Weight, Alcohol and Grief: Is an Unprocessed Loss Influencing How You Cope?
Have you ever promised yourself that you would eat differently, drink less or take better care of yourself, only to find yourself returning to the same behaviour when life feels stressful or overwhelming?
It is easy to interpret this as a lack of discipline. You may tell yourself that you need more motivation or stronger willpower. Yet when a behaviour repeatedly provides comfort, distraction or relief, there may be more happening beneath the surface.
People are often surprised to discover that their relationship with food or alcohol is connected to an emotional experience from much earlier in their life. One possible influence is grief.
When I was working with a client who wanted to cut down on his drinking, he was surprised to find that the loss of a loved one several years ago was the cause of him drinking more than he wanted to. The more people I worked with, grief became a recurring pattern, which, when processed created a powerful shift in their mindset.
When dealing with grief, I have found that Havening Techniques are a particularly powerful to express the emotions and bring about a true sense of peace and love for people who have gone through such a deep loss. It is often the case that grief becomes an underlying issue because the belief that you must “be strong” pushes the emotions down.
Grief does not explain every difficulty with weight or alcohol. Eating habits, physical health, medication, sleep, hormones, environment and alcohol dependence can all play a part. However, when practical attempts to change have not addressed the pattern, it can be valuable to explore what the behaviour may be doing for you emotionally.
Grief is not limited to bereavement
We usually associate grief with the death of someone we love. That is an important form of grief, but it is not the only one.
Grief can also follow:
The end of a relationship or friendship
Miscarriage, fertility difficulties or the loss of a hoped-for family
Redundancy, retirement or the loss of a career
The loss of a home, community or sense of security
A significant change in health or physical ability
Children leaving home or a major change in family life
A future that did not unfold as you had expected
The NHS recognises that grief may follow losses including the end of a relationship, losing a job, moving home or someone close becoming seriously ill, not only a death.
Some losses are publicly acknowledged and supported. Others are less visible. You may feel that you have no right to grieve, that too much time has passed or that everybody expects you to have moved on. As a result, you may become very capable at continuing with everyday life while the emotional impact remains unresolved.
When coping becomes a pattern
Food and alcohol can both offer an immediate change in how we feel.
Eating may provide comfort, pleasure or a brief sense of calm. It can fill an empty evening, soften loneliness or create a reward at the end of a demanding day. Alcohol may temporarily quiet difficult thoughts, reduce inhibition or create distance from sadness, anxiety and emotional pain.
This does not mean that you consciously chose the behaviour as a response to grief. The connection may have developed gradually. Something that initially helped you through a difficult period can become an automatic response long after that period has passed.
You may notice patterns such as:
Eating when you feel lonely, anxious, rejected or overwhelmed
Continuing to eat after you are physically satisfied
Feeling particularly vulnerable to food or alcohol in the evening
Drinking to switch off, sleep or avoid thinking
Finding anniversaries, family occasions or certain times of year unusually difficult
Experiencing guilt after eating or drinking, followed by another attempt to impose strict rules
Understanding what you want to change but feeling unable to follow through consistently
These behaviours are not proof of unresolved grief. They are signals worth approaching with curiosity rather than shame.
How grief can affect weight
Grief affects people differently. Some lose their appetite, while others eat more or rely on convenient, highly comforting foods. Sleep, energy, activity and daily routines can also change, all of which may influence weight.
A systematic review of bereavement and health behaviours found evidence of nutritional risk and changes in body weight, as well as increased alcohol consumption in some bereaved people. This does not establish one inevitable response; it demonstrates how widely loss can affect everyday behaviour and physical wellbeing.
When comfort eating is involved, focusing only on calories or restriction may leave the emotional purpose of the behaviour untouched. A plan might work while life feels manageable, then collapse when an old feeling or present-day stress is activated.
The more useful question may not be, “Why can’t I control myself?” but:
“What am I needing at the moment I reach for food?”
The answer might be rest, reassurance, connection, safety, stimulation or relief. Identifying the need creates the opportunity to respond differently.
How grief can influence alcohol use
Alcohol can feel effective in the short term because it changes your emotional state quickly. For someone carrying grief, it may seem to provide relief from memories, loneliness, tension or the pressure to appear fine.
However, temporary relief is not the same as emotional processing. Alcohol can also disrupt sleep and contribute to anxiety or low mood, making difficult feelings harder to manage the following day. Over time, the original pain and the consequences of drinking can become intertwined.
You do not have to identify as having an “alcohol problem” to examine your relationship with drinking. You might simply notice that alcohol has become your main way to relax, reward yourself or avoid uncomfortable feelings.
Useful questions include:
What am I usually feeling before I decide to drink?
Is alcohol adding enjoyment, or am I using it to escape something?
Are there particular people, dates, memories or situations that increase the urge?
What do I fear I would feel if I did not drink?
What support or alternative source of comfort is missing?
These questions are not intended to create blame. A coping strategy usually developed because, at some point, it helped. The aim is to understand whether it is still helping—or whether it is now limiting your wellbeing.
Processing grief does not mean forgetting
People sometimes avoid grief because they fear being overwhelmed by it. They may also worry that feeling better would mean forgetting the person, relationship or life they lost.
Processing grief is not about erasing the memory or declaring that the loss no longer matters. It is about helping the experience feel less emotionally consuming, so it no longer has the same power over your choices in the present.
You can remember what happened, honour what mattered and still create a different relationship with the memory.
Looking beneath the behaviour
At Diamond Wellbeing, I take an integrative and personalised approach. Rather than treating eating or drinking as an isolated failure of willpower, we can explore the experiences, emotions and subconscious associations that may be maintaining the pattern.
Depending on your needs, our work may draw on:
Hypnotherapy to explore and reframe subconscious patterns connected with food, alcohol and emotional coping
Havening Techniques to help process distressing memories so they can be recalled with a significantly lower level of distress
EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) to support emotional regulation and reduce the intensity of difficult feelings
Mindfulness to help you recognise triggers, remain present and respond to yourself with greater awareness and compassion
Therapy is not about forcing you to relive every detail of the past. It is about working at an appropriate pace to understand what is happening and develop a healthier way to meet the needs beneath the behaviour.
Change is more than removing a coping mechanism
If food or alcohol has been helping you manage grief, simply taking it away can leave an uncomfortable space. Sustainable change often involves learning how to fill that space differently.
That may include:
Finding ways to soothe yourself without numbing your emotions
Rebuilding routines that support sleep, nourishment and movement
Developing relationships and activities that provide genuine connection
Allowing grief to be acknowledged rather than repeatedly pushed away
Challenging guilt, self-criticism and all-or-nothing thinking
Creating a life that contains meaning and enjoyment beyond the old coping pattern
The goal is not perfection. It is having more choice. Instead of automatically reaching for food or alcohol whenever a difficult feeling appears, you can begin to recognise what is happening and decide what you genuinely need.
Could grief be part of your story?
Not every struggle with weight or alcohol begins with grief. It would be misleading to assume that it does. But if you repeatedly return to the same behaviour despite knowing what you want to change, it may be time to look beyond willpower.
Ask yourself:
“When did this pattern begin, and what was happening in my life at the time?”
The answer may reveal a connection you had not previously considered.
I’m Steph, an anxiety and weight-loss specialist and the founder of Diamond Wellbeing. I work with clients from my therapy rooms in Wilmslow and Alderley Edge, as well as online.
If this article resonates with you, you are welcome to contact me for a confidential conversation about how I may be able to support you.
Important support information
Therapy of this kind is not a substitute for medical treatment, alcohol detoxification or specialist addiction services. If you may be physically dependent on alcohol, do not stop suddenly without medical advice, as withdrawal can be dangerous. Contact your GP or a local alcohol service. The NHS also lists Drinkline, a free confidential national helpline, on 0300 123 1110.
If grief is severely affecting your daily life, you feel unable to cope or you are experiencing thoughts of harming yourself, seek urgent professional support through your GP, NHS 111, an urgent mental health helpline or 999 in an emergency.
