Substance Use & Addiction Therapy
A compassionate, depth-oriented approach to understanding your relationship with substances and creating meaningful, sustainable change.
You may be wondering whether your relationship with alcohol or other substances has become a problem. Maybe you've tried to cut back, made promises to yourself, or found yourself returning to the same patterns despite the consequences. You may be concerned about how your use affects your relationships, your health, or the life you're trying to build. Or you may simply sense that something isn't right anymore.
People often misunderstand substance use, reducing it to a question of willpower or control while overlooking the experiences that shape it. Trauma, loss, and relational wounding can influence the role substances come to play in our lives. At the same time, stigma surrounding substance use makes it difficult to speak honestly about what's happening or seek support without shame.
You don't have to arrive knowing exactly what you want to change. Therapy offers a space to look honestly at your relationship with substances, understand what it has come to mean, and explore what might need to change. This kind of work takes time. It involves more than changing a behavior; it means attending to the whole person, including the experiences, relationships, and needs that have shaped the patterns you're trying to understand.
Substance Use Is More Than a Behavior
Our relationship with substances can become intertwined with trauma, grief, anxiety, loneliness, relationships, identity, pleasure, belonging, and the ways we've learned to care for ourselves when other resources haven't felt available.
You may want to stop or cut back. You may be wondering whether moderation is possible. Or you may not be sure you want to change your relationship with a substance at all. We can make room for that ambivalence and become curious about what the substance helps you move toward, what it helps you move away from, and what you may need now.
Sometimes the question isn't simply, How do I stop? It may be, What is happening here? What am I actually needing? And what would it mean to have more choices?
Understanding the history and function of a coping strategy doesn't remove its consequences, but it does help us build a fuller picture of what's happening so change comes from understanding rather than shame.
A Nonlinear Path Toward Change
There is rarely a single path to change. My role is to help you understand what's happening, clarify what you want, and develop greater capacity to make choices aligned with your life and values.
My approach is relational and collaborative, and includes motivational interviewing, a harm reduction approach, and insight-focused work. We can take the consequences of substance use seriously without reducing a whole person to a behavior. The goal is to understand the larger pattern so lasting change has somewhere to take root.
Central to my practice is the belief that people deserve both accountability and compassion. As we understand what a pattern has been doing for you, we can explore other ways to meet those needs and create more room for choice, self-trust, and freedom.
Change becomes more sustainable when it addresses the deeper needs and circumstances that have kept that behavior in place.
My Experience in Substance Use Treatment
Much of my understanding of substance use comes from eight years at HAART (Humanistic Alternatives to Addiction Research and Treatment), an outpatient treatment program in Alameda County. There, I provided psychotherapy to people navigating substance use alongside complex trauma, grief, mental health concerns, and relationship difficulties. I also served as a clinical supervisor and trainer, supporting therapists and substance use counselors in working with complex clinical presentations.
This experience deepened my understanding of substance use as more than an isolated behavior or a problem of willpower. A person's relationship with substances develops in the context of their life, relationships, and experiences, often serving purposes that are not immediately apparent. I approach this work with curiosity and compassion, looking beyond the impulse or behavior to understand the person, their history, and what the substance has come to mean in their life. Sustained change takes time and requires attention to the whole person. As we understand and address underlying needs, the impulse to use can become less automatic, creating more room for choice.