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LoveWithBoundaries

Family Addiction Counselling:
3 Sure-Fire Tips to Find the Right Therapist for You and Your Family

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We all know how rampant addiction has become – we see it all around us and hear about it in our news nearly every day. Mostly, our society focuses on mind-altering addiction, consisting of drugs and alcohol. There are also many other kinds of mood-altering or process addictions, which are more behavioural in nature such as gambling, smoking, overspending, eating disorders, and sex addiction of various types.

Millions of families all over the world are grappling with some sort of addiction these days – and most of them have no idea how to find or access any help.

And even though there is plenty of help available to people who are addicted, there is still very little assistance or counselling for their loved ones. When there is addiction in a family, everyone is affected and everyone needs to heal – otherwise, the addiction just continues to hold everybody emotionally hostage.

So – how is a family supposed to find the skilled, experienced, and compassionate help they so desperately need? This article is intended to be a guide for you, if you are being run ragged by your loved one’s addiction. [Read more…]

How to Help the Addict You Love to Become Healthy: The Family’s Role in Addiction Recovery

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Addiction is so rampant now in our society. We all know that more and more people are dying from the ravages of this horrific situation, especially due to drugs like fentanyl that take the lives of drug users in a split second. We simply don’t have the luxury of treading lightly around addiction anymore. We each need to do all we can to shift this and get the results that all families of addicts are looking for.

It IS possible.

STOP ENABLING AND MAKE THE SHIFT

So how do we make that shift? Many of you are probably wondering how that can happen. I’d like to tell you what I think – and about what is working wonders for my clients.

In terms of recovery from family addiction, it is critical for loved ones of addicts to understand the concept of enabling – because until the enabling stops, there is little hope that the addiction will stop.

There is a huge difference between enabling and helping, and the faster we all learn about that, the faster we can halt addiction in its tracks. And yes, it is that simple – even though it isn’t always easy to change one’s ways. The ‘simple’ way is not always the ‘easy’ way. Most families who are involved with addiction know a lot about enabling, even if they have never heard that term – because they have unwittingly been doing just that with the addicts they love – and many have been doing it consistently for a long time, as they witnessed the addiction continuing. [Read more…]

Virtual Counselling in Addiction Recovery:
It Works!

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As we are all aware, the Holiday Season is coming fast upon us and, for many people, this time of year has shifted from a season of peace and joy to a period of misery and confusion. This year, unfortunately, addiction will be an unwanted guest for more families than you might imagine.

If you feel like you need someone to talk to who can guide you and your family through these often treacherous waters—but you’re also aware that accessing in-person counselling could be difficult for you—help is on the way!

Is Virtual Counselling the Best Option for You?

When most people think about getting counselling, they imagine going to see the therapist in person and having appointments in an office environment. However, there are many reasons why these kinds of in-person therapy sessions don’t work for everyone. For example, some people need to travel for work and are therefore often not home or available to meet in person. Others may live in small communities where seeking counselling might be problematic, either for privacy issues or because there may be no qualified therapists in the area. As well, some people may have health issues that keep them from being able to attend sessions in person, while others may live a long distance away from the professional they would ideally like to work with.

If you’ve been thinking about reaching out for help but have been putting it off because attending sessions in person would be challenging for you, you might want to consider telephone or Skype counselling as an alternative.

As an Addictions Therapist in private practice, I have been providing clients all over the world with telephone and Skype counselling for a number of years. These clients receive the same benefits as those I see in person. In fact, many people prefer the advantages of virtual support for a variety of reasons. [Read more…]

Life Begins at the End of Your Comfort Zone: Recovery from Addictive Behaviors

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This post was originally published in June of 2013.

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone—so true.

I love this saying, and wish I could take credit for thinking it up. In my humble opinion, whoever came up with it is a genius—and when I saw it on a fridge magnet many years ago, I bought several of them to give as gifts to people I recognized as being entrenched in their comfort zones. (Sometimes it really does take one to know one.) Having given most of them away, I am now down to just the one that lives in its special place on the side of my fridge, where I can see it every day.

A client of mine, upon seeing my fridge magnet, took this sentiment to heart in a big way and when it was finally time to celebrate a truly terrific and hard-won milestone in her life, she decided to reward herself with a big cake inscribed with those words. After some hard inner work, she was able to embrace a vitally important understanding: in order to become emotionally free, she needed to make the conscious choice to move past what was comfortable for her and actually start living.

I’m so happy for her—and for all of us who eventually arrive at this place within ourselves. [Read more…]