Amid an epidemic of drug use, the US is experiencing a record number of drug-related deaths. Some of those affected are the children who lose a loved one, a father, mother, or sibling.
How do they deal with the grief and loss, what resources exist to help them get through the trauma of losing a loved one or caretaker to drugs?
Nicole Plante found herself in this dilemma when her husband committed suicide after being prescribed some drugs and she had to help her daughters through the agonizing period of bereavement.
Searching for any trauma and grief therapy groups in her area, she found one that dealt with grief near where she lives on Cape Cod, and its director provided her with information about a bereavement organization called Comfort Zone Camp.
The Richmond, Virginia-based nonprofit offers free programs for children ages 7 to 17 and their families to help those who tragically find themselves in the situation.
Its primary locations are California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina and Virginia. But on Friday, the organization held its first Overdose Loss Camp in Fishkill, New York.
Sandy Bruno, a youth and family coordinator for Comfort Zone Camp, emphasized the urgent need for this new facility: “This camp is specifically geared towards overdose loss,” she told Patch during a telephone interview.
She said the organization made the decision to offer a specialized camp for dealing with loss from overdoses because the organization saw a more than 30 percent increase in camper applications due to overdose loss during 2022.
The three-day overdose grief camp drew participants from as far away as Nevada, Bruno said.
The importance of having a specialized camp for dealing with the aftermath of overdose death is that the grief can be complicated by the stigma surrounding a drug-related death, Bruno said. Often, there is a reluctance to talk about the death and the children must deal with the consequences of that as well as their own grief.
Plante’s experience with Comfort Zone Camp was nothing like what she imagined.
“What I expected and what I had coming out of that camp was so much more than I could ever have expected,” she said.
She learned how to communicate with her children about losses, feelings — the good ones, the bad ones, even the mad or funny ones — coping skills and day-to-day-life ups and downs.
“And that all of it is OK because this is our story,” Plante said. “There are so many people who have experienced loss, and it felt good to be told that it’s OK to think and feel whatever we want without being judged.”
The organization can offer free weekend camps through fundraising. It costs about $600 per camper to hold a camp weekend, Bruno said.
Plante said some of the activities for the first overdose grief camp include ice-breaker games, a challenge course and other fun activities, and then a trained facilitator will run healing circles.
“Nobody wants to sit there and be sad during the whole weekend,” Bruno said.
The camp weekend is a closed bubble, Bruno said. There are no electronics and no distractions.
“No worrying about what is happening at home,” she said. “Just focus on their grief.”
When asked how she would respond to someone who might be on the fence about a group approach to grief management like Comfort Zone Camp and the Overdose Loss Camp, Plante said if they’ve lost a loved one and want a little bit of that pain to go away, they should give it a try.
“I made far more progress in one weekend, as far as healing, than I have in years of trying everything else,” she said.
For more information, visit the Comfort Zone Camp here. The Overdose Loss website can be found through this link.
