Addiction & Family Support in Hertford
When addiction affects someone you love
Addiction rarely affects one person alone.
When someone you care about is struggling with alcohol or drugs, family life can gradually become organised around the addiction.
You may find yourself worrying about them constantly, checking whether they have been drinking or using drugs, trying to prevent another crisis, lending money, covering for them, arguing, making threats or repeatedly believing promises that things will change.
Over time, it can become difficult to know what helping actually looks like.
You may love the person deeply while also feeling angry, frightened, exhausted or resentful. Trust may have broken down. Other family members may disagree about what should happen. You might even find that your own wellbeing has become secondary to trying to manage theirs.
I provide counselling and support in Hertford, Hertfordshire and online for individuals and families affected by alcohol and drug addiction.
Importantly, your loved one does not have to be ready for help before you seek support for yourself.
How addiction can affect families
Living alongside addiction can create patterns that gradually begin to feel normal.
Families can find themselves moving between crisis and relative calm. After a difficult period there may be apologies, promises and hope that things will be different, followed by another episode of drinking, drug use or relapse.
You might experience:
- anxiety and constantly anticipating the next problem
- difficulty trusting what your loved one tells you
- anger, resentment, guilt or shame
- repeatedly rescuing someone from the consequences of their behaviour
- disagreements within the family about how to respond
- financial worries
- difficulty setting or maintaining boundaries
- becoming increasingly isolated from friends and other family members
- feeling responsible for keeping someone safe or sober
- relationship difficulties and loss of intimacy
- uncertainty about when helping becomes enabling
- fear about someone’s physical or mental health
- feeling as though you have lost the person you once knew.
These experiences can have a significant effect on your own emotional wellbeing.
Counselling provides somewhere to consider what is happening to you, rather than every conversation continuing to revolve around the person who is drinking or using drugs.
Support for you as a family member
Sometimes the person experiencing addiction does not want treatment.
That does not mean nothing can change.
We can explore the impact the situation is having on you and begin looking at the things that remain within your control.
This might include understanding your emotional responses, recognising patterns that have developed within the relationship, establishing healthier boundaries and considering how you communicate with your loved one.
There can also be difficult questions to explore.
Am I helping or rescuing?
Should I give them money?
What do I do when they relapse?
Should I ask them to leave?
How do I set a boundary and actually maintain it?
How can I support recovery without becoming responsible for it?
There isn’t necessarily one correct answer to these questions. Your circumstances, relationships, safety and responsibilities all matter.
Counselling gives us space to think about them properly.
Working therapeutically with families
Where appropriate, I can also work with family members together.
Addiction can alter communication and relationships throughout a family. People can become stuck in particular roles: one person trying to rescue, another withdrawing, someone becoming angry and another attempting to keep the peace.
Family work provides an opportunity to begin talking differently.
Rather than identifying one person as “the problem”, we can explore how addiction has affected the wider family system and what needs to change.
This can include work around:
communication • trust • boundaries • conflict • responsibility • relapse • recovery • relationships • expectations
Depending on your circumstances, sessions could involve partners, parents, adult children, siblings or other significant people.
We can discuss what arrangement is therapeutically appropriate before beginning the work.
Supporting someone who is struggling with addiction
You may have reached this page because you are actually looking for help for somebody else.
Perhaps you are concerned about a partner, son, daughter, parent, sibling or friend.
They may recognise that they have a problem but have no idea what to do next.
Alternatively, you may be considerably more worried about their alcohol or drug use than they are.
My background means I can help you understand some of the different forms of addiction support available and think about what questions need to be considered.
That may include counselling and community addiction services through to more structured treatment such as residential rehabilitation.
Does my loved one need rehab or detox?
This is often one of the most difficult questions families face.
By the time residential treatment is being considered, a family may already have experienced repeated attempts to stop, periods of abstinence followed by relapse, deteriorating relationships or growing concerns about someone’s physical or psychological wellbeing.
Different members of the family may also have completely different views about what should happen.
Alongside my counselling work, I have extensive professional experience working within residential addiction rehabilitation and detoxification services.
I understand the treatment journey from initial conversations and assessment through admission, residential treatment, recovery planning and the challenges people can encounter after leaving treatment.
This means we can have an informed conversation about what is happening and what types of support may be worth exploring.
Understanding detox and rehabilitation
Detoxification and rehabilitation are related but different.
Detoxification concerns safely managing withdrawal from alcohol or drugs where this is clinically necessary.
