Addiction & Recovery
Addiction can affect people in many different ways. You may be concerned about your relationship with alcohol, drugs, gambling or gaming, or perhaps you have already made changes and are trying to find your way through recovery.
You don't need to have reached a crisis point or identify yourself as having an addiction to come to therapy. Sometimes it begins with simply recognising that something no longer feels right, or that a behaviour you once relied on to cope is beginning to have an impact on your relationships, wellbeing or everyday life.
Therapy offers a confidential and non-judgemental space to understand what may be happening beneath the behaviour, while supporting you to make changes that feel meaningful and sustainable.
Understanding addiction beyond the behaviour
Addiction rarely exists in isolation. Often, the behaviour we see on the surface is connected to something deeper — difficult emotions, unresolved experiences, trauma, stress, loneliness, or ways of coping that may have developed during challenging times.
Alcohol, substances, gambling or gaming can sometimes become a way of finding relief, comfort, escape or connection when other ways of coping don't feel available.
Rather than focusing only on stopping the behaviour, therapy can offer an opportunity to gently explore what may be sitting underneath it. Understanding the role addiction has played in your life can help us begin to work with the underlying patterns, emotions and experiences that may be contributing to it.
This isn't about blame or searching for something that is “wrong.” It is about becoming curious about what the behaviour may have been doing for you, and gradually developing other ways of responding to what you need.
Rather than viewing addiction simply as a lack of willpower, therapy can help us become curious about the patterns underneath it — what triggers the behaviour, what need it may be meeting and what happens emotionally and physically before, during and afterwards.
How Addiction can affect your life
You may be experiencing:
Difficulty reducing or stopping a behaviour despite wanting to
Using alcohol, substances, gambling or gaming to manage difficult emotions
Feelings of shame, guilt or secrecy
Conflict or loss of trust within relationships
Anxiety, low mood or emotional overwhelm
Difficulty managing urges or triggers
Feeling disconnected from yourself or others
Returning to old behaviours during periods of stress
Uncertainty about what life might look like without the behaviour
Difficulty adjusting to life in recovery
You may also be doing well in many areas of your life while privately struggling with something that feels increasingly difficult to manage.
Therapy for Addiction and Recovery
My approach is relational, trauma-informed and grounded in contemporary Gestalt therapy, with attention to both emotional experience and what is happening within the body and nervous system.
Together, we can explore the patterns surrounding addiction without reducing you to the behaviour itself.
This may involve developing greater awareness of triggers and urges, exploring the emotions or experiences underneath the behaviour, understanding relationship and family patterns, working with shame and self-worth, strengthening boundaries, and finding new ways of responding when familiar coping strategies are no longer serving you.
For people already in recovery, therapy can also provide a space to explore the changes that can emerge once the addictive behaviour is no longer at the centre of everyday life — including relationships, identity, emotions, boundaries and rebuilding trust in yourself.
Recovery doesn't have to look one particular way
There is no single pathway into recovery.
You may be considering change for the first time, returning to therapy after a setback, maintaining long-term recovery, or participating in a recovery program or peer-support community alongside therapy.
We can begin with where you are now.
Therapy is not about judgement or telling you what your recovery should look like. It is about understanding your experience, increasing awareness and supporting you to make choices that align with the life and relationships you want to build.
Face-to-face sessions in North Strathfield and Telehealth Australia-wide.