We forget that we grieve when we stop drinking and drugging. We have lost our best friend that stopped working for us.
For me it was my coping tool, it helped, or so I thought, from my depression, what an illusion. Alcohol is a depressant.
We not only grieve the loss of our addiction, but the life that it brought us, the habits, behaviours, and ways of doing, or not doing things.
I also found that I hadn't grieved when I was using, so a lot of things had never been grieved, processed and let go of.