Top addiction therapists in 94547: Hercules, CA.

I am an addiction specialist. I have spent over a decade working with those suffering from addictions to sex, drugs, alcohol, food, & gambling/spending. I will help you to learn about the roots of your addiction, what underlying thoughts and feelings trigger your addiction and how to manage your life as a recovering person. You are not alone and I am here to help.

The hardest part of addiction is often the cycle: the relief, the regret, the promise to stop, and then the return — each loop chipping away at your confidence that anything can change. That cycle isn't a sign of weakness; it's a sign that the real need underneath hasn't yet been met another way. Our work goes after that underlying need. Together we'll explore what draws you back — the feelings you're managing, the emptiness or anxiety the substance fills, the parts of your story that haven't been spoken — so the behavior loses its hold from the inside out. Insight on its own isn't magic, but understanding why you reach for it, paired with real support, is what makes lasting change possible.

I work with a lot of people who are in recovery, who may or may not be in an addiction support program such as 12-step programs. All addictions are attempts to regulate the nervous system. Nervous systems get dysregulated as the after-effect of unresolved trauma. Being a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, I use the tools of SE to help clients learn to regulate their nervous systems so the constant unconscious drive to use in order to get relief from anxiety and depression dissipates.

If you are moving into recovery from drugs and alcohol I am here to support your path to strength and growth. From many years of experience with those in early or later recovery from addiction, I would like very much to offer you effective ways of staying present, yet getting underneath where your substance issues began and how to move back into a sober and healthier life. There are often specific career and relationship factors that need to be healed or started anew in a fresh way...often both! I am here to give you that guidance towards adjusting to substance free feelings safely. It can be a great benefit to have support in gently allowing awareness of avoided emotions again.

Are you finding yourself needing to fill a void with alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography, or even other people? Any of these things can be considerred addictions. When you get addicted to something, power is given away in the sense that you no longer feel complete or whole without the object of your addiction. Recovery means not only stopping the addictive behavior but learning new ways to restore wholeness. In therapy with me, you learn more fulfilling ways to feel whole and complete without the addictive behavior. I often work with people in long term recovery as well, to form a new, more meaningful life. I am well versed in traditional 12 step and alternative approaches.