Addictions and Codependency
Breaking the Cycle: Healing from Addiction and Family Dysfunction
Addiction and alcoholism don’t just affect the individual—they create ripples that impact entire family systems for generations. Whether you’re struggling with your own substance use, are in recovery, or grew up in a home affected by addiction, I offer specialized support to help you heal and create lasting change.
Click the headings below for more information on these topics.
As a Licensed Clinical Alcohol and Drug Counselor (LCADC), I provide compassionate, evidence based therapy for adults navigating recovery from substance use disorders. My approach recognizes addiction as a complex condition affected by biological, psychological, social, and often spiritual factors.
Recovery work in my practice includes:
- Processing trauma that underlies addictive patterns
- Developing healthy coping skills and emotional regulation
- Finding meaning and purpose beyond substance use
- Supporting long-term sobriety through sustainable life changes
I also encourage you to take advantage of other recovery resources including 12-step programs, SMART Recovery, medication-assisted treatment providers, and other supports that can help you on your personal recovery journey.
Growing up in a home affected by addiction and other family dysfunction creates unique challenges that often persist long into adulthood. As an adult child of an alcoholic or addict, you may find that you have:
- Difficulty trusting yourself and others
- People-pleasing and approval-seeking behaviors
- Hypervigilance and anxiety
- Trouble identifying your own needs and feelings
- Over-responsibility for others and under-responsibility for yourself
- The feeling that you’re different from others or don’t belong
These patterns made sense as survival strategies in your childhood environment, but they may be limiting your ability to thrive in the present. Our work together will help you recognize these patterns, understand their origins, and develop new ways of relating to yourself and others that better serve your adult life.
Codependency often develops in response to living with addiction or dysfunction, creating relationship patterns where your sense of worth becomes tied to caring for, rescuing, or controlling others. This can lead to:
- Exhausting yourself meeting others’ needs while neglecting your own
- Difficulty setting and maintaining healthy boundaries
- Feeling responsible for others’ emotions and behaviors
- Fear of abandonment and rejection
- Seeking external validation rather than self-validation
- Compromising your values to maintain relationships
Through our work together, you’ll learn to recognize codependent patterns, develop healthy boundaries, reconnect with your authentic self, and build relationships based on mutual respect rather than caretaking or control.
The integration of multiple evidence-based approaches creates a comprehensive healing experience for addiction and family dysfunction:
- Motivational Interviewing helps explore and resolve ambivalence about change, enhancing your internal motivation rather than imposing external pressure. Unlike outdated confrontational methods that can actually increase resistance and the likelihood of continued substance use, this respectful approach honors your autonomy and wisdom about your own life.
- EMDR and Brainspotting help process traumatic experiences and negative beliefs that often underlie both addiction and codependent patterns.
- Internal Family Systems therapy helps you understand and transform the protective parts of yourself that took on those roles in response to family dysfunction.
- Sandtray therapy provides a powerful way to externalize and work with family dynamics and relationship patterns that may be difficult to put into words.
While these specialized approaches form the foundation of my work, I also incorporate Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques when helpful and offer supportive counseling for those simply seeking a compassionate listening ear during difficult times.
This flexible, integrative approach allows us to tailor your therapy experience to your specific needs, preferences, and goals—recognizing that healing isn’t one-size-fits-all.