Substance Use and Addiction Therapy
When something you do or use has stopped feeling like a choice.
The short version
If your relationship with alcohol, substances, or a behavior isn't working for you anymore, that's enough to start. This work is for anyone questioning their use at any level, whether you want a different relationship with alcohol, are noticing a shift toward more frequent drug use, or have habits like shopping, gaming, or social media that have started to feel out of control.
Substance use and compulsive behaviors usually develop for a reason. They often start as ways of managing something real: stress, anxiety, emotional pain, burnout, trauma, loneliness, or simply not wanting to feel whatever is underneath. Understanding what the behavior has been doing for you is the core of the work, because change that doesn't address that tends not to hold.
People reach out at different points. Some are quietly questioning. Some are noticing consequences. Some bring it up in the middle of working on something else entirely. We work with it wherever it shows up.
Common Patterns
Emotional Relief
The nervous system can start relying on substances or behaviors for regulation, escape, or numbing. What began as coping can become harder to interrupt, not because of weakness but because it's been working consistently enough that the pattern gets reinforced.
Stress Relief
Substances and compulsive behaviors work well in the short term. They're immediate, reliable, and effective at changing how you feel. Over time, what began as occasional relief can become the default response to stress, discomfort, or simply the end of a long day.
Loss of Control
People often notice the gap between intention and reality widening over time. Limits become harder to keep, use increases, sleep or motivation shifts, or the behavior starts affecting relationships, work, or self-respect in ways that are hard to ignore.
How I Work with Addiction
I use a harm reduction approach, meaning therapy does not require immediate abstinence. We start wherever you are, whether that's wanting to stop completely, cut back, understand your patterns, or make more intentional choices around substance use or compulsive behaviors.
Substances and compulsive behaviors are difficult to step back from because they work in the short term. A major part of therapy is understanding what the substance or behavior has been helping you manage and finding something else that can actually hold that role more sustainably.
For some people, this leads to a healthier relationship with substances or behaviors. For others, it leads to abstinence. What matters is that the choices become yours again.
I approach addiction and compulsive behaviors without shame or judgment. Together, we look at the emotional, relational, and nervous system patterns connected to use, including emotional regulation, anxiety, trauma, burnout, relationships, controlling or narcissistic relationship dynamics, and sometimes ADHD. My work integrates psychodynamic therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), motivational interviewing (MI), internal family systems (IFS), and accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy (AEDP).
What Therapy Can Help With
Emotional Patterns
Understand triggers, compulsive urges, emotional numbing, and the underlying patterns connected to substance use or compulsive behaviors.
Emotional Regulation
Build healthier ways to manage anxiety, overwhelm, stress, and relationship dynamics without relying entirely on substances or compulsive behaviors.
Sustainable Change
Develop a relationship with substances or behaviors that feels chosen rather than compulsive. That means building the internal capacity to sustain change over time, not through willpower alone.
If you need support right now, the SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) National Helpline provides free, confidential, 24/7 treatment referrals and information for individuals and families facing substance use disorders. Call or text 1-800-662-4357 or visit findtreatment.gov.