Walk YOUR Path
I offer a variety of coaching services to help you move past the obstacles in your life. I will help you identify your personal values, strengths, and abilities in support of your personal and professional goals. Contact me to see how I can help you develop different perspectives and achieve the outcomes you’re striving toward.
Recovery Coaching
For Individuals & Their Families
First and foremost, I am a Certified Recovery Coach through the New York Certification Board (NYCB). I keep a very limited client roster which allows me to truly hold my client’s recovery close to my own heart. Most of my clients communicate with me daily, sometimes hourly, through text and email, and we meet in person weekly either face-to-face or remotely. They have access to this service 24 hours a day, usually immediately. In this sense my service can be considered somewhat similar to a 12-step sponsor, however, because of my own education, (I hold a degree in health science with a concentration in substance abuse counseling) training, and understanding of substance use disorders, I don’t hold a specific allegiance to one type of recovery. The truth is that while 12-step programs can be so useful and helpful, many people would never find their recovery without them, they simply aren’t for everyone. Many of my clients never go to meetings; some of them find their own path to recovery through religious or community organizations, some of them find renewed passion for their families and careers. The only way to do recovery absolutely right is to find the path that honors your own life. That means that if you aren’t fully ready to embrace total abstinence from all substances then that will be explored, honored, and respected. My strongest recovery belief is that you alone are the best person to truly be the author of your destiny. My job is to help you achieve it!
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I also frequently find myself coaching families of people with substance use disorders. Very often family members find themselves desperate and confused. They’ve been so continuously exposed to deceit and dishonesty, “gaslighting”, that it can be difficult to even discern what, if anything, is real or true anymore. Family members very often find themselves in a similar position as the people that they love who are struggling with substance use; they find themselves compromising their own behaviors and values in order to maintain some sense of sanity in their homes and in their lives. Those closest to them seem to have lots of demanding advice, however, they lack the understanding of the very depths of these situations. In coaching family members, I often find myself offering a multitude of services; I am part instructor, helping to teach some of the science behind the disease of addiction; I am part coach, cheering them on when they establish, set, and maintain difficult boundaries that they have not been able to do before. I am part translator, relying on some of my own personal experiences with family members and friends from my past who had tried and ultimately failed to get through to me in so many ways. And more often than not I am simply an objective listener, because sometimes the very last thing any of us wants or needs is more damn advice. Sometimes we just need to be heard and seen.
Certified Interventionist
I am also a Certified Interventionist through the Addictions Academy. I offer staged in-person interventions and also offer remote family guidance for those who have loved ones that are struggling with substance use disorders. I have found that very frequently family members simply don’t understand the behaviors of the people they love and so they will contact me for clarity, education, and guidance. Many people don’t understand the differences between the various levels of treatment such as Detox, Outpatient Treatment, Inpatient Treatment and Halfway Houses. They contact me looking for direction and assistance in navigating these various systems. As an interventionist, I try to take a gentle and loving approach to confronting people with substance use disorders. Addiction is a disease and must be treated as such. We would never belittle or berate our loved ones who struggle with cancer or diabetes. The hard part about substance use disorders is that they feel so personal. Sometimes it’s truly hard not to be angry. I believe that the anger is absolutely justified, and given direction and purpose, can even be useful; but the end result has to always be the common goal. And so, the most important aspect of any intervention is to maintain a position of deep love, compassion, and hope.
Speaking Engagements
I also offer Motivational Speaking, though truthfully this probably isn’t exactly the right term for it. My own journey to recovery was dark and torturous. I truly know what it means to hope that when you go to bed at night somehow destiny will intervene, and you won’t have to wake up ever again in the morning. My sobriety cost so many people so much untold hurt, impossible suffering; this is something I hold in my heart every moment of every day. I am sure I always will. But still, today, I wake up to a life that I love, that is filled with passion, and care, supported by communities of people that I love and who love me back. Even the smaller nuances are things that I simply thought would never be a part of my life’s journey. I wake up in a home that I love, that is filled with warmth and laughter, to a person that I am excited to talk to every moment of every day. It’s been a journey to get here, and honestly, I didn’t do this alone. Not at all. I had so many people who picked me up when I could not stand, who helped me walk when I couldn’t do it on my own, and who cheered me on when I could.
The core of my message is not a cautionary tale. I’ve learned only too well that we can’t scare away addiction. So, when I speak I try to convey not that using drugs or alcohol is neither immoral or wrong, instead, I focus on what the greatest discovery of my continued abstinence has been. It’s the core philosophy of A Better High, LLC itself. It is this: If I am truly living an engaged life, a life that I love and am passionate about, a life that includes community, and laughter, meaning and passion, then I don’t even want to get high anymore. I’m seeking something higher, a bigger connection, A Better High!
