian – COVID amplified the inequities in society

April 23, 2023

Christian talks about those that have very little and how COVID amplified their difficulties

Kristal – Poetry, Comedy, & Art for Grieving

April 23, 2023

Kristal discusses using poetry and other forms of creative expression as a distraction from her grief and to disassociate in a safe and productive way. She discusses grief being love with nowhere to go, so she puts it into art.

Kate – Things I do that help

March 11, 2023

Kate talks about how art, hiking and visiting the cemetery can be very therapeutic

Nicole – Pandemic’s Effect on Grieving as a Community

March 25, 2023

Nicole discusses the ways the pandemic has affected the way people grieve as a community.

Thoughts on International Overdose Awareness Day 2023

August 30, 2023

We lead multifaceted lives, and the deaths of those we love who have died by drug poisoning contain multitudes. The death of a loved one can bring intense grief, shock, anger, shame, or guilt. People who use drugs, and those who love them that they leave behind, face stigma in North America’s dominant, settler culture.

Joyce -The pandemics impact on drug poisonings

April 23, 2023

Joyce talks about drug poisonings during the pandemic

Christian – Supporting people who may die

April 23, 2023

Christian talks about going from zero overdoses to 50 in a matter of months and how to help people who may die