Therapy

That is the part we work on. Not willpower, and not lectures.

—   Alcohol use

—   Drug use, including prescription medication

—   Gambling

—   Compulsive spending, internet and gaming use

—   Food and eating behaviours

—   Relapse, and the shame that arrives with it

—   Being in recovery and finding it harder than expected

—   Being the partner, parent or adult child of someone with an addiction

Addiction very rarely travels alone. Most of the people we see are also carrying unprocessed trauma, anxiety they were self-medicating, depression, grief, or chronic stress with no other outlet. Treating the substance use without touching any of that is how people end up in the same place three years later, exhausted and convinced they are the problem.

So we treat both, and we do it in whatever order is safe. Several of our clinicians have experience with co-occurring disorders and severe and persistent mental illness.

We are an outpatient counseling practice. We provide individual therapy, and family and couples work where addiction is affecting the household. [Confirm the following before publishing: whether the practice provides Rule 25 / comprehensive assessments, and whether any clinicians hold LADC licensure.]

We are not a detox facility, a residential treatment centre or an intensive outpatient program. If that is the level of care you need, tell us — we would rather help you find the right place than keep you in the wrong one, and we work alongside local treatment providers regularly. Detoxing from alcohol or benzodiazepines without medical supervision can be dangerous; please speak to a doctor first.

—   Motivational interviewing — for the entirely normal state of both wanting to stop and not wanting to. Ambivalence is not a lack of commitment, it is the starting point.

—   CBT and relapse prevention — mapping triggers, chains and the decisions made hours before the drink.

—   DBT skills — distress tolerance for the moments when it feels unbearable.

—   Trauma processing — including EMDR, ART and Brainspotting, generally once there is enough stability.

—   Family and couples work — because addiction is rarely contained to one person.

We do not require abstinence before you walk in, and we do not require you to use any particular framework. If AA or SMART Recovery helps you, good — we will work alongside it. If it has not, that is not a moral failure.

FAQ