ABSTRACT
Alcohol and other drug use play a significant role in many of the key social ceremonies and functions of human coexistence. This chapter explores why the relationship people have with alcohol and drugs might lead them to consider its role in death, grief, and bereavement as both expected and special. Alcohol and drug use is seen as a functional response to normal societal experiences. For those who perhaps already have a chaotic relationship with alcohol and drugs, then the death of a child, parent, partner or other loved ones will be met with the existing coping mechanism: use. The most obviously identifiable of deaths that result as a consequence of direct consumption are those of a health-related or physical nature. Lorna Templeton argues that deaths associated with alcohol and/or drugs belong to a category of "special" deaths. Alcohol and drug use have been manifest as cultural and social pastimes almost since humankind began gathering together round fires.
