All Things Substance

Amy grew up with the ups and downs of living with someone who struggles with alcoholism. There are very good times and bad times. She began struggling with her own relationship with alcohol in high school. Over 15 years the struggle would continue until she hit a point that she knew she needed to change something about how she related to alcohol.

We all want to have a good holiday season. A time filled with happiness and peace with our loved ones (friends and family alike). As therapists we know that not everyone has a happy holiday. Today we'll talk about the stresses that pop up during the holidays and how we can help our clients navigate through them to have the best outcomes they can.

Charting the Course is the program you need in order to feel competent and confident in addressing your clients' use of alcohol and drugs. You don't need to go back to school or refer out. Come join the fall cohort of Charting the Course. Listen to this episode to hear more about it!

A short message today about the free webinar tomorrow! We will be talking about the 5 Steps to confidently ask about your client's use of drugs or alcohol. You can register at betsybyler.com/steps

You don't need to be in recovery to do substance use work. The truth is that you are enough, as you are. You do not need to have the exact personal experiences as your clients to do good work and this includes substance use.

Substance use is under the umbrella of mental health therapy, where it belongs. The field just has to choose to acknowledge its place there and begin equipping us to navigate it with our clients. In today's episode we'll talk about the possible reasons why substance use was seen as separate for so much of our field's history.

Stop referring out when substance use comes up. You have the skills you need to help your clients with their substance use issues. You may just need a little more information and perhaps some guidance. But the type of substance use that comes up in outpatient therapy is something that can likely be handled in-house. Today I'll break this down and tell you how and why.

There's a myth out there about who can work with substance use. The truth is you don't need to get certified or specialize to do substance use work! In today's episode I'm going to break down this myth and explain the truth on whether or not substance use is part of our scope.

How can you tell if client substance use is recreational or is becoming problematic? It can be hard to tell where someone's use lies on this spectrum. Today I'll tell you some of the things I believe are indicators of problematic use.

It's National Recovery Month in the United States and today I'm going to be sharing my own recovery story. I have told parts of my story but wanted all of you to get to hear the full story of how I found recovery, my journey of becoming a therapist and eventually bringing this podcast to you.