Rehabilitation is the broader therapeutic process of understanding addiction, developing different ways of coping, addressing underlying difficulties and building a sustainable recovery.
Someone completing a detox does not necessarily mean that the psychological, emotional or behavioural aspects of their addiction have been addressed.
Equally, residential rehabilitation isn’t automatically necessary or appropriate for every person experiencing problems with alcohol or drugs.
Understanding the difference can help families make better-informed decisions.
An important note about detoxification
I do not provide medical detoxification assessments or prescribe medication through my counselling practice.
Physical dependence on substances including alcohol and benzodiazepines can make suddenly stopping potentially dangerous.
Where physical dependence or withdrawal is suspected, appropriate medical/addiction-service assessment should be sought rather than attempting an unsupported detox.
Where there is an immediate medical emergency or serious risk to someone’s safety, emergency services should be contacted.
Helping you understand treatment options
Families sometimes contact treatment providers at one of the most stressful points in their lives.
It can be difficult to know what questions to ask or even understand the terminology being used.
My role would not be to pressure you towards a particular treatment provider.
Instead, I can help you think through the situation and understand areas such as:
What type of support might be appropriate?
What is the difference between detox and rehab?
What should we ask a treatment provider?
What happens during residential treatment?
What happens after rehab?
What role should the family have during treatment?
What happens if our loved one refuses help?
Sometimes having a knowledgeable person outside the immediate family can make an overwhelming situation easier to think about.
My experience in addiction treatment
Addiction has been a significant part of my professional career.
I have worked within addiction and residential treatment services for around 15 years, alongside my work as a counsellor.
My experience includes working within residential rehabilitation and detoxification services, supporting people entering treatment, working alongside families, understanding relapse and recovery and helping people consider what needs to happen after structured treatment ends.
This has given me experience of addiction from two connected perspectives.
I understand the therapeutic work involved in exploring the experiences, relationships, emotions and behaviours that can sit underneath addiction.
But I also understand the practical realities families encounter when someone’s difficulties have reached the point where more structured treatment may need to be considered.
You can read more about my counselling experience, qualifications and therapeutic approach on my About ACS page.
Addiction, trauma and relationships
Addiction does not develop in isolation.
For some people, alcohol or drugs become a way of managing difficult emotions, relationships or experiences that feel overwhelming.
There may also be experiences of trauma, loss, neglect, abuse or other significant events within someone’s history.
This does not mean that everyone experiencing addiction has experienced trauma, nor does understanding someone’s past remove responsibility for their behaviour.
However, understanding what alcohol or drugs have been doing for somebody psychologically can be an important part of recovery.
I also provide specialist trauma counselling, including work informed by my Level 5 and Level 6 training in complex trauma and PTSD.
Read more about Trauma Counselling in Hertford →
What if my loved one doesn’t want help?
This can be one of the most painful positions for a family.
You can see what is happening.
They may not.
Trying harder and harder to persuade somebody to change can gradually consume family life.
Counselling cannot force somebody else into recovery.
What we can work on is your response to the situation: your boundaries, communication, wellbeing, choices and understanding of what you can and cannot control.
Sometimes change within the wider family system also changes the environment surrounding the addiction.
Whatever your loved one chooses to do, you are entitled to support too.
Family support during and after rehab
Entering treatment doesn’t immediately repair the impact addiction has had on a family.
In fact, recovery can create its own adjustment.
A person may return from treatment with new expectations, boundaries and ways of thinking. Their family may simultaneously be carrying years of hurt, mistrust or fear.
Everyone can desperately want things to improve while having very different ideas about what “normal” should now look like.
Therapeutic family work can provide somewhere to explore those changes.
We can consider communication, rebuilding trust, appropriate boundaries, expectations around recovery and how family members can support somebody without taking ownership of their recovery.
A confidential conversation about what is happening
You do not need to have everything worked out before contacting me.
You might know that you need counselling.
You might be worried about someone else’s drinking or drug use.
You might be considering rehab for a loved one and have no idea where to begin.
Or you may simply know that your family cannot continue as it is.
We can start there.
Free 15-minute introductory call
I offer a free 15-minute confidential introductory telephone call.
It gives you an opportunity to briefly explain what is happening and allows us to consider whether counselling, family support or another form of specialist help might be appropriate.
There is no obligation to book a session afterwards.
Addiction and family support is available face-to-face in Hertford, Hertfordshire, and online throughout the UK.
Ready to talk?
Get in touch to arrange your free 15-minute introductory call.