We provide compassionate weekly support as well as individual coaching to help families and friends navigate the challenges of our loved one's addictive behaviours and recover ourselves.
Whether you are a partner, parent, sibling, or friend — loving someone who struggles with addictive behaviours (substances and processes) is profoundly isolating. The focus is always on them. Here, the focus is on you.
No sterile waiting rooms. No judgment. Just a welcoming, grounded community who understands the unique load you are carrying.
We support you as you navigate your loved one's addictive behaviours, whether these are substances (drugs and alcohol) or processes (gambling, gaming, pornography, shopping, etc.)
Our goal isn't to teach you how to "fix" them, but to help you rediscover your own joy, peace, and boundaries amidst the chaos, and improve your relationship with your loved ones.
We often first seek out support when we are in crisis — depleted, scared, and looking for immediate solutions. While there are no quick fixes or guarantees that our loved ones will choose a path to recovery and all that that entails for them, there are ways to recover ourselves and support our loved ones. And doing so increases the chances for better outcomes for them and for us.
Many of us live with regrets about the past. Here, we start from where we are now, and practice compassion for ourselves and for our loved ones. Unlearning unhelpful behaviours, calming our inner turmoil, and improving our relationships with our loved ones by incorporating new perspectives and behaviours takes time. With practice, we integrate skills to better communicate with our loved ones, focus on what we can change, and reclaim the parts of ourselves that we've neglected in the process of the challenges we face.
Together, we learn and integrate ideas, skills, and practices to recover ourselves and bring about positive change in our lives and in our relationships with our loved ones. Recovery is a family affair, and we begin by letting go of what has not served us or our loved ones: fear, anxiety, shame, blame, anger, resentment, and stigma. Change is possible — and it begins with recovering ourselves. As with any change, it has ripple effects.
The weekly support groups, individual coaching and workshops are informed by the Invitation to Change (ITC) approach developed by the Center for Motivation and Change, which integrates CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training), MI (Motivational Interviewing) and ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy). Along with the ITC approach, we also incorporate DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) skills into our practice.
We offer weekly support groups, individual and family coaching, and workshops.
A free weekly peer support group for family and friends of loved ones who struggle with addictive behaviours. We meet Wednesdays via Zoom at 6:00 PM (EST).
One-on-one and family coaching guided by the ITC approach and DBT skills, built around goals we create together. Begins with a free 30–60 minute consultation.
Learn MoreInteractive workshops that build practical skills for supporting your loved one while caring for yourself. Upcoming dates will be announced through our updates list — sign up to be the first to know.
One-on-one and family coaching for people who love someone who struggles with addictive behaviours — guided by the Invitation to Change approach and DBT skills, and built around goals we create together.
This is your space, and the focus is your recovery. Together we co-create goals around communication and connection with your loved one, boundaries, skills development, and self-care — building on your strengths, your wellness, and gentle accountability along the way.
Family sessions help us understand where each family member stands in relation to your loved one, and work toward getting everyone on the same page. Your loved one who struggles may occasionally join a family session — not as a coaching client, but to help us understand the family dynamics and to guide them toward resources that fit their specific needs. The coaching itself is always for you, the family.
I come to this work through lived experience: I have family members who struggle with addictive behaviours, and I've been on those sidelines myself. This work — recovering ourselves, whether or not our loved ones are ready to change — is personal to me.
I also come to it as an educator: more than two decades of university teaching, and a lifetime of helping people learn new ways of seeing and doing. Skills-based coaching is, at its heart, that same work — learning new ways to communicate, to hold boundaries, and to care for yourself.
We come together in a safe, confidential, and non-judgmental space. Here we meet others with shared experience and support one another to recover ourselves.
Through practical tools for understanding, communication, boundaries, and self-care, we focus on connection, hope, sustainable change, and shared resources — whether or not our loved ones are ready to change.
Words we return to, borrowed from others further down the path.
“
You think you're walking through the darkness. Not realizing you are a light, for those walking beside you.
Stacie Martin · MW Facets
Books, podcasts, and other meetings we recommend along the way.
Jeffrey Foote, Carrie Wilkens & Nicole Kosanke, with Stephanie Higgs
The book behind the Invitation to Change approach, written by the founders of the Center for Motivation and Change.
Robert J. Meyers & Brenda L. Wolfe
The foundational guide to CRAFT, written for families and friends.
Jeffrey Foote, Kenneth Carpenter & Carrie Wilkens
A hands-on companion workbook of evidence-based skills for helping a loved one make positive change.
CMC:Foundation for Change
A compact workbook that walks through the nine core topics of the ITC approach with simple practice exercises — the same text we draw on in our groups. Chapters can also be downloaded free from the ITC website.
The Center for Motivation and Change
CRAFT and MI-based skills for partners and spouses of someone using substances, broken into short, doable 20-minutes-a-day pieces. Readable free online.
The Center for Motivation and Change
The parents' edition of the same guide — practical tools for helping a child who is using substances while staying connected and caring for yourself. Readable free online.
Marsha M. Linehan, 2nd ed., Guilford Press, 2015
The definitive manual for teaching DBT skills — mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance.
You don't have to figure everything out today. Just take the very next step. We're here whenever you're ready.