Addictions and Change: A Different Way Forward

A practical workshop for or mental health care professionals, individuals, and families dealing with addictions.

Addictions and Change: A Different Way Forward

A practical workshop for mental health care professionals, individuals, and families dealing with addictions.

Drawing on the presenter’s 45 years of experience helping people overcome addictions, this workshop offers hope and a fresh perspective on what actually helps people change — and what, despite good intentions, often makes things harder.

Rather than focusing on willpower, pressure, or blame, the workshop explores a more compassionate and practical way of understanding addictions, and how change often becomes easier when the right internal conditions are in place.

People struggling with addictions are often under intense pressure to “try harder” or “just stop.”

Families and loved ones, wanting to help, can feel frustrated or unsure how to respond without creating more resistance.

This workshop offers a clear, humane framework for understanding addiction — not as a failure of character or willpower, but as something that once served a purpose and can change when approached differently.

IN THIS WORKSHOP YOU WILL LEARN:

• Why pressure, guilt, and criticism often strengthen addictions rather than weaken them
• How habits and addictions usually begin as ways of coping or regulating emotion
• Why the language we use with ourselves — and with others — matters
• What most strongly predicts successful change, and why withdrawal is often less than expected
• Practical ways individuals can support change without force
• How families and loved ones can communicate in ways that reduce resistance
• Simple tools for replacing harmful habits with healthier ways of meeting real needs

The workshop concludes with a gentle guided experiential process that helps participants experience a calmer, more settled internal state.