Long-term Addiction Recovery

After the work of early recovery, you may find that there is continued work to be done to ‘live life on life’s terms.’  Whether you have maintained connection to a 12-step program or utilized other options, the focus is now less on resisting urges and compulsions.  Instead, the focus has likely shifted to addressing the underlying components of addiction.  To illustrate, there is considerable evidence that the relationship between alcohol and trauma is stronger than the relationship between cigarette smoking and cancer.  If you take the view that alcohol and other substance use is a form of self-medication, individual psychotherapy can augment and continue the work you have already put in.

I work with people in long-term recovery who are ready to deepen their recovery.  Perhaps are feeling stuck in maintenance, tripped up by ego or self-centeredness, finding new character defects or the re-emergence of old ones, or you suspect that over-identification with being sick is inhibiting further growth.  Maybe you have touched on something through stepwork with a sponsor and both agree that work with a professional may help.

This work might be for you if:

• You have meaningful time in recovery, and the crisis-management phase is behind you

• You sense there is older, unresolved pain that the substance was managing, not causing

• You are perfectionistic or high-achieving and recovery has not fully touched that pattern

• You are facing a career or life transition and want to make decisions from clarity and values rather than fearfulness

• You want a therapist fluent in recovery culture who would not treat your program as a topic to work around or replace