Addiction Counselling BC

Recovering from Addiction and Substance Use

As far as recovering from addiction and substance use goes, recovery is very much a family affair.  In searching for the best outcomes, oftentimes people will go into a residential treatment program.  When this happens, although there can be many difficulties, families often feel a great deal of relief – they have some respite because their loved one is in a safe place and they’re being cared for.  It’s a time when loved ones, friends and family, can start to relax. 

Then a person comes out of treatment (no matter how long they’ve been away for) and the family sort of clenches up again.  This is a time when the “kid gloves” come on.

That’s when we ask, “what do we do to manage this and keep everybody safe?” After all, we don’t want to do anything that might trigger a person to use again.

So, there’s often a lot of tension.

Addiction Counselling BC to Develop New Coping Skills

Here’s the thing…

Really good outcomes result when a person who’s using (substance) gets some treatment AND the family gets some treatment as well.  This way, everyone gets to learn very important recovery skills, coping skills, and thriving skills of their own where even if relapses happen (if and when – because it’s very common and normal for that to happen), how do we navigate that without being completely blindsided and possibly falling apart again?

My passion is to help you learn to cope and even thrive in those places.

Because there is a difference between coping and thriving.  We really want to bump up those coping skills to the thriving level where everyone can thrive in who they are and living in a healthy way.

That’s why recovery for the entire family is so important when there’s substance use at any level.

Supporting the Whole Family with Addiction Counselling BC

Sometimes that’s really serious substance abuse where a person might need to go into a residential recovery centre.  It can also be when it’s milder substance use but starting to create problems within the family.  What I offer are ways to deal with the problem together without the blame and the shame.  We’ll focus on ways to build empathy for one another and ways to realize that the problem of substance use is the problem – it’s not a fundamental defect in the person who’s using. They’re using an unhealthy coping mechanism and that’s the reality of what’s happening.

So, being able to build empathy for one another within family systems just becomes so important.

Supporting You Through Relapse and Beyond with Addiction Counselling BC

Remember… nobody just learns the skills and then they’re done. As these things happen, relapse might happen because of a really difficult period in life or in the family. It could be with a job. It could be with anything that sort of puts you back into that tailspin.  So, how do you work through that in a positive way?

After all… we don’t just learn the skills once and then stop. We have to keep applying them.

We will fall down. We’ll slip back into language that might be shaming and that might be hard. So part of what we need to do is continually learn to hone our language so that we can learn to still speak the truth but take a little bit of the sting out of it.  We can learn to be empathetic and also to receive what you need to hear in a way that you don’t put up all of your defenses. It’s developing new skills for coping and thriving in a way that can be healthy.

Building Positive Foundations

At the root of it all, families can come to realise that they all love each other but they just need to learn the skills required for a good foundation to move forward from.

This includes developing our communication skills and learning about one another.  It’s about learning how to manifest the love that you feel for one another in a supporting and healthy way.

That’s what is really important and what I want for you.