HBO’s ‘Euphoria’ reveals what most people get wrong about addiction and grief, according to a psychologist
HBO’s ‘Euphoria’ reveals what most people get wrong about addiction and grief, according to a psychologist
HBO’s “Euphoria” ended with a fictional overdose, but it was carrying the weight of a real one. For those unfamiliar with the series, “Euphoria” follows a group of teenagers navigating addiction, trauma and identity. It centers on Rue Bennett, a 17-year-old recovering from a near-fatal overdose following the death of her father.
In 2023, Angus Cloud, the actor who played the show’s warm-hearted drug dealer Fezco, died at 25 years old from an accidental drug overdose involving fentanyl. He had just returned home after attending his father's funeral.
After his death, “Euphoria” creator Sam Levinson went back to the script and rethought Rue's ending. His reasoning was simple. Telling an honest story about addiction means showing what it actually costs: Not everyone gets a second chance. In the series finale, Rue’s character dies after taking a fentanyl-laced pill.
LifeStance Health explores what the show gets right about addiction and grief, and what the path to recovery can look like.
The role grief plays in addiction
In the days before Angus Cloud died, he had just buried his father. It is the same loss at the heart of Rue's story, and it points to one of the most significant relapse triggers there is: grief.
People with a history of substance use can be particularly vulnerable during periods of loss, even if they have been stable for a long time. When we lose someone central to our lives, the pain can be profound enough to bypass every coping skill a person has built.
“Euphoria” understood the weight of that grief long before the finale. Rue's father, who died of cancer when she was young, is a presence that haunts the entire series. In a Season 1 flashback, a 14-year-old Rue walks into his room and picks up his maroon hoodie from the bed, breathing in what's left of him. She never stops wearing it. In the series finale, when her sponsor Ali finds her gone, she’s still wrapped in that hoodie.
That image is powerful storytelling, and it reflects what grief can do to people. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood. The more ACEs a person experiences, the more likely they are to struggle with addiction, mental illness and chronic disease. For many people, addiction isn't where the story begins, but where unaddressed pain eventually lands.
What most people get wrong about addiction
Understanding why addiction takes root is one thing. Understanding how it behaves over time is another. For those who followed Rue across three seasons, her arc captures something most mainstream portrayals get wrong: Addiction is not a straight line.
In Season 1, Rue is in a fresh, desperate crisis. By Season 3 she's five years older, working as a drug mule, and her relationship with substances has shifted. She isn't using hard drugs the way she once was. She's found a kind of uneasy equilibrium that looks, to the outside world, like getting by.
Addiction can quiet down for stretches, but vulnerability rarely disappears entirely. In the finale, Rue doesn't relapse in the way most people might imagine. She hurts her hand and takes what she believes is a pain pill. She doesn't know it was deliberately laced with fentanyl by someone who knew exactly how to use her vulnerability against her. That moment, one injury, one pill, one unguarded instant, is all it takes. It illustrates how the delicate circumstances addiction creates between life or death leave very little margin for error.
What recovery-focused care looks like
Rue's story raises an important question: What does the right kind of support look like? Understanding what recovery-focused care involves can help people make more informed decisions about treatment. This commonly includes:
Reestablishing safety. Many people living with addiction have spent years being judged or dismissed. The therapeutic relationship itself is often part of the healing process.
Treating both the addiction and what's driving it. Treatment should address not only the substance use, but the underlying pain fueling it. Evidence-based approaches like eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), Internal Family Systems (IFS) and trauma-informed care are designed to help people safely process the pain they've been carrying.
Understanding that recovery can be nonlinear. A damaging myth about recovery is that relapse means failure. In reality, addiction is a chronic condition with a nonlinear recovery path. A relapse can reveal important information about triggers, unmet needs and what support may be missing. Reframing relapse from a source of shame to a source of information is an important part of recovery.
Community and connection. Addiction often isolates people. Recovery focuses on peer support, group therapy, and family involvement when healthy and appropriate. Peer support, group therapy, family involvement where healthy and appropriate and community connection are an integral component of recovery.
A message of hope
Sometimes the most powerful thing a story can do is refuse to look away. What “Euphoria” understood, and what clinicians often see, is that addiction is rarely about the substance itself. For many people, something deeper and more complex is driving it.
Stories like Rue's are a reminder to seek help for addiction. With support and mental health treatment, a different ending is possible.
References to “Euphoria” are for educational discussion only and do not imply endorsement.
This story was published by LifeStance Health and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
