Honoring the Loss of the Substances

By the time clients come to see me, their substance use has often been damaging their lives for some time. As they begin taking steps to achieve sobriety, I always honor that losing the substances can be a real loss. There’s something that they were getting from the substances, especially at first. It may have…

Man worried about the cost of his substance abuse

Getting to the “Why?”

When working with clients on their substance use, there’s one tool I always use. Though it seems simple, it can be powerful and lead to insights. It’s a Cost/Benefit Analysis.   Cost/Benefit Analysis: Clients are surprised when I tell them to put a big “X” in quadrants 2 and 3. I don’t care about these…