Individual counseling

This is the heart of my practice. It’s where you cozy up on my couch (or take a chair) and tell me your story…you tell me what happened to you. We will try to make some sense of the experiences that life handed you. There might be some tears, there might be some laughs, but there will be a start to healing. You deserve to give yourself a chance at a better life...a life not dominated by alcohol or drugs. Addiction to substances stinks, but recovery from them is pretty cool.

Individual counseling for substance abuse does not look the same for any two people. The priorities are different from person to person. There are six aspects of recovery from substance use disorders, but some mean nothing to one person yet are critical to somebody else. Let’s look at the six aspects.

1. Acute intoxication or withdrawal
   Here we are dealing with current substance that has created intoxication or there is significant risk of going into withdrawal if the substance is not used.

2. Physical health issues
   Here we are looking at how we can take better care of our bodies. We discuss how regular exercise and recreation can help us stay sober. We look at how eating properly makes us feel better (and a ton of clients discover in recovery they like cooking). There might be a discussion about properly addressing pain issues, or long overdue doctor’s appointments.

3. Mental health issues
   Here we look at behavioral, cognitive, and emotional issues. This is one area where a lot of time can be spent in substance abuse counseling. We will look at how your actions (choices made before, during and after drug or alcohol use) might not be consistent with your value system. We will look at your mental processes - how you look at things – and see if that is serving you well. We will spend time checking in on how well you are managing your emotions.

4. Readiness to change (motivation)
   Here we will be looking at how motivated you are to make changes in your relationship with alcohol or drugs. There will be some discussions here about staying committed to a new lifestyle that will prevent alcohol or drugs from doing any more damage to your life.

5. Relapse/continued use/continued problem potential
   Here there will be some honest discussions about the things that alcohol or drugs took away from you (and how they can still do it).

6. Recovery/living environment
   Here we will be discussing how your work environment, home environment, social environment may be helping or hindering your efforts to be sober. Changes may be suggested….and argued over (ha ha) because they aren’t easy, but many clients come back to me months and years later and say “those were some of the hardest changes to make, but they turned out to be the most important thing we did together”.