Substance Abuse

There is a principle in physics, that you cannot adequately solve a problem until you can adequately define the problem. For many of my clients who are curious about their substance abuse, they are getting confusing if not completely incompatible feedback about their substance use. 

 

They may have parents that are terribly afraid for their lives while roommates who use even more than they do! They may be concerned about the consequences of their use, but not sure if they are addicted. They may feel as though their substance of choice has real benefits that they are afraid to surrender, while also being able to recognize its drawbacks. 

 

Often my clients are resistant to the messages they get about their substance use, and while they have real concerns and questions of their own, they also have a sense that they cannot safely ask tough questions and solicit the feedback they themselves want, without someone attempting to control them or even project their own relationship with substances on to them. “They may hear people say ‘when I was your age’ or “what I had to was…” or “you’re an addict and you’re going to die if…" 

 

The reality is, even within the community of people who abstain from substances entirely, there is incredible room for diversity and difference of opinion. I am myself sober/abstinent from using substances, and I’m confident that you can be too if you like. I’m also confident, that if that's what you need you probably don’t need me to tell you that. You'll find out on your own, over and over, like most addicts do!

 

For so many other young people, their challenge with substances is peer related, anxiety related, or lifestyle related. Alcohol, Tobacco, Pharmaceuticals, and now Cannabis are all big business, and they all have a special interest making young people feel crazy for not feeling perfect. The reality is, sober or not, my clients who are struggling with substances are usually struggling with something else much more painful, and when the substances aren’t there, they can start to find some solutions. And when they can find those solutions, their relationship/dependency on substances changes for the better.  

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Many of my clients who are in recovery are not struggling with wanting to stay sober, but often they think they are. So often, they are looking at a menu and ordering Adventure and getting served a dish of serenity. Just because they are sober, does not mean they aren’t also still young, and experimenting their relationships, identity, peers, taste in music, sexuality, and all the other stuff that young people experiment with. And while maintaining abstinence may be an important choice, its a pretty unsatisfactory lifestyle.

 

So often, young people in recovery become isolated, and they don’t recover for long. I work with my clients to build a life that's fulfilling not inspire of their recovery, but because of it. I want my clients to have something to get out of bed for, something that excites them, a community that they love, people they trust, and the ability to take intelligent risks so that they can maintain their abstinence while still getting to become who they are. If asked you “what did you do today” and you said “I didn’t drink” that may be pretty important, it may also be pretty lonely. I would rather hear my clients tell me about the places they went, and the people they went their with, and how it felt to do what they did there” and I want my clients to feel confident enough in their sobriety that they have energy and attention to invest in the rest of their life as well.