Chemsex recovery coach Dallas Bragg explores the grief of losing a user buddy, the person who both protected and enabled your drug use. He names the tangle of feelings: devastation, anger, guilt, terror. And he says the caring version of that person would want you to survive and channel the loss into recovery.
You're grieving a past user buddy, and that's a special trauma bond that we share in the chemsex world that really nobody can really understand. Hi, my name is Dallas. I'm a chemsex recovery coach. Part of you is devastated because that user buddy showed up in ways that mattered. They respected your boundaries. They made sure you got home safe. They were and felt like a real friend to you. And part of you is angry. Because they also enabled your use. They were there every time you wanted to use and decided to use. They were— they made it easy. They were fuel to your fire. And part of you feels guilty because you didn't check in enough. You didn't save them. You couldn't stop them. Part of you is terrified because if it happened to them, it could happen to you. And nobody prepared you for the grief That includes all of this at once. You can't talk about them at work because it would out your addiction history. You can't go to the funeral because people would ask questions. You can't even be sure if you're allowed to grieve because the relationship was built around substance use. So you're carrying this alone, wondering if the grief is legitimate. If the anger is fair, if the fear is warranted, and I'm telling you, yes. Yes to all of it. All of it is valid. Grieve them. Be angry. Be scared. Let it coexist. And then ask yourself, what would they want from me now? Not the version who was deep in addiction and chemsex. The version who cared. The version you saw. The version who made sure you were okay and you got home safe. That version would want you to survive this, to use this as fuel for your recovery fire, to live.
