Addiction and recovery

I work as a substance misuse therapist within a private residential rehabilitation service. This is a significant part of my clinical work and something I work with every week.

You may be in early recovery and discovering that stopping the substance was only the beginning. You may have been in recovery for some time and still find yourself struggling with emotions, relationships, urges or the demands of everyday life. Or you may still be drinking, using or engaging in compulsive behaviours and trying to understand whether you want things to change.

You do not need to have everything worked out before you come to therapy, and you do not need to be committed to one particular model of recovery.

I am familiar with a range of recovery models and mutual aid fellowships, including the 12 Step model, SMART Recovery, Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families, and Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. Where these are helpful to you, they can sit alongside our work. Where they are not, therapy does not have to force you into a model that does not fit.

Together, we can begin to understand the place alcohol, substances or compulsive behaviours have come to hold in your life. They may have helped you manage difficult feelings, memories, relationships, stress, loneliness, anxiety or experiences that felt too difficult to face in another way.

For many people, substance use sits alongside experiences such as trauma, anxiety, depression, shame, loss, low self worth or difficulties within relationships. Sometimes those connections are obvious. Sometimes they only begin to make sense through therapy.

The work may include understanding your patterns and triggers, developing ways of managing difficult emotions, exploring what makes you vulnerable to relapse or returning to old coping strategies, and finding responses that are specific to you rather than relying on a generic formula.

Recovery can also involve rebuilding your relationship with yourself. Shame, regret and self criticism can remain long after the substance use begins to change. Therapy can offer a place to understand those experiences without reducing you to the things you have done or the ways you have coped.

A lapse does not mean that everything you have worked towards has been lost. It can be understood with curiosity, looking at what happened, what was happening for you at the time, and what might help you respond differently moving forward.

I am experienced in working as part of a multidisciplinary team and, with your consent, can liaise appropriately with your GP or treatment service where this supports your care.

There are circumstances where stopping alcohol or certain substances suddenly can require medical assessment and treatment. Where appropriate, I will encourage you to seek specialist medical support. Therapy can support recovery, but it does not replace safe medical care